At some point, the idea that you ‘age’ a domain got entered into the brains of many people. When considering age, they consider solely ‘registering a domain’ and ’slapping some content, no matter how lame’ on it.
I am thoroughly sick of this concept, and have been speaking against it for months. I expect my life would be easier if I would sigh and give up, as the truth of the matter is so much more complex that the people I deal with would rather not entertain the concept.
Here’s the thing: At age 16, you can test for a driver’s license. You can pass the test. But you can’t necessarily get your parents to loan you the car. It’s not age; it’s trust.
The same is true with a web site. Having a domain with content on it? Super. A great start, in fact. But it doesn’t guarantee indexing. It doesn’t guarantee that future upgrades and content additions will rocket your traffic to the high atmosphere. It just means you have a domain with some content on it. It’s what you do with it that matters. Do you get links? Do you publish? Do you participate in topical communities, which is the very heart of what we like to call social media marketing? Or do you just wait?
Waiting is a useless game. It won’t do much for you. It won’t do what the people I know think they mean by ‘age the domain’ — establish trust and authority. The only thing that does that is participation and heavy lifting, over time.
Thus, the reason why these ‘genius SEO strategies’ will never work is because they are basing their expectation of creating web site empires on multiple ‘aged’ web site domains on ‘build it, and they will come.’ Nope. Build it, invite people, blow up balloons, make some party-type beverages and nachos, and THEN maybe people will come. Traffic takes work. But no one wants to hear that truth; they want fast, easily comprehended solutions to difficult problems.
And when they don’t get them…. we have the summary of why I will not give up my little crusade. When they don’t get them, I invariably end up having to deal with the fallout.