Does anybody have a rough estimation on how long the domain age filtering affects new sites in google.ie? I have a new site and we've actively been building links for our keywords. This keyword is highly competitive but I've seen massive jumps for us in the serps both good and bad. We jumped from page 21 to page 10, then back to page 21, then to page 19 and now we jumped to page 25. When I check the allinanchor, we're in the top 20 competitors for this term. The only thing I can put it down to is the domain age filter. The site has only been around for 2 months. We havent used any blackhat techniques other than agressive link building but not enough to be penalised by google for link spamming. Also does the authority of the site effect the length of time the domain age filter is applied?

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Animation Library | Mortgages | Remortgages

The whole thing seems very much a movable feast, Jill Whalens' crowd believe it affects all new sites in competitive niches, but IIRC Matt Cutts said something about it being just one of those "unintended consequences", a popular theory being it was triggered by premature and "overly enthusiastic" linking.

Not sure what you describe mirrors the usual "Sandbox effect" though....

I thought it might be the sandbox but the site has PR, and ranks for a lot of competitive terms except these highly competitve ones.

So what's the difference between how you've promoted your "competitive" and "highly competitive" terms?

Thats the thing, no difference. It's frustrating when you can see it though, as I've been watching it climb, then getting knocked back down, climbing again and then getting knocked back. It is definitely a filtering effect!

I'd say just keep building links as usual.

I've seen massive swings in the SERPs in the last 2 weeks. There could be updates happening and it's just settling a bit.

I haven't tried this, but one way that's supposed to work is to create a subdomain on an existing domain, get that indexed, then 301 it to the new site, telling google that your site has moved to this new domain.

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djembe ireland l internet marketing Dublin | web design l pay m50 toll online

No offence James, but this doesn't look like an indexing problem...

Curious. My understanding is that this 'filter' works at a query level. So you see a greater impact on more competitive queries. And that's also why new sites can rank for obscure longtail-type queries.

IMO the one way to speed up release from this 'filter' is likely related to strong links from trusted authority sites. Easier said than done of course...

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Search Engine Optimisation - Red Cardinal Internet Marketing
Internet Consultant Ireland | Search Engine Optimisation Services
Catering Company Dublin - My sister's handmade canape company!

You're right it does manifest itself on a query level, I just never bought-in to the domain-age theory, being more of a "premature promotion" type. It seemed to coincide with a trend to turbo-charge new sites by having the promotion in place ab initio rather than the more natural graduated approach.

I think the dampening factor is a function of link velocity AND the relative quality/authority of those links - it's cool to have tonnes of new links as long as they are of high quality and relevance (editorial and/or from within our neighbourhood).

Large fluctuations in ranking on the site in question could well be down to large variances in the quality element of the dampening function. Without seeing the links it would be hard to know TBH.

Rgds
Richard