Verified Confidence: medium
Primary source found; it says the same thing, the scope matches, and it is reasonably current.
Safe rephrasing
Ahrefs' updated study found the average #1 Google result is about 5 years old, and 72.9% of top-10 pages are over 3 years old.
What the source says
72.9% of pages in Google’s top 10 are more than 3 years old (up from 59% in 2017). The average #1 ranking page is 5 years old (up from 2 years old in 2017).
Ahrefs — How Long Does It Take to Rank in Google? (updated study)
- Commonly cited as
- "Top-ranking pages are years old"
- True origin
- Ahrefs — How Long Does It Take to Rank in Google? (updated study)
- Type
- Stat check: A widely repeated statistic traced back to its origin.
- Year
- 2024
- Data as of
- 2023–2024 Ahrefs data
- Last checked
- Method & sample
- Ahrefs analysis of page ages for top-10 results in its keyword database.
- Drift between quote and source
- Age is estimated from first-seen date in Ahrefs' crawler
- Interest
- Ahrefs sells SEO software.