Buying old domains for SEO benefit

[LD]

What are your thoughts? the age of the domain, as I understand it, adds weight to ranking. Is it something to consider?

[LowryBigwood]

I have read about this also, but as far as I know it's a theory. I have purchased older domains before and have not really noticed any benefits as far as seo is concerned.

All that being said, I don't see how it would hurt to try it and test it out. Just my .02.

[oldbrad]

I read up a little about that in the past. Supposedly, from things i read, some se's may be able to tell that a domain has changed owners whether from spidering the whois info or by noticing a large change in the sites design and content, thereby starting over as a newly registered domain.

Kinda makes sense, but at the same time makes you wonder about site redesigns or whois info changes as to whether they may think the domain changed hands even though the same owner has made the changes. How could they tell the difference?

Brad

[Linkster]

oldbrad - in the case of a SE like Google who is an accredited registrar, they have access to the real backend whois database where each "owner" is assigned an ICANN registrant number ID - and unless that changes it would be assumed to be the same person.
For an actual change in the database to a new owner the value of a domain is zeroed out when it changes hands in Googles eyes - however there is a residual benefit if there are old links to the domain if the target text of the old links matches the new content - though currently (and for the last 2 years) Google has been experimenting with ways to negate the value of those links as well - thats where the old term of "sandbox" came from - it was actually a dampening factor that was added to recently transferred domains

[LowryBigwood]

Originally Posted by oldbrad

I read up a little about that in the past. Supposedly, from things i read, some se's may be able to tell that a domain has changed owners whether from spidering the whois info or by noticing a large change in the sites design and content, thereby starting over as a newly registered domain.

Brad

Good points everyone. What I am wondering now is... Why would Google care if you sold your domain as long as the site remained the quality content site it already was before selling the domain. For example, what if a name brand site like eBay was sold to another huge corporation.

Would they then lose their search engine rankings or positions over the transfer? I don't think so, but I'm no expert.

[Linkster]

Lowry - the experiences I have so far ( and we did just buy some sites) - is that everything is transferred over with no problems - as long as the domain and site were in good standing to begin with

The primary algorithm issue was with domains only - no site - and the filtering was put in primarily for domains that were expiring that people were catching on the drops - that had old DMOZ, etc type links and could be used to boost your own sites with very little work - Googles initial response (and this was confirmed by their representative on a board a few years back) was to automatically drop all link and other values when a domain that went into its expiration period was bought - this was the original "sandbox" - at the same time Google became accredited by ICANN as a full blown registrar and started incorporating other parts of the whois database into their algo checks

I can also tell you from talking with some people that I know that do buy old expiring domains that Googles algo doesnt always work

[LowryBigwood]

Originally Posted by Linkster

Lowry - the experiences I have so far ( and we did just buy some sites) - is that everything is transferred over with no problems - as long as the domain and site were in good standing to begin with

Thanks Linkster, that is what I suspected and it makes perfect sense to me.

Originally Posted by Linkster

The primary algorithm issue was with domains only - no site - and the filtering was put in primarily for domains that were expiring that people were catching on the drops - that had old DMOZ, etc type links and could be used to boost your own sites with very little work - Googles initial response (and this was confirmed by their representative on a board a few years back) was to automatically drop all link and other values when a domain that went into its expiration period was bought - this was the original "sandbox" - at the same time Google became accredited by ICANN as a full blown registrar and started incorporating other parts of the whois database into their algo checks

I can also tell you from talking with some people that I know that do buy old expiring domains that Googles algo doesnt always work

I remember reading about people trying to get a boost off older expiring domains, and I even gave it a shot once. I didn't see anything happen on my end so I quickly gave up chasing that method. Very good info Linkster, thanks again.