Im Choosing Between Two Premium Domain Names - need some input.

I'm currently choosing between two premium domain names for my Ecommerce site. All the websites in competition against have aged domains of at least 5 years old, some even 10+. So I'm better off paying a small sum to speed things up...

However, I'm stuck with which one to buy (im probably been pedantic here, but any advice would be appreciated)...

The differences are:

Domain 1:
Matches the phrase I'm targeting
Is about 15 years old!
Has been on sale since it was registered 15 years ago
Has 0 referring domains

Domain 2:
Matches the phrase I'm targeting (not quite as good as the first domain though)
Is about 8 years old
Was used in the niche for 4 years - is this a factor I should be concerned about? Will this work in my favour if Google is already familiar with the website?
Has about 11 referring domains now, in 2014 it had over 125. The remaining links it has look rather average

Which would you go for?

from these two I would choose the 2nd one. though, I don't pay much attention to the domain age (neither does google). I'd aim at proper name, referring domains (quality over quantity), and domain history (niche relevance, penalties)

Being a domainer myself and who runs few sites, I can tell you go with the first domain. The first one matches your keyword. I have seen many established businesses paying hefty fees to get exact match/close to keyword domain. Besides, the domain is aged one and it should help you rank well and fast on Google. The advantage the second domain has over the first one is very minor considering you yourself said the links are average. If you own both the domains you can use the second one to redirect to first one. The choice is yours.

gregz06 said:

from these two I would choose the 2nd one. though, I don't pay much attention to the domain age (neither does google). I'd aim at proper name, referring domains (quality over quantity), and domain history (niche relevance, penalties)

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Lamelo Ball said:

Being a domainer myself and who runs few sites, I can tell you go with the first domain. The first one matches your keyword. I have seen many established businesses paying hefty fees to get exact match/close to keyword domain. Besides, the domain is aged one and it should help you rank well and fast on Google. The advantage the second domain has over the first one is very minor considering you yourself said the links are average. If you own both the domains you can use the second one to redirect to first one. The choice is yours.

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Many thanks for the responses!

The links to the second domain date back to 2012 - they are just directories.

The second one pretty much matches too, it's not far off.

@Lamelo Ball do you think that domain 2 will benefit from having a history in the niche already?

Br4mz said:

Many thanks for the responses!

The links to the second domain date back to 2012 - they are just directories.

The second one pretty much matches too, it's not far off.

@Lamelo Ball do you think that domain 2 will benefit from having a history in the niche already?

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It's difficult to comment without knowing how the second domain was performing. As regards to SEO, I can say the domain one has better overall advantage over the second one even though the latter has some history. I hope you will be able to make a decision once your thread gets more replies.

You should go with the first one, as it is quite old and will be having a good trust in the eyes of google, whereas the second one is 8 years old and had 125 links which decreased to 11 referring domains, is not good.

Lamelo Ball said:

It's difficult to comment without knowing how the second domain was performing. As regards to SEO, I can say the domain one has better overall advantage over the second one even though the latter has some history. I hope you will be able to make a decision once your thread gets more replies.

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Evelynsherman said:

You should go with the first one, as it is quite old and will be having a good trust in the eyes of google, whereas the second one is 8 years old and had 125 links which decreased to 11 referring domains, is not good.

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Domain one it is. Thank you so much peeps.

Go with the older one