What tools/techniques you use to check if a domain has been penalized?

[wspwsp]

If we think to buy expired or otherwise dropped domains, what tools or techniques you would recommend to check if there has bad SEO history?

We could of course, check with Google itself if the site is indexed and ranks, but I am asking if there is a particular tool out there that would provide more information if a website had been shady.

Thanks so much, guys!

Lily

[David_ODonnell]

One of the most obvious ways is to compare organic search traffic to the dates new algorithms go live. Checkout the Google Algorithm Change History page. There is even a chrome plugin called Chartelligence that overlays the algorithm change dates over your traffic data.

Also checkout webmaster tools for messages for unnatural link warnings from Googs themselves.

Hope that helps!

[wspwsp]

That was a great idea for checking on traffic behavior compared to the algorithm updates! Thanks, David.

However I am asking if I do not have access to Analytics and GWT. If the domain is expiring and I consider buying it. Any ideas for that scenario?

Lily

[David_ODonnell]

Is there a site on the domain at the moment, or has there been one recently?

If there is you could see how well indexed it is (site: command), see if it ranks for it's own brand terms, and even moderately competitive terms.

You can also run the site through opensiteexplorer and see how dodgy the external link profile is.

[RepLoc_Tim]

Here are a couple:

• http://www.blacklistalert.org/
• http://whatismyipaddress.com/blacklist-check

If you also want to check if email was blacklisted:

http://www.mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx

[David_ODonnell]

These appear to be tools to check if the site has been black listed for email spam. While it's good to check for when buying a domain, it won't tell you if Google has penalised the site.

[wspwsp]

Yes, they are for email spam blacklist.

[wspwsp]

I was looking more for how to spot shady link profile. A tool for that. Anyway, I guess there isn't such tool. Thanks, guys!

[Raydon]

this tool maybe?

more information can also be found in this post

But not sure how accurate would any data be that you may find from any of these tools if you do not have access to the site itself

[julianhearn]

What are you trying to achieve by buying dropped domains? Are you planning to redirect them to your own sites for link juice? If you do that be very careful, there are lot better ways to get link juice.

To check a domain I would:

• search on google for the website name, e.g. "seomoz" does it rank? (doesnt too much if it doesnt the keyword might be competitive)
• search for the url, e.g. seomoz.com if it doesnt rank number 1 for this i would walk away
• does it have sitelinks under the domain name, if yes thats a good sign
• grab some text from the site and search for it (ensure you are using a clear browser, e.g. no cookie history, so personalised search doesn't kick in), if its a couple of sentences it should rank for that
• grab a few meta titles and search for them, if they dont rank for the complete title there could be a problem
• does the site have page rank - a red flag if it doesnt
• ask the site owner for the last years analytics traffic, the overall traffic graph would be fine
• look at its moz rank, does it seem to match how it ranks, e.g. if very high moz rank but not ranking for the site name there could be a problem

that should do it.

[wspwsp]

That's  a great explanation, Julian! Thanks for adding up.

Yes, the main idea is to redirect them at some point, that's why I want to be 100% sure they won't harm the rankings.

Lily

[julianhearn]

Thanks Lily.

Redirecting old sites is unlikely to give you a rankings boost, especially if they have changed hands and have expired / dropped. You really need to buy them before they expire and don't change two many details.

Think about seomoz.com to moz.com - all the link juice have been transfered, and so it should, its just a rebrand, same servers, so owners, etc. But if they brought so ramdon site and redirect do they deserve the link juice? No, and google doesn't think so either.