Join the waitlist
DNBlackBook Join the waitlist

GlossaryResearch and due diligence

Domain age

Domain age is the time since a domain name was first registered, shown as the creation date in WHOIS or RDAP records; it resets if the name is deleted and later registered again.

Published by DNBlackBook · Last updated

Join the waitlist

Free to join the waitlist, no payment

Also called registration age

Domain age, explained

Age is easy to read and easy to misread. An old creation date shows the name has not been deleted since that date, but not who held it: a name can change owners many times while its creation date stays the same. Sellers market aged domains for search value, but the practical view is that a name's history and the links pointing to it matter, not the date itself. Check the Wayback Machine and the backlink profile before paying extra for age.

In a trademark dispute, age helps only on the right facts. WIPO panels generally find no bad faith when a name was registered before the complainant's trademark rights existed, but they look at the date the current owner acquired the name, not the original creation date. Buying an old name after a brand became known does not inherit the earlier date, so keep records of when and how you acquired each name.

Example. A buyer pays more for a name created in the 1990s only after confirming its history is clean and its backlinks come from real sites.

Go deeper Expired Domains and Drop Catching: How the Domain Lifecycle Works

Sources

  1. WIPO — Overview 3.1 of WIPO panel views on selected UDRP questions

Education, not financial, legal or tax advice. Domain investing is speculative and most domain names never sell. Read the disclaimer.

WaitlistFree · No payment

The list hears first.

When the original 2016 course goes free on YouTube, and when DNBlackBook 2.0 — Domaining in the Era of AI — opens in June 2027.

No newsletter. No list rentals. Unsubscribe in one click.