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Has this domain been penalized?

by alphabanter
11 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi. I found a good domain with a good backlink profile:

www.eastmountainsouth.com

The DA is 29 and the TF/CF is 23/22. I did a manual review of the backlinks and they look good. I also went to Google and did a manual check of the domain to see if it shows up. Typing site:eastmountainsouth.com and info:eastmountainsouth.com show normal results.

However, when I use this automated tool to check if this domain has been penalized or not:

http://pixelgroove.com/serp/sandbox_checker

the tool above says the domain has been penalized. Is that tool wrong or did I make a mistake?
#domain #penalized
  • Profile picture of the author xflavor
    What is the PR? If DA is 29. Look at the ahrefs backlink profile for the link and determine if there are a bunch of spamming links or not, if not, you're fine... If it's showing up in the organic search results, it's not sandboxed. May be dancing but I doubt it with DA 29...
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    • Profile picture of the author alphabanter
      Originally Posted by xflavor View Post

      What is the PR? If DA is 29. Look at the ahrefs backlink profile for the link and determine if there are a bunch of spamming links or not, if not, you're fine... If it's showing up in the organic search results, it's not sandboxed. May be dancing but I doubt it with DA 29...
      PR of the site is 2. I've used several PR checker tools and the PR shows as valid.

      But just showing up in the organic search results could still mean it's penalized. From my understanding, your site can be penalized but still show up in the Google search results.
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  • Profile picture of the author RadiantDarkness
    So when checking expired/dropped domains you want to check a few things in order to make sure you're not getting a penalized site that you can see without checking your WMT (IF you use it).

    1. Search the url on Google to make sure it's indexed... With expired domains this is hit or miss as most of them will be deindexed until you put them on hosting/index them again.
    2. Check the link profile with Ahrefs/Majestic and make sure you're not dealing with any (porn, pills, sex, viagra) etx anchor texts which will be a good idea of what the site used to be used for.
    3. Check archive.org for what the old site looked like and then get a real idea of what the site was used for.
    4. If you have SEMRush you can run a quick site audit to see if it still ranks, ever ranked and TANKED etc.
    5. Make sure the link profile has some links worth a damn "Metrics can be spoofed"

    Good Luck

    -RD
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    • Profile picture of the author alphabanter
      Originally Posted by RadiantDarkness View Post

      So when checking expired/dropped domains you want to check a few things in order to make sure you're not getting a penalized site that you can see without checking your WMT (IF you use it).

      1. Search the url on Google to make sure it's indexed... With expired domains this is hit or miss as most of them will be deindexed until you put them on hosting/index them again.
      2. Check the link profile with Ahrefs/Majestic and make sure you're not dealing with any (porn, pills, sex, viagra) etx anchor texts which will be a good idea of what the site used to be used for.
      3. Check archive.org for what the old site looked like and then get a real idea of what the site was used for.
      4. If you have SEMRush you can run a quick site audit to see if it still ranks, ever ranked and TANKED etc.
      5. Make sure the link profile has some links worth a damn "Metrics can be spoofed"

      Good Luck

      -RD
      Yup, I did everything except for 4 because I don't have SEMRush. Everything about it looks good. Maybe that penalty checker tool is wrong? Still trying to figure out whether I am wrong or that penalty checking tool is wrong (the tool is at Google Sandbox and Penalty Checker Tool)
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    The site has indexed pages but it looks like some Chinese spam.

    Good luck with that.
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    • Profile picture of the author alphabanter
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      The site has indexed pages but it looks like some Chinese spam.

      Good luck with that.
      The site was taken over by a Japanese owner in 2013. Here is the web archive snapshot on May 17, 2014: http://web.archive.org/web/201405170...tainsouth.com/

      It just looks like a blog of some sort in Japanese. I don't think the pages indexed by Google are spam, based on the web archive above.

      I think it was the site of a band back in 2006/2007 (the website may have been using Flash because I can't see the snapshot of it by the web achive in 2006/2007). Between 2008 and 2012, I'm guessing the domain wasn't used because there are no web archives of it.

      Having said that, even though the site changed to a Japanese owner, I don't see why it would be penalized by Google based on what I have seen of the backlinks (I was using OpenLinkProfiler.org - The freshest backlinks. For free. to check the backlinks)
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by alphabanter View Post

        The site was taken over by a Japanese owner in 2013. Here is the web archive snapshot on May 17, 2014: http://web.archive.org/web/201405170...tainsouth.com/

        It just looks like a blog of some sort in Japanese. I don't think the pages indexed by Google are spam, based on the web archive above.

        I think it was the site of a band back in 2006/2007 (the website may have been using Flash because I can't see the snapshot of it by the web achive in 2006/2007). Between 2008 and 2012, I'm guessing the domain wasn't used because there are no web archives of it.

        Having said that, even though the site changed to a Japanese owner, I don't see why it would be penalized by Google based on what I have seen of the backlinks (I was using OpenLinkProfiler.org - The freshest backlinks. For free. to check the backlinks)
        IMO it's an uphill battle trying to rank pages from a site full of foreign language on an English SERP.

        I looked at the SERPs, what's happening today. I didn't look at Wayback.
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        • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
          the domain looks fine to me and it does not matter that it was used by a japanese or chiness owner. This is fairly common. The chinese are big buyers of English domains. they buy sites. use them and some they don't renew.. the links and the pages the links are on are all english.

          A lot of people think Like Yukon that the very presence of Chines or Japanese on a site is a red flag but as long as the site has not been penalized the chances are slim and none that the site is going to be penalized retroactively.
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          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

            the domain looks fine to me and it does not matter that it was used by a japanese or chiness owner. This is fairly common. The chinese are big buyers of English domains. they buy sites. use them and some they don't renew.. the links and the pages the links are on are all english.

            A lot of people think Like Yukon that the very presence of Chines or Japanese on a site is a red flag but as long as the site has not been penalized the chances are slim and none that the site is going to be penalized retroactively.
            Obviously Google thinks like me because there's no Chinese, Japanese, or whatever foreign languages ranking in US SERPs. Repeat for other unrelated country SERPs... They might be indexed but who cares, it's still buried & useless.
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            • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
              Originally Posted by yukon View Post

              Obviously Google thinks like me because there's no Chinese, Japanese, or whatever foreign languages ranking in US SERPs. Repeat for other unrelated country SERPs... They might be indexed but who cares, it's still buried & useless.
              Dude............THINK

              Why would Google rank Chinese pages in English regions? Did you enter Japanese and Chinese language characters?

              You are missing the point entirely. The pages when the domain was used by a chinese owner is not whats being bought/auctioned - The domain is being bought. The links to the site are from ENGLISH sites with ENGLISH anchor texts from when the domain contained ENGLISH pages.

              In this case a chinese person bought the English domain for the juice and didn't renew it. The new owner will put English pages and the Chinese indexed pages will disappear.

              Its like if CNN.com forgot to renew and for a year a Chinese company used it and then CBS got it. It would just return to English content with tens of thousands of English links pointing at it that CNN already had.

              Chinese/Japanese are big into buying domains for juice. They buy up all kinds of English domains and then don't renew some. The originally English domains will have absolutely no problem ranking in English regions once the site is built with English words again.
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  • Profile picture of the author karina35
    Seems to be punished...
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    Love is in the air: Warrior Forum

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