Domain awareness refers to understanding a website's domain history and how it impacts the domain's authority and success. Search engines develop historical profiles of domains to assess how much they can trust them. If a domain suddenly changes in a way that doesn't match its history, like gaining poor quality links, search engines may downgrade it or put it in a "sandbox" until the changes can be evaluated. Being aware of factors like a domain's age, backlinks, and past content allows marketers to develop strategies that avoid signals which could trigger penalties.