What are the pros & cons of recycling an old domain name?

[94501]

Hi,

Old domain name is about books and book buyback. It had about 1000 pages at one time, been around since 2006, and still shows in Open Site Explorer as 86 links from from 46 domains, PA 43 DA 35, spam score of 4. The 4 evidently relates to low number of internal links and no contact info.

The domain name's ownership hasn't changed, but for the last year has either not been up at all or only the homepage in the last couple of months.

Now the idea is to maybe re-purpose it for place rating content... no more book content... totally different subject matter.

Is this an organic search advantage or would it be better to start fresh with a new domain name?

Is Google going to have a harder time seeing it as relevant for a new subject (with good new content) or seeing a new site as important?

Thanks... Darcy

[ClaytonJ]

Old domains can be good value, especially if you know their history which it sounds like you do. The biggest issue with old domains is tracking their history and making sure bona fides.

Is the old domain re-vamp consistent with previous domain use at all. ie  the backlinks and anchor text relevant in any way?

[Dezzign]

Re-purposing domains is no where near as safe or effective as it used to be. Your asking for trouble if your going to completely change the topic of the website and expect easy ranking benefits from the old off-topic inbound links. (this is one of the footprints they used to recently de-index low quality PBN's because the sites topic had completely changed after the domain was re-birthed)

In saying that, I wouldn't start with a fresh domain either.

I would do my homework on domcop or register-compass and find an expiring/expired/deleted domain with great on-topic link metrics and start the new site that way. If your niche isn't that big then you may be able to find an on-topic domain with metrics like DA40 - PA45 - TF35 - CF40 for under $500. That would give your new site a huge kick start. Hunt for decent Trust Flow with good topical relevance. If you build a great site under a domain like that your rankings will come much easier than using a fresh domain.

[94501]

Richard and John,

Thanks for the suggestions. I took a look at Doc Cop... pretty cool. Thing is, it almost seems impossible to find something that would be both a good TLD and have age, a good link profile, trust.

Alot of them look like license plates or too specific or just impossible to shoe horn into this particular concept.

What about using a domain name that reads okay as a domain name and then 301 the bought domain into it?  Totally crazy, or what?

Thanks... Darcy

[Dezzign]

Yes it does take some patience to find a nice domain that's relevant and has stats. I wouldn't 301 the other domain to the new domain as a new domain won't be able to handle that many new inbound links which is what your effectively doing by sending a 301 with links behind it to your new domain.

[Dr-Pete]

Yeah, I'm somewhere in the middle on this one - as Richard said, an off-topic domain with low authority isn't going to buy you much. If you want the domain for the name or something, great - but don't expect much SEO benefit. Google has gotten pretty savvy about ignoring this stuff, as buying and redirecting domains has been heavily abused. I doubt you'd be at much risk here, but you'd probably see very little benefit.