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Penalized for Someone Elses Domain

by AffiliatingAlan
4 replies
  • SEO
    • |
What happens if you hand register a domain that was previously registered by someone else 2 years ago then dropped, and that person was spamming backlinks or got penalized for some reason.

Would you take the hit 2 years later with your new site?
#domain #elses #penalized
  • Profile picture of the author David Black 68
    You sure can 'take a hit'
    Google can black list a site for various forms of spamming - just because the domain has changed hands or some time has passed won't necessarily make everything OK..
    Here's a link to a 2010 video by Google's Matt Cutts answering this very question.
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    • Profile picture of the author AffiliatingAlan
      So any time you hand register a decent domain what are the chances of you being penalized instantly and not knowing it?

      This seems kind of unfair
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan View Post

        So any time you hand register a decent domain what are the chances of you being penalized instantly and not knowing it?

        This seems kind of unfair
        Why would it be unfair?

        If Google didn't pass along a penalty then all the spam link builder would have to do is push the domain to a fake registrar/name & pick up where they left off building more links (no penalty).
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  • Profile picture of the author David Black 68
    If your buying a new domain from someone like Godaddy or Namecheap, it should be fine.
    I think you just need to check any 'expired' domains out before you commit to buy -
    Check whether the site is indexed in Google - just type site:yourdomain.com in the search box and see if it shows up.
    Google says:
    Do a Google search for www.[yourdomain].com. If your site doesn't appear in the results, or if it ranks poorly in the results, this is a sign that your site may have a manual spam action for violations of the Webmaster Guidelines.
    You can use majesticseo to check what other sites link (or used to link) to the domain your looking at. Wayback machine lets you take a look back at what used to reside on the domain (if any of it has been saved in the archive)
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