What does domain age tell an advertiser, and how much should it count?
Part of MFA avoidance
The short answer
Domain age is the time since a domain name was first registered, read from its registration record. For advertisers it is a supporting clue only: a young domain fits an MFA operator launching new sites, but also a new newsroom or a rebrand. Weigh it beside page layout, traffic sources, content and sellers, never on its own.
Key takeaways
- Domain age measures the registration record, not how long a publisher has produced content or who runs the site today.
- RDAP, the protocol that replaced WHOIS for generic domains, returns dated events such as registration, last changed, transfer and expiration.
- Old domains are not proof of safety and young domains are not proof of risk, so age adds weight only when other findings point the same way.
- Treating youth as a reason to exclude penalizes new local and independent publishers that a fair plan should be able to reach.
What does domain age tell a buyer?
Definition
- Domain age
- The elapsed time between the registration event in a domain name's registration record and the day a reviewer looks it up. It describes the name, not the business currently using it.
Registration records are structured as dated events. The IETF's RFC 9083 (opens in a new tab), which defines the JSON responses of the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP), says each event carries an eventAction, a required string denoting the reason for the event, and an eventDate, a required string containing the time and date the event occurred. Domain age is calculated from one of them, the registration event, which the RFC defines as the moment the object instance was initially registered.
That makes domain age a narrow fact. It says a name has existed in the registry since a given date. It does not say when articles started appearing, whether the same organization has held the name throughout, or whether anyone reads the site. For a media buyer those other questions decide whether a site belongs on a plan, so age answers less than it seems to.
| RDAP eventAction | RFC 9083 meaning | What it tells a buyer |
|---|---|---|
| registration | The object instance was initially registered | The starting point for domain age; nothing about content |
| reregistration | Registered subsequently to initial registration | The name may have lapsed and been taken again, so earlier history may belong to someone else |
| last changed | The information in the object instance was last changed | Something in the record moved; open the site to see whether anything else did |
| transfer | Transferred from one registrar to another | A registrar change, which is not the same as a change of owner |
| expiration | Removed or will be removed at a predetermined date and time | How long the current registration runs, not a quality signal |
How do you check a domain's age?
For generic top level domains such as .com, .net and .org, ICANN's RDAP page (opens in a new tab) explains that RDAP enables users to access current registration data and was created as the replacement for the WHOIS protocol. Registries and registrars are no longer required to provide WHOIS services as of 28 January 2025, except for .com, .name and .post, ICANN says. Its free lookup tool, which ICANN's July 2019 announcement (opens in a new tab) says uses RDAP as the primary protocol, sits at lookup.icann.org. Country code domains such as .ca and .us are run by their own registries, which publish their own lookup services.
A five minute domain age check
- Look up the registered domain, not the full address. Strip the subdomain and path, then query the registration record for the name itself.
- Find the registration event. Note its date, then scan for reregistration, transfer and last changed events, each with its date.
- Record where and when you looked. Save the lookup source and the date of the check beside the result, since records can be updated or disagree.
- Compare the name's age with the content's age. The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine shows dated captures of a page, and the oldest capture of the current design or articles hints at when the present site began.
- Write the result as context. Enter the age in the site's review notes as one line, beside the findings that decide the call.
The archive has gaps that matter here. The Wayback Machine help page (opens in a new tab) says not every date for every site archived is 100% complete, that some sites may not be included because the automated crawlers were unaware of their existence, and that sites may be excluded because of a robots.txt file or at a site owner's direct request. A missing capture is therefore an unknown, never proof that a site did not exist.
Why should domain age never decide alone?
The industry definition of made-for-advertising inventory does not use age at all. The trade groups' September 2023 definition (opens in a new tab), published by the ANA with the 4A's, WFA and ISBA, names a high ad-to-content ratio, rapidly refreshing placements, a high share of paid traffic, generic content and templated designs. A domain can show none of those traits at three months old, or all of them at fifteen years old.
Age also fails as a safety signal in other fields. Security researchers Moura and colleagues, studying phishing in the .nl, .ie and .be registries for ACM CCS 2024 (opens in a new tab), wrote that although most research works focus on detecting new domain names, 80% of phishing attacks in the studied ccTLDs employ compromised domain names. Their data is European and concerns phishing, not advertising, but the lesson carries over: an established name can be taken over and put to new use.
| Reason | What happens | What to check instead |
|---|---|---|
| Age describes the name, not the operator | A long registered name can be sold or taken over while keeping its history | Current articles, bylines and the sellers in ads.txt |
| Young age fits honest launches | New newsrooms, spin offs and rebrands start on new domains | Original reporting, named staff and a stated owner |
| Records can be inconsistent | Two lookups can return different creation dates | The lookup source and date, and a second source |
| MFA traits are behaviors | Ad load, refresh and bought traffic show on the page, not in the registry | A review of sampled articles on phone and desktop |
Are new domains riskier?
A new domain carries less history to review, and an MFA operator that launches sites in batches will hold young domains. That is the honest case for noticing age. It is not a case for treating youth as guilt, because the same profile fits publishers a plan should want to reach.
Local news is a clear example. Medill's State of Local News 2026 (opens in a new tab) report, released October 13, 2026, tracked the creation of 75 digital-only and print local news startups in the last year. A rule that drops domains under two years old puts those startups at risk of removal before anyone reads an article, while leaving an aged domain bought by an arbitrage operator untouched.
How should domain age be weighed with other signals?
Give age a small, fixed role in the review. It can raise the priority of a manual look when other evidence already leans toward made-for-advertising traits, and it can explain a thin history in a site's notes. It should never move a site from keep to exclude by itself. The thresholds that do decide belong in the written policy described on the MFA avoidance hub.
| Other findings | Young domain | Old domain |
|---|---|---|
| Clean pages, original reporting, direct sellers | Keep; note the age as context | Keep |
| One weak sign, such as a heavy ad load on one article | Review by a person; age is a reason to sample more articles | Review by a person |
| Several MFA traits on sampled articles | Exclude on the traits; age supports the record | Exclude on the traits; check whether the name changed hands |
| Site could not be checked | Set aside for a manual look, never excluded on age | Set aside for a manual look |
What does a domain age review look like on a real brief?
Fictional example
A phone repair chain's display plan in Tennessee and Kentucky
A fictional smartphone repair and refurbished phone chain with stores in Nashville, Knoxville, Louisville and Lexington asks its agency for English display beside tech news, phone how to guides and local news. An earlier internal rule at the agency excluded any domain registered less than 18 months before the plan date.
Under that rule, three candidates would drop out. One is a Louisville local news startup whose registration event is eleven months old; its articles carry named reporters and original city hall coverage. Another is a tech tips site registered seven months ago whose articles repeat across sister domains, with four refreshing slots per page. The third is a phone review blog whose lookup returned two different creation dates from two sources.
The planner drops the age rule and reviews all three on their pages. The startup stays, with its age noted as context. The tech tips site is excluded for its refreshing slots and recycled articles, and its youth is recorded as supporting detail. The review blog goes to a manual look while the date conflict is checked. The agency rewrites its policy so that age can raise review priority but cannot exclude a site.
How does PlacementGraph use domain age?
Frequently asked questions
Is there an industry age threshold for new domains?
The trade group definition does not set one. The ANA, 4A's, WFA and ISBA defined made-for-advertising sites by traits seen on the site, such as ad load, refresh and paid traffic, with no registration age cutoff. Any threshold a team uses is its own policy choice and should be written down with its reason.
Does a transfer event mean the site has a new owner?
Not necessarily. RFC 9083 defines a transfer as the object instance moving from one registrar to another. A registrant can switch registrars without selling the name, and a name can be sold without a registrar change. Check the site's content, sellers and ads.txt OWNERDOMAIN line for signs of a new operator.
Do sites on subdomains or blog platforms have a domain age?
Only through the parent name. Registration records cover the registered domain, so a site at a subdomain of a blogging or newsletter platform shows the platform's registration date, which says nothing about the writer. Use the archive history and the publication's own article dates for those sites.
Why did two lookups show different creation dates?
Registration data can disagree between sources. The PAM study by Fernandez and colleagues found inconsistent data on fields including creation date for 7.6% of the domains it observed. Note both dates with their sources, prefer the authoritative registry or registrar record, and avoid using either date to make a decision on its own.
Sources
- RFC 9083: JSON Responses for the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP) (opens in a new tab)IETF, RFC Editor, June 2021
- Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP) (opens in a new tab)ICANN
- Updated Lookup Tool for Domain Name Registration Data Now Available (opens in a new tab)ICANN, July 29, 2019
- WHOIS Right? An Analysis of WHOIS and RDAP Consistency (opens in a new tab)Fernandez, Hureau, Duda and Korczynski, arXiv, June 4, 2024 (PAM)
- Characterizing and Mitigating Phishing Attacks at ccTLD Scale (opens in a new tab)Moura et al., ACM CCS 2024, October 14 to 18, 2024
- Using the Wayback Machine (opens in a new tab)Internet Archive Help Center
- Leading Trade Groups Define “Made For Advertising” Websites (opens in a new tab)ANA, with the 4A's, WFA and ISBA, September 26, 2023
- Local news deserts skyrocket as newspaper closures escalate even as startups emerge, Medill study shows (opens in a new tab)Northwestern University Medill, October 13, 2026
Researched and written by PlacementGraph Research. Read how we research, source and update these pages. Corrections: diana@placementgraph.com.