• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Technical SEO
        4. Does google use the wayback machine to determine the age of a site?

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        Does google use the wayback machine to determine the age of a site?

        Technical SEO
        3
        4
        1624
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • FastLearner
          FastLearner last edited by

          I have a site that I had removed from the wayback machine because I didn't want old versions to show. However I noticed that in many seo tools the site now always shows a domain age of zero instead of 6 years ago when I registered it.

          My question is what do the actual search engines use to determine age when they factor it into the ranking algorithm? By having it removed from the wayback machine, does that make the search engines think the site is brand new?

          Thanks

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • FastLearner
            FastLearner last edited by

            hopefully that is correct.  I would hate to get knocked down just because I took myself out of the wayback machine.  I have had the domain registered in my name since 2006 so I should be ok then.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • PeterAlexLeigh
              PeterAlexLeigh last edited by

              Google uses WHOIS to determine the age of the domain under a current ownership, however if the WHOIS data changes and at the same time the content of the site changes dramatically, Google may reset the domain age of the site in their opinion.

              I'm not sure but I would imagine Google have their own records on domain age outside of WHOIS registration.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • flowsimple
                flowsimple last edited by

                Using Wayback would be strange.It's just a quick WHOIS lookup to determine age.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Browse Questions

                Explore more categories

                • Moz Tools

                  Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                • SEO Tactics

                  Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                • Community

                  Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                • Digital Marketing

                  Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                • Research & Trends

                  Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                • Support

                  Connect on product support and feature requests.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • DebashishB

                  How to track my actual traffic source using Google Analytics which are now showing as referral traffic?

                  Hi Mozzers, I went through many Q&As in the community this morning. I found a solution where I could just remove the referral site in analytics>admin>property>tracking info>referral exclusion list. So I removed paypal.com which was the main referral traffic. I thought the problem is solved. Later today I got another order, now the referral traffic is from eway.com, now what? Yes I know I will add this to the exclusion list but there will be many more referral sites. My main concern is I am not able to track the actual traffic source. How do I do that? 1. Do I need to use google url tracking for all my pages?
                  2. Do I need to add tracking code in each page of the site?
                  3. Is there a way to track the actual source of this traffic, now that the transaction is already made but reflects as referral traffic in Google Analytics? jZjTN

                  Technical SEO | | DebashishB
                  0
                • Deacyde

                  Canonical homepage link uses trailing slash while default homepage uses no trailing slash, will this be an issue?

                  Hello, 1st off, let me explain my client in this case uses BigCommerce, and I don't have access to the backend like most other situations. So I have to rely on BG to handle certain issues. I'm curious if there is much of a difference using domain.com/ as the canonical url while BG currently is redirecting our domain to domain.com. I've been using domain.com/ consistently for the last 6 months, and since we switches stores on Friday, this issue has popped up and has me a bit worried that we'll loose somehow via link juice or overall indexing since this could confuse crawlers. Now some say that the domain url is fine using / or not, as per - https://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/community/q/trailing-slash-and-rel-canonical But I also wanted to see what you all felt about this. What says you?

                  Technical SEO | | Deacyde
                  0
                • BestRide

                  How to create site map for large site (ecommerce type) that has 1000's if not 100,000 of pages.

                  I know this is kind of a newbie question but I am having an amazing amount of trouble creating a sitemap for our site Bestride.com.  We just did a complete redesign (look and feel, functionality, the works) and now I am trying to create a site map.  Most of the generators I have used "break" after reaching some number of pages.  I am at a loss as to how to create the sitemap.  Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

                  Technical SEO | | BestRide
                  0
                • GregDixson

                  Google Showing Multiple Listings For Same Site?

                  I've been optimizing a small static HTML site and have been working to increase the keyword rankings, yet have always ranked #1 for the company name. But, I've now noticed the company name is taking more than just the first position - the site is now appearing in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd position (each position referencing a different page of the site). Great.. who doesn't want to dominate a page of Google! ..But it looks kind of untidy and not usually how links from the same site are displayed. Is this normal? I'm used to seeing results from the same site grouped under the primary result, but not like this. any info appreciated 🙂

                  Technical SEO | | GregDixson
                  0
                • lemonz

                  How does Google Crawl Multi-Regional Sites?

                  I've been reading up on this on Webmaster Tools but just wanted to see if anyone could explain it a bit better. I have a website which is going live soon which is going to be set up to redirect to a localised URL based on the IP address i.e. NZ IP ranges will go to .co.nz, Aus IP addresses would go to .com.au and then USA or other non-specified IP addresses will go to the .com address. There is a single CMS installation for the website. Does this impact the way in which Google is able to search the site? Will all domains be crawled or just one? Any help would be great - thanks!

                  Technical SEO | | lemonz
                  0
                • tdsnet

                  UK website ranking higher in Google.com than Google.co.uk

                  Hi, I have a UK website which was formerly ranked 1<sup>st</sup> in Google.co.uk and .com for my keyword phrase and has recently slipped to 6<sup>th</sup> in .co.uk but is higher in position 4 in Google.com. I have conducted a little research and can’t say for certain but I wonder if it is possible that too many of my backlinks are US based and therefore Google thinks my website is also US based. Checked Google WmT and we the geo-targeted to the UK. Our server is also UK based. Does anyone have an opinion on this? Thanks

                  Technical SEO | | tdsnet
                  0
                • Red_Mud_Rookie

                  How to use overlays without getting a Google penalty

                  One of my clients is an email subscriber-led business offering deals that are time sensitive and which expire after a limited, but varied, time period. Each deal is published on its own URL and in order to drive subscriptions to the email, an overlay was implemented that would appear over the individual deal page so that the user was forced to subscribe if they wished to view the details of the deal. Needless to say, this led to the threat of a Google penalty which _appears (fingers crossed) _to have been narrowly avoided as a result of a quick response on our part to remove the offending overlay. What I would like to ask you is whether you have any safe and approved methods for capturing email subscribers without revealing the premium content to users before they subscribe? We are considering the following approaches: First Click Free for Web Search - This is an opt in service by Google which is widely used for this sort of approach and which stipulates that you have to let the user see the first item they click on from the listings, but can put up the subscriber only overlay afterwards. No Index, No follow - if we simply no index, no follow the individual deal pages where the overlay is situated, will this remove the "cloaking offense" and therefore the risk of a penalty? Partial View - If we show one or two paragraphs of text from the deal page with the rest being covered up by the subscribe now lock up, will this still be cloaking? I will write up my first SEOMoz post on this once we have decided on the way forward and monitored the effects, but in the meantime, I welcome any input from you guys.

                  Technical SEO | | Red_Mud_Rookie
                  0
                • zealmedia

                  Using a third party server to host site elements

                  Hi guys - I have a client who are recently experiencing a great deal of more traffic to their site. As a result, their web development agency have given them a server upgrade to cope with the new demand. One thing they have also done is put all website scripts, CSS files, images, downloadable content (such as PDFs) - onto a 3rd party server (Amazon S3). Apparently this was done so that my clients server just handles the page requests now - and all other elements are then grabbed from the Amazon s3 server. So basically, this means any HTML content and web pages are still hosted through my clients domain - but all other content is accessible through an Amazon s3 server URL. I'm wondering what SEO implications this will have for my clients domain? While all pages and HTML content is still accessible thorugh their domain name, each page is of course now making many server calls to the Amazon s3 server through external URLs (s3.amazonaws.com). I imagine this will mean any elements sitting on the Amazon S3 server can no longer contribute value to the clients SEO profile - because that actual content is not physically part of their domain anymore. However what I am more concerned about is whether all of these external server calls are going to have a negative effect on the web pages value overall. Should I be advising my client to ensure all site elements are hosted on their own server, and therefore all elements are accessible through their domain? Hope this makes sense (I'm not the best at explaining things!)

                  Technical SEO | | zealmedia
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                • Digital Marketers
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.