Buying high PR expired domains? See this to avoid Fake PRs!

[satrap]

Ok, so I have been reading about buying expired domain names with PRs for the last few days, since I wanted to buy a few and use them with a few blog networks that you can submit high pr sites of your own in order to submit articles for free.
And for some reason the topic of buying high PR expired domain names is being talked about a lot on the forum lately and I red a few thread where a few warriors fell for expired domains with fake high page rank.

So, I started to do some research to find out how to protect myself from buying one of those faked PR expired domains. And I found a few tings that may help those who are beginner in this filed and do not how exactly to spot fake prs. Here is the easiest way I found to find fake prs.

This is how fake PRing (for lack of a better term) works.

Website 1 has no PR or low PR
Website2 has a high PR

I want to fake PR for website1 in order to fool you into buying it from me. I simply steal PR from website2. How?... I do either a 301 / 302 redirect directly or I use cloaking in order to get the PR from website2 to show up with my site (website1) when you check for PR.


How to spot fake PR?
From my brief search I found a few tools, but the easiest and I would think most reliable way for most beginners is the following:

In Google type: info:domainname.com (replace domianname.com with the domain suspected of having fake PR).

You get something like the following image (I tested an actual site(nmfilmmuseum.org)that is being sold on goddady auction and the site claims it has PR6, and indeed when you check with any PR checker, it shows up as a PR6 site.)





In my example you see that nmfilmmuseum.org is faking its PR. Its basically stealing PR by using a redirect from a legitmiate PR6 website newmexicoculture.org.

Real PR6 belongs to newmexicoculture.org and nmfilmmuseum.org is not a PR6 site.


Also, another thing I red is that many times when you buy an expired domain name, the pr disappears after a few weeks and some people had suggested thats because if the old content are off the site now, Google will not count all the backlinks they had pointing to them before since ether is no actually content page on the site anymore.

Using the method above you can actually see the old cached versions of the site when it was alive with all its content by clicking the "Google cache"link (see image), so you can at least re-create its actual URLs and then add your own related content or you could content the old owner and buy ask permission to use (buy from him or whatever) his old content.

Also, Do not rely on page rank checker tools, because some of them actually do fall for the trick themselves.



Now, please remember, I am not an expert, I just found these information while researching and to me it seems like a simple and quick way to check for fake pr and be certain of the results.

I would apprcite it if other experienced warriors would share their tips and tricks or perhaps correct me if I am wrong here or have over looked an important factor or what have you.

Any way, I just thought with the recent high pr expired domain craze, this would be helpful to lots of interested people. Be careful out there and good luck.

[satrap]

By the way, for those experienced "high PR expired domain buyers", how do you guys do it?

I heard that its not that hard to buy expired domains with PR 2-3 for $30-$60. But, I have been searching for days now and every high pr domain I check is fake pr or if its legit, its over $1000. Is it even posible to find pr 2-3 domain for under $100?...

[martworld]

Yes, you are exactly right. I use the similar method to check fake PR's

[IMhelper]

It's really a good idea to spot a site's fake PR. Thanks for sharing!

[GeorgR.]

Do NOT rely on those guys posting the "proof pics" of "valid" page rank.
ALL major PR validation sites show those fake domains as "valid".

Also, do NOT rely on info:sitename in Google!

The recent amount of fake domains passes all those criteria!

It is either a flaw in Google or simply a new trick to fake PR which cannot be detected.

What you can do:

Check WHOIS information and see how old the domain is. A PR5 domain only 3 weeks old? Not possible.
Check BACKLINKS. Backlinkwatch etc... a site cannot have PR without some backlinks.

[GeorgR.]

Originally Posted by satrap

By the way, for those experienced "high PR expired domain buyers", how do you guys do it?

I heard that its not that hard to buy expired domains with PR 2-3 for $30-$60. But, I have been searching for days now and every high pr domain I check is fake pr or if its legit, its over $1000. Is it even posible to find pr 2-3 domain for under $100?...

It's gotten very difficult, but i just got a valid PR4 for $40. Whether it survives the next update is another story.

The best thing is to check backlinks and make sure the site older. 95% of domains sold especially on DP forum etc. are fake...and MOST of the domains i see on the usual sites, GD etc. are fake also.

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

It's gotten very difficult, but i just got a valid PR4 for $40. Whether it survives the next update is another story.

The best thing is to check backlinks and make sure the site older. 95% of domains sold especially on DP forum etc. are fake...and MOST of the domains i see on the usual sites, GD etc. are fake also.

It's very difficult for people to wait. They want instant gratification.
That mentality, and the googoo-ness of PR has been a boon to
scammers. I would second the notion of looking at domain, if not
site age.

Paul

[MikeFriedman]

I do not look at site age at all for the domains I buy. It is a non-factor in PR. Although it is rare, a site could legitimately be a PR 3 or 4 in just a few weeks of existence. It does happen.

I do the "info:domainname.com" check to see if the PR has been obviously faked.

Next I inspect the backlinks. I run them through SpyGlass to see if they are still active. I make sure there are enough high PR backlinks to justify the PR (to try to rule out someone 301 redirecting domains to the site to artificially inflate the PR. These redirects will disappear after you buy it from them.), and I make sure that there are not a bunch of homepage backlinks pointing at the site. Homepage backlinks are a great way to lose the PR. Why? Well, usually they are either rented or they are coming from other sites that belong to the current domain owner. Either way, they are highly likely to disappear after you buy the site.

I want to see high PR links coming from internal pages of sites. Site owners rarely go back to check if sites they linked to in the past still exist. They might run their site through a broken link checker every now and then, but those are only going to pick up something if the domain was dropped. These links are more likely to remain.

[contentclub]

Thanks for your tip. I will take your tips in consideration next time I buy anything related to domain PR.

[patco]

Yeah, Info:website.com really works great for me. I started using it about 6 months ago, when I was angry with some FAKE websites. I am sure that this will help newbies find the suspected websites

[thomashoi]

I have bought 5 expired domains since Jan from PR4 to PR2. All of them regained back their PR within 2 weeks. I believe that the place you buy from is very important. If you buy from domain brokers, you need to be extra careful since there are many cases of fake PR.

I bought 4 of them from namejet, costing from $69 to $299 and 1 from Godaddy at $21. The advantage of buying directly from auction sites is that there is lower chance of fake PR especially if they have a long history as found in archive.org, it also help to check the domains for backlinks using free tools like seospyglass.

Hope this help.

[halfpoint]

Originally Posted by satrap

By the way, for those experienced "high PR expired domain buyers", how do you guys do it?

I heard that its not that hard to buy expired domains with PR 2-3 for $30-$60. But, I have been searching for days now and every high pr domain I check is fake pr or if its legit, its over $1000. Is it even posible to find pr 2-3 domain for under $100?...

I realise this post is a month or 2 old but there must be something seriously wrong with the way you're approaching things.

A huge amount of PR2's go for $10-$15 + registration fee of ~$10ish on GoDaddy Auctions every day.

If you can't find domains that meet the criteria above then there is something wrong with your process.

[jimnastics]

When you buy an aged / high PR domain for the intention of developing a private blog network, I take it you need to set up a blog on the domain as soon as you can? Otherwise the PR could drop away?

[Pyramid Linkers]

Originally Posted by Pat Jackson

I realise this post is a month or 2 old but there must be something seriously wrong with the way you're approaching things.

A huge amount of PR2's go for $10-$15 + registration fee of ~$10ish on GoDaddy Auctions every day.

If you can't find domains that meet the criteria above then there is something wrong with your process.

As I was going through the thread, this is exactly what I was thinking. Spend a few hours on GoDaddy Auctions, pickup a few PR2/PR 3 domains for 10-40 bucks. Wait a week, and add content. You have a ton of options at this point. Too many people look for short term solutions, the answer is right in from of you.

With that said, I use a few sources to check a website's validity, including SEOmoz Pro and Open site Explorer.

[Pyramid Linkers]

Originally Posted by jimnastics

When you buy an aged / high PR domain for the intention of developing a private blog network, I take it you need to set up a blog on the domain as soon as you can? Otherwise the PR could drop away?

You need to set it up as soon as you can.

You also need to get SEO hosting for ip diversity. Once you have it set up, I would also suggest you build some links to it.

[TheProgrammer]

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

Do NOT rely on those guys posting the "proof pics" of "valid" page rank.
ALL major PR validation sites show those fake domains as "valid".

Also, do NOT rely on info:sitename in Google!

The recent amount of fake domains passes all those criteria!

It is either a flaw in Google or simply a new trick to fake PR which cannot be detected.

What you can do:

Check WHOIS information and see how old the domain is. A PR5 domain only 3 weeks old? Not possible.
Check BACKLINKS. Backlinkwatch etc... a site cannot have PR without some backlinks.

Yes exactly, Thanks for the good points.

[AnmolJ]

SOmetimes Expired Domains Have Unnatural Backlinks !