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One of the big discussions in a lot of forums and elsewhere is dealing with preowned or aged domains. There can be some confusion about if you should buy a preowned domain that might have your chosen keywords in it or not. Hopefully I can help clarify some issues about preowned domain names in this article.

In a previous article I wrote about used domain tips I talked about how to be sure to check in Google Webmaster Tools for any issues or problems related to your recently purchased, aged domain name.

While you can sometimes get a good keyword focused domain name for your niche site that is new, this lends itself to a whole set of potential problems when dealing with the search engines. If your site becomes popular or starts doing too well in the search engine results, Google can and often times will sandbox your site.

While there is a great debate about whether the sandbox exists, I can tell you it does. One of my sites was a new domain name that I started in the fall of 2007. It was ranking on the first page of Google for several months for about 3 different keywords related to iPods. I was seeing about 30 to 75 unique visits a day and was pretty happy with it.

All of a sudden in December, my traffic died. And I mean died. No hits, or visits until about April. Then, all of a sudden, it was back in the results and I’m starting to see an even higher number of uniques now.

The Google sandbox is a method by Google to help put “spammer” sites in control somewhat. It does catch honest sites, but each site probably goes through it at some point.

What does that have to do with preowned domain names?

When you buy a preowned domain name, you are buying the trust of Google and the other search engines. Generally these sites, anything over 1 or 2 years, have been around and have already gone through the sandbox process. They have “aged” like fine wine and are trustworthy in Google’s eyes.

However, some of these older domain names have already been abused by their previous owner(s) and used as spam sites, often times deindexed or banned by Google. This might sound like a potential problem, and it can be. But it can easily be overcome with a reinclusion request.

How does a reinclusion request for an aged domain work?

Once you have purchased a preowned domain name, what I usually do is go to Google Webmaster Tools and “verify” ownership of this site. This is a critical step to begin the process of letting Google know that it is under “new management”. You should also set the prefered domain at this time, either with the www or without.

Before you go an ask for reinclusion, you really need to add some good content to the site. I usually start off with about 5 articles as a minimum. This will show Google that you are a serious owner and are going to be putting good and legitimate content on the site. I wouldn’t just throw 5 PLR or junk articles on it, as this will throw out the duplicate content penalty and look like a spam site.

Give it a week or so and build some links back to the site. Submit the articles to a few social bookmark sites. Check and see if you are getting any traffic to it. I use StatCounter (free) and for wordpress I also use a plugin called Slimstat.

If you check your site with “site:www.yourURL.com” and see results that are with your current content, then you are good to go. If you don’t see anything, then chances are you need to take the next step.

Go back to your Google Webmaster Tools and file the reinclusion request for your domain name. What you need to put in it is basically something to the effect that you are the new owner of the site and you think it was previously used by a spammer. Let Google know that you are going to use the site for legitimate content and would like a visual reinspection and reinclusion into the search engine results for the site.

One recent site I purchased worked just fine this way. I have no doubt that it was a spam site. There were over 200,000 backlinks pointing to it in Yahoo, but nothing in Google. RED FLAG!

I put about 6 articles on it, nice, long and legit content, and asked for a visual inspection and reinclusion, and within two weeks, it was in the Google serps getting traffic.

Preowned domains that have age on them are nice. The best part is that you could take a preowned domain name that dealt a topic and as long as your niche is closely related to what the previous owner used it for, you will rank pretty good for it.

This doesn’t mean that you should bypass an 8 or 9 year old domain name because it is not in the niche area you are targeting. These are sometimes the best domains to buy. Especially if you find an aged domain name with someones name in it.

If you are looking for a way to help with backlinks, this is critical. You can purchase a preowned domain name with someones name and use it as a general blog. Create a new persona in someone elses name and now you can blog about your own money sites and give great backlinks to your own sites. Not a bad idea, eh?

Preowned domain names are a great way to build your portfolio. However, you should still build a mix of new and old domain names as necessary. The dot info domain names are good for BANS sites, but Google knows that since they are so cheap, spammers use them. You will probably get your .info sites deindexed, but don’t worry, just keep building back links and it will come back. Google will eventually realize it as a legitimate site.

As with anything, if you are just starting out, don’t buy more than you can afford. Also, don’t buy just two or three of them and sit and wait for something to happen.

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Category: Niche Basics //