If I Close Some Credit Card Accounts Will it Hurt my Credit Score?

Many people with high credit scores lots of times find that one of the few marks against them is that they have too many open accounts. So what's one to do to make their credit score even higher? Maybe close some accounts? I could see how this makes sense since they said you have to many open accounts but one must realize that the damage (if you want to call it that) has already been done when you opened all of those accounts. But you can actually hurt your credit score if you close some accounts. Why? Closing credit card accounts can make your credit history look younger than what it is. Your credit score factors in the age of your oldest credit card and the average age of all your credit cards so closing them can lower your credit score, especially your older ones. Also, closing accounts reduces the total available credit to you, making your debt utilization ratio soar. Remember that the FICO formula measures the gap between the credit you use and your total credit limit. The wider the gap, the better. If you all of a sudden lower the gap by closing a few accounts, the gap narrows and that's a bad thing. In reality, closing revolving credit accounts can never help your score, and it might just hurt a little bit.