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Ever Bought A Previously Used Domain?

by zannix
8 replies
I've just bought a domain, and it turns out it's already been used before. I know this because I ran a simple backlink check on it, and also ran a Google search with the exact URL embedded in quotes.

It came up with a few articles (not many though, ~10ish) with the link back to my new domain.

Would you guys be suspicious of this? Why did the guy drop the domain, perhaps the niche turned out unprofitable, or perhaps he used blog networks and got a penalty and decided to bail on it?

But how come it has so little backlinks then...?

Anyway, anyone had a similar experience - is this something to worry about?

Thanks!
Zannix
#bought #domain #previously
  • Profile picture of the author lilz
    sometimes people shift their job. becasue shift of job they couldnot get enough time to run a site propersly
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  • Profile picture of the author Jit Lim
    Hi Zannix, there are many reasons as you've outlined. It could be they lost interest and moved to something else or the domain may have been sandboxed by Google at some point in time. When Google changed the rules last year, a lot of sites got penalized and a number of Internet Marketers basically dumped the domains. In terms of whether to worry about? Hard to say, a combination of time plus high quality contents should start to rank your website. Keep the backlinks flow natural ie don't pay someone to suddenly blast 10,000 backlinks in 1 day to your site.

    All the best!
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    • Profile picture of the author zannix
      That's exactly what I'm worried about:

      What happens if you buy a domain that was previously "sandboxed" or "penalized" and then dumped by the owner?

      If anyone has an answer to this question, please let us know
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      • Profile picture of the author Jit Lim
        Originally Posted by zannix View Post

        That's exactly what I'm worried about:

        What happens if you buy a domain that was previously "sandboxed" or "penalized" and then dumped by the owner?

        If anyone has an answer to this question, please let us know
        Hi Zannix, try archive.org to view previous snapshot of the site. Another one is labnol.org/google-adsense-sandbox/

        Apart from that, you can write to Google and advice change of ownership.

        All the best!
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  • Profile picture of the author kashishrahi
    Hi,
    If the domain has already been expired then after buying it again, its visibility on the Google/Search Engines can be restored by writing the related contents and doing the SEO work.
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    • Profile picture of the author zannix
      I've found an old whois and got some e-mail address of the previous owner. Sending him an e-mail
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  • Profile picture of the author imfusa
    You should not have anything to worry about if you do not make any black hat seo.
    If the that owner dumped it, meaning deactivate it, than it should got off the sandbox.
    I would also suggest make a trademark research of the website, he may have also got a cease letter and he would have been forced to deactivate it.
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    internet marketing | seo services | check pagerank | web directory
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  • Profile picture of the author Brooke Milt
    It could be something as innocent as he wasn't interested in working online or that he even forgot to renew his domain. Look on here I see plenty of people who didn't get notified by their registrar and lost their domain. Good on you to contact the previous owner it should help you answer some questions!
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