What is domain age?

Domain Age plays an important role in email deliverability. Read on to learn how to check the age of your domain and how it affects your sending.

What is domain age?

The term "domain age" shows how old your domain is. In other words, how long your domain has existed.

Does the age of a domain matter for email deliverability?

Domain age is one of the first factors checked by anti-spam filters. The general rule is the older the domain, the more trustworthy it gets, provided it has been used with care and following good practices of email deliverability. Keep in mind that your domain reputation equals your sender reputation. Fresh domains start off as neutral ones and have to be prepared for cold email outreach –  warmed up – for at least 3 months.

How do I check how old a domain is? 

STEP 1: Open a domain age checker, for example, who.is and paste in your domain name. 

Alternatively, you can use Cisco Talos or any other domain age checker. In the example below, we used our domain getwoodpecker.com.

STEP 2: Look for information like:

• Registered On.
• Creation Date.
• Dates.

Examples:

Who.is

Cisco Talos

DomainTools

Step 3: Check the results

Our domain getwoodpecker.com was registered 2014-12-31, which means that it's around 1,862 days old. 

Is your domain older than 3 months?

• Yes, I've been sending and collecting replies. – You're good to go then. There's one last thing before you click the "SEND" button, though. Make sure you learn about 14 Deliverability Checks to Carry Out Before Sending Your Cold Email Outreach. 

• Yes, it's been mine for ages, but I haven't been using it. – Start with the email address and domain warm-up before you send your first campaign. 

• No, I've just bought it. – Give it some more time and warm up your domain. 

FAQ & Troubleshooting

Q: I've just bought a new domain. Can I start sending emails? 

TLDR: Warm up your domain to avoid spam issues and ensure you reach your prospects' Inboxes. 

Before you start your campaign, you should prepare your domain. Why? Each domain has a reputation. The reputation, good, neutral, or bad, can only be earned over time. Each new domain starts as neutral, but from starters, it is considered suspicious by its host. 

If you start sending mass emails automatically from an address on a new domain, you actually show that you may be a dangerous user (a spammer). If your email provider gets a signal like that, you might get blocked right away. So the key is to give yourself some time to work on your domain's good reputation. We call this process "warm-up". Domain warm-up is essential for email deliverability.

Q: I've noticed a sudden drop in my open and reply rates recently. What should I do now?

TLDR: Check & improve the reputation of your domain. 

Lower open and reply rates that correlate with a higher bounce rate can suggest spam issues. When this happens, we suggest pausing your campaigns. Check your campaigns for spammy content, images or heavily HTML-coded messages. Next, start the recovery process to regain your domain good reputation.

Q: In Woodpecker, the following message appears: "You have reached your provider's sending limit". How can I solve this?