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Increasing your website's organic ranking. Does age matter?

The quick answer is yes, absolutely.

There are many factors that go into increasing a website's organic ranking on the major search engine - but I thought I would start with the first question I prospective clients:

How old is your website?

Generally if a website has been around for at least 6 months to a year, it is not very difficult to get it to fly up the organic (or natural) rakings in a couple months through SEO techniques. However, if a site is less than 6 months old, or even brand new, you are really looking at waiting about a year for any first page results from Google in highly competitive search areas/markets. Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com are a bit easier to climb - but let's face it, 1st page of Google is where everyone ultimately has their focus.

Posted by Michael Thomas, Real Estate Website Optimization on 05/22/2007 10:38 PM

Comments (15)

seo, organic search results, search engine optimization, sem, website rankings

15 Comments on Increasing your website's organic ranking. Does age matter?

MAY

2007

Michael...you just answered a question I was wondering!

I have a website I've had for a year that I was thinking of giving up cause I'm not crazy about it! But...It's up there in Google. I have a new one I really like that's no where...Guess I'll keep both!

Does the age of the webmaster matter?lol

Hi Joan and thank you for your comments. In fact, I was encouraged to go take a look at your website:

http://yourrealtor.biz/

and am not sure if this is the site that is "up there in Google" or not. You seem to have a good website there - but you may want to consider re-writing your Meta information, especially your title tag. Anyone who says this doesn't matter does not know what they are talking about.

Currently you focus on <title> Merrimack County New Hampshire Homes for Sale </title>

I should ask you do you think people search by county? Maybe you want your title to be more specific, mentioning some specific communities and the words "real estate" - but keep it under 90 characters.

How do you get the internal pages to rank? Is it age or content that will help more. Could it be placement on the home page. Small subjects on websites makes some good blogs.

Eric,

To answer your question...Content is king - but if you have a new domain name vs one that has been out there for some time caching and being indexed by the search engines, the older domain will climb the rankings much faster.

I also took a look at your website, and please know that I am going through the same thing with 2 of my clients that also use Advanced Access - but advanced access has been dropped by Yahoo for reasons I prefer not to get into on a blog discussion, and their sites have been dropping from google like flies.

I would recommend having this conversation with your webmaster in more detail.

Hi Michael,

Thanks so much for the info. I'd like to hear more about your comments on advanced access! Tell us (from you perspective) what's going on with them.

Michael, I am the Webmaster. I think local origional content is the way to go. I will get a blog and will see how it does. No one uses the term sandbox aymore do they?

Eric - bloggin definitely helps - look what John Keith has done in one of my local markets:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=boston+real+estate

He is coming in the 6th place on the organic search results out of about 31,600,000 on my last search query - fortunately however, I am proud to show that one of my clients is coming in #4 http://www.prubostonrealty.com

Sorry - had to give the plug for my client Prudential Prime Properties :o)

But it goes to show that bloggin can rank well organically, and also act as a good driver for increased traffic and ranking to your other website(s)

Lynda - sorry to see your site is still down...there are so many things that are not right going on with Advanced Access - where do I start...

Their servers crashed yesterday (two days ago here now since I am on EST)
They lost their back-up power supply
No email during all this time
No notifications to their clients (I have to think how many thousands, or perhaps millions of $$'s in pay=per-click alone were wasted for those managing the searche engine marketing for their clients that did not catch it - and all those agents that still try to manage it themselves)
The reporting feature has not worked correctly in months (to track visitors)
Their authoring tool is not compatible with internet explorer version 7
They have been dropped from Yahoo for the organic search results
Very few sites have survived on Google, and this downtime cannot help
Their sties are built in a frame-set - not so good for SEO

Want to talk? I have two clients that use AA, and we are strategizing currently on our next solution after the busy summer season.

MAY

2007

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the response. I checked a mine was up a few hours ago. I was aware of 1-6 on your list. 7-9 are foreign to me. This is the first I heard about this.

I would like to look into using your services Michael. Contact me when you get some extra time. Thanks!

Just to follow up on Michael's remarks about Advanced Access. Yahoo not only dropped AA sites for mass cross/reciprocal linking but those sites remain dropped forever(?). I dropped AA over two years ago and even though I'm consistently in the Google's top 5 for most of my area's search terms, I do not exist as far as Yahoo is concerned.

Be interesting to see how Microsoft blends their old MSN search engine with Yahoo's (if the deal happens). Hopefully it will exhume some of the old AA sites.

Good post. Thanks

Carolin Benjamin
Bob and Carolin Benjamin
The Benjamin Team
Keller Williams Integrity First Realty
Gold Canyon Arizona

Thanks for the suggestion Michael. I will make the change. That was my new site (one month).My other is a year old.

i'm a total novice on this stuff but am having a blast...I just keep on doing it over till I get it right!

MAY

2007

True that

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