Another common belief is that the older the tradeline’s age, the more significant the impact on the credit score. This is primarily because FICO score models strongly consider the average age of accounts when determining a credit score.

The tradeline’s impact on the credit was analyzed based upon the tradeline’s age to assess this belief.

Because many factors influence the change in credit score, it can be tricky to isolate one feature. Only clients who ordered one tradeline were included in this portion of the study to account for this. This limited the need to account for the limits of multiple tradelines. 512 participants were included in this analysis.

The average change in score (tradeline age).

The average change in credit score was analyzed based on the tradeline age added to examine the impact of tradeline age on credit score. There were five age ranges specified in this study:

• 0-2 years,
• 3-5 years,
• 6-10 years,
• 11-15 years,
• and 16-21 years.

It was found that the age range that resulted in the highest credit score increase was the 6-10 age range. This age range saw an average increase of 108 points. In general, the data resembled a bell curve around this age range.

The tradeline’s average age with the minimum contribution to the credit was the 0–2-year-old tradelines. This is to be expected since these tradelines would not significantly increase the average age of accounts on the credit report.

Interestingly, the age group that made the second smallest contribution was the group of the oldest tradelines that were 16+ years old. This disagrees with the notion that higher age tradelines always have the most significant impact on the credit score. These results disagree with the hypothesis that the higher age tradelines would have the most significant impact on the credit score.

Finding indications.

The study indicates that higher age tradelines do not always have a more significant effect on the credit score than a younger tradeline. This finding is important because it implies that more factors than just the tradeline’s age should be considered when determining which tradeline should be added to a credit report.

Once again, it is essential to note that the tradeline’s age is not the only factor that impacts the score, so the change to the credit score is not solely due to the age of the tradeline that is added. While it is an essential factor, it cannot be thoroughly analyzed independently of the tradeline limit that is added.