Advice on buying a domain name for a valuable link

[benners]

There is an expired blog which scores well for a search term I'm interested in. I'd like to know if people think it's a good idea to buy it to get a link essentially? Also, if I buy the domain and the content is wiped, does anyone have any tips on what I should do in regards to content to maintain the domains value? I don't generally look to buy domains for links but on this occasion it could be worth the effort and expense.

[danatanseo]

If it's relevant and valuable I'd advise buying it only if there two conditions are met:

1. The original content stays intact
2. You are willing to devote time and resources to adding fresh new content, regularly

If those things are satisfied I'd say "go fot ir!" - Otherwise, it's a no go. IMHO

As always, I am interested to know what others have to say about it.

[HDDEPT]

I totally agree with you Dana, whatever the domain might be, it should have original and updated content, that is whole single formula which could work now.. Thanks

[benners]

Good advice for sure, but this site has had no new content for 2 years and is in a good position, probably because keyword is not that competitive. It's not where it is due to regular content. Would that change your advice?

[KrisRoadruck]

I do this pretty regularly so hopefully this will be of help. If you decide to go this route there is a ton of diligence that needs to be done. First keep in mind that post-penguin there are a ton of people dumping essentially burned domains. When you are digging through your drop lists first start off by making sure the domain is still indexed by google at all. Next take your list and dump it in a google doc and use the moz api (tutorial here: http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/updated-tool-seomoz-api-data-for-google-docs) to pull up the following stats on your list:

Page Authority
Domain Authority
Domain Trust
Root Linking Domains to Root Domain

page authority is really not overly important at this stage, you are just using it to figure out if they were WWW or non-WWW for when you do your site rebuild (more on that later)

For the other ones dont touch anything with a DA below 40, a DT below 4 and RLDTDs below say 150.

once you have your remaining list (it'll be a lot smaller than the one you started with) you now have to basically check SEOmoz's work. A lot of times a domain that has been spammed all to hell will still have semi-decent numbers with moz. They just aren't that good at determining spammy links just yet. Look for really high money term anchor counts (bad) really high link to root linking domain accounts (means lots of sitewides, also bad) and things of that nature.

Once you've chucked out all the domains that are really ugly take your now very very small list and go to archive.org. You are looking to see how long the domain existed in its most recently current state. Does it look like it changed hands a bunch? Or has it been pretty much the same for years. Does archive.org have most of its site archived? You'll need that for site reconstruction. As others have mentioned you basically want to restore it to its previous state as closely as you can. At least to start out with. If all that checks out then you'll want to look at the whois info. You are going to want to register it with the same registrar it was last time. Match their whois data as best as you can. Make it look like they just forgot to renew for a while but then fixed it. Once the whole site (or as much of it as you can) is restored, just let that sucker camp for a few weeks. Let google get used to it being back. Make sure they don't pull a pagerank reset on it for the drop (if it had some and it suddenly drops to zero, you might as well toss the thing out. It means google knows it changed hands). If all looks good after a few weeks? Slip your link in wherever it makes sense. A new page linked to from the home page would be ideal. Adding a new link to an old content page is in most cases a pretty glaring sign of link manipulation.

Hope that helps

P.S. in the version of the google doc included in that tutorial it doesnt have DT or RLDTRDs build in. You'll need to mod the code slightly if you want to pull those stats. Here is the bit you need to change

add this:

"ptrp" : "domain trust"                        , // 524288
 "pid"  : "root domain links"                  // 8192

under this row:

"upa"  : "page authority"     , // 34359738368

and then change this row from this:

var SEOMOZ_ALL_METRICS    = 103616137253; // All the free metrics

to this

var SEOMOZ_ALL_METRICS    = 103616669733; // All the free metrics

now in the main sheet just add 2 columns. One with the heading domain trust, the other with root domain links and be sure to change the yellow box formula to include the extra 2 columns during its fetch. Cheers

[benners]

Thanks for the awesome reply! Will review and revert back.

[benners]

Thanks for the awesome reply! Will review and revert back.

[RobertFisher]

Kris,

Most excellent, thought out response. Wow. 
Thanks,

Robert

[Bryant-Jaquez]

To be honest, I think Google re-evaluates domain transfers when the who is  changes. I've seen some domain transfers help SEO, and some seem irrelevant. If you purchase a domain make sure it has high-quality links from sites that have an actual followings (look at the site's social interaction and comment participation.) If your new site sends qualified visitors to you, than it is worth it.

To be safe, just buy the new domain, set up 301 redirects, and then contact the sites that link to you and tell them that you've re-launched your website on a new domain. Ask the site owners update their link.

[benners]

Kris, decided not to buy the domain. Your info help me to conclude it was just too risky. Will see if I can negotiate a content link on the site instead. Thanks again for a great answer!