Can I buy a domain that used to have spam on it and still rank?



Can I buy a domain name on the secondary market that has a lot of spam on it and still rank? How can I reset the SEO of that domain ? Thousands of root domains coming from spam.
Johan Tavard, Hua Hin, Thailand

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42 thoughts on “Can I buy a domain that used to have spam on it and still rank?”

  1. Instead of putting 5k on one domain you can spend 5k in a better way as spreading on few domains there are tons of good quality domain on the marketplace go and pick few you will see the result very soon Well said matt.

  2. Spending $5000 on a domain with thousands of root domains coming from spam is almost a sure way of giving a way your money. Just like Matt said, you'd be better off starting fresh.

  3. Even what looks like a fresh domain can have spam linked to it. When that 5k site does not sell it returns to the general pool of domains and then is bought on namecheap for example as a new domain only to find out later that domain has a bad history. I even check the back links of the domains I buy on namecheap which seem like the are brand new.

  4. Thanks for the explanation Matt, perhaps common sense should prevail. That's a lot of money for a domain, yet, there must be a good reason for the webmasters to really want to purchase this domain name. And yes, domain names are important for the webmaster, just imagine time and effort that goes in to choosing one (keywords? branding? or just sounds good and easy to remember) Can I buy a domain that used to have spam on it and still rank? But would you buy a house with flawed foundations?

  5. Yes, I strongly agree with Matt, I'd really veer off from that direction (buying spammy high pr domain) and instead start from scratch. With $5,000, I certainly can do tons of High Quality Marketing Campaign without even worrying of getting a slap from Google. It is rather a wasteful of money to spend on that direction. If you remove those spammy links pointing to the newly bought old high PR domain, you will likely to lose PR(if those spammy links gives 'Juices').

  6. It's all about the keywords in the url…
    "Spammy" sites often have great page rank.
    They really need to rethink the way use that word btw. It's like they don't even know what the internet is.

  7. I hope the two types of spamming that the author mentioned is about:
    1: On Page: Manual Spam (like creating a separate section for search engines)
    2: Off Page: Algoritmic Spam (Like sudden generation of links)

    can anyone answer this ?

  8. You can get any page on page 1 in 3 weeks. Making such statements is absolutely ridiculous unless you're clarifying the competitiveness of the term.

    Car insurance. Page 1, $5000? Guaranteed within a year? I don't think so.

    Clarify your guarantees clearly or risk being ridiculed as little more than an amateur making hyperbolic statements. Preferably never ever make guarantees, ranking matters little anymore except to amateurs, traffic results and conversions are the performance metrics now.

  9. Obviously lots of ignorant people commenting who have no idea just how large the secondary domain market is.

    2 of the largest domain brokers between them drop catch 55,000 domains monthly and add them to their listings. Cheapest domains will start around $1,000 on any broker site.

    As for marketers saying they can rank any domain for $5,000 – exactly what services would they happen to be selling?

  10. OK Matt, now you are telling us to prepare our reconsideration request real well before you submit when there is an algo penalty, but just a few months ago you told us that you guys don't look at reconsideration requests if there is no manual penalty ?? Matt C. Video: October 24th. So How to show your efforts ?

  11. A site, yes…not a domain. The "flipping domains professionally" is a sketchy industry, and it doesn't count. I can understand someone building up a site, brand, a community, and then selling a working profit-making site to someone else that can take it to another level. But we're not talking about that here.

  12. That's flawed thinking. There are many reasons someone might sell a domain or site that have nothing to do with it being "worthless" (liquidation, other interests taking priority, lack of time to maintain, flipping domains professionally, etc).

  13. That's exactly the point…there's no logical reason to say that as a general rule. The examples cited in the video explain otherwise. If an SEO is selling an "aged domain", the first thought in anyone's head should be, "what the hell did this guy do to the domain such that he'd sell it?" If it "ranks" and has value, he'd keep it.

    The whole thing is completely ass-backwards.

  14. I never understood why people would buy a used domain. That's like the people who buy used police cars and ambulances. You know the thing's been driven into the ground, and in this case it's a lot cheaper just to get a new domain.

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