Google’s Matt Cutts Explains That Older Sites Won’t Always Keep Their Current Rankings

Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, posted a video yesterday answering why some old sites may not have their rankings in Google last forever. Matt Cutts explained that there are many old sites that are in the range of about 15 years old and while that is a good thing, some of these sites […]

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Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, posted a video yesterday answering why some old sites may not have their rankings in Google last forever.

Matt Cutts explained that there are many old sites that are in the range of about 15 years old and while that is a good thing, some of these sites have their original design templates and have not done much to their sites to improve things over the years. They have never redesigned the site, never updated the user interfaces, never added new features for their users, etc. If you want to stay competitive, Matt said you need to take a “fresh” look at your site and keep upgrading, tweaking, improving the site and the user experience.

Otherwise, new sites that have a better user experience, may surpass you, as they should. In short, having an old domain doesn’t mean you will always keep the rankings you have today, tomorrow.

Here is the video:


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a technologist and a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics.

In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land, in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the "US Search Personality Of The Year," you can learn more over here and in 2023 he was listed as a top 50 most influential PPCer by Marketing O'Clock.

Barry can be followed on X here and you can learn more about Barry Schwartz over here or on his personal site.

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