We’ve all seen it - a company trying to be a bit older than it is. A young company that needs to act a little older in order to beat the competition or join the market with authority.
Domain age maturity is a sign of trustworthiness and strength. Sometimes we want to work with older companies, at other times we embrace start-up power and want to buy in to the new guys who are moving fast and disrupting markets.
Every domain is registered with ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). When a domain is listed, it’s dated on that day. That doesn’t change, even if the domain is sold years later. The original domain registration date is set in stone.
Domain age data is a valuable resource for the 5,000 data brokers that trade in business data all over the world. Domain age data is used to cross check and augment records on commercial databases. For example, adding domain age to company records helps pinpoint businesses that have been trading for a particular length of time.
It’s not only data brokers who use domain age data.
Search engines use domain age as an indicator of authority. The more established a domain, the more likely it is to be credible and have authority and relevant content. There’s a relationship between the strength of a website ranking and the age of the domain.
Finding the age of a domain is useful for checking out suppliers and partners. It’s also a valuable tool if you are looking to find a domain that maximises the potential search engine optimisation (SEO) value of a domain.
A powerful use for domain age data is to find domains that are due to expire. ‘Domain sniping’ is the term used for keeping an eye out for expiring domains and registering them the second they become available. It’s a way to pick up that golden URL you’ve always wanted. Domain registrar companies use this tactic to build up stocks of desirable domains to sell on. It’s the same business model as trading personal car plates or easy to recall phone numbers. We all like to get that perfect address.
Like so many things in the online world. Domain age is a simple system made complicated by people.
Companies trading as domain registrars register domains with ICANN. You don’t register your own domain, you use a registrar as a middleman. And there are thousands of domain registrars.
To check a domain’s age you need to use a domain age checking tool. If you just need to check one domain at a time, it’s easy. Find an online tool, (ours is a go-to solution) type the domain URL in and wait for the results. Assuming you are using a reputable tool you’ll get data returned to you all about that domain.
As well as finding the domain’s age you can also see who registered it and where it was registered, along with other information about company contacts. If you’ve not checked a domain age before you may be surprised to see the amount of domain associated data that is publicly available.
If you need to check multiple domains it can be more tricky. Domain registrars don’t all store domain data in the same order. (This is where humans have messed up what should have stayed a very simple system!) There are API services that check domain ages and call data from multiple registrars. If you have a need to check multiple domains frequently you’ll need to use an API that presents the data from multiple registrars into a common order, otherwise you will find it impossible to deal with the responses.
Overall, finding a domain age is simple, important and valuable. One at a time checking is straightforward. High volume checks require a well built API, such as Email Hippo's MORE.
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