When good domain names go bad
-
We have created a website to distribute a niche product. About a year ago, another vendor decided to drop the product and did not renew their domain name. We tried to acquire the domain name, but a cyber squatter picked it up. The old domain name had a few decent back links, and there was probably some value to us with a 301, but the cyber squatter was asking $8,000 and we didn't even bother countering such an absurd figure.
The old domain continued to rank reasonably well for one or our search terms, even though it was just one page of spammy links. Well, this week it appears that Google Panda may have finally killed it off. Which brings me to a couple of questions.
1. In addition to a simple Google search, is there a way to determine if Google has killed a domain?
2. Assuming that Google has indeed killed the domain, is there any value in trying to 301 the domain should it ever be released?
Best,
Christopher -
Your 1st question:
Go to www.google.com and type in the domain name, with and without the "www." For example, search for "www.domain.com" and then search for "domain.com" (without using quotes around the domain name). If the domain shows up in the search results then it is not banned in Google.
To investigate a domain further at Google, see what Google returns when you perform a site: search at Google. For example, if you go to Google and search for "site:www.domain.com" and then "site:domain.com" and Google comes back with "Your search - site:www.domain.com - did not match any documents," the site most likely is banned at Google.
Your 2nd question:
Was best answered below. Do not associate with any sites that have been determine to be spam, been penalized or even banned from Google.
-
I don't know about your first question, but if Google does penalize/blacklist a domain, it will likely be toxic for a long time afterward. In my opinion, there isn't any value to associating yourself with a domain determined to be spam. It seems risky.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Exact Domain Match does it help or distract?
Does owning / buying an exact domain match help or not necessary? For example our main website ranks for nearly 14,800 Keywords but one KW we are trying to get in the top spot for we are currently at the bottom of page #1. We do see an exact domain match available so we purchased it but i don't know if it would actually help us or distract us. I was thinking we could create an article about the keyword on that exact domain then do some on page seo and back linking. But would that be more of a distraction VS. just focusing on getting more high quality back links to the main website we have ranked on Page 1 at the bottom? Any ideas or benefits to use an exact domain match to help boost also?
Link Building | | Cfarcher0 -
Gained a number of new 'do-follow' links - Good or Bad?
So, my client's site is on a subdomain of the parent site and there were a number of links previously pointing to the subdomain site from the main site which were all no-follow so were purely for referral/traffic benefits. Around the end of February, the main site changed all the links to 'do-follow'. Is this likely to have caused the decline we've recently seen in organic traffic to the site and a drop in rankings? I'm curious as to how that could have affected the site as we didn't know and have only just found out about it but I'm not sure how to show that it's led to a decline. Any help is appreciated!
Link Building | | soapmed1 -
Is tiered link building a good thing?
I think that I have watched all the webinairs and online courses available on the web, but I still don't seem to know how and where to get links from. I know what type of links I should be getting and what type I should be avoiding, but that little luck so far. I came across the website of Matthew Woodward about tiered link building where he explains how to do this type of link building in depth. It seems quite interesting but also a lot of work so I don't want to invest my precious time in something that will be penalised by Google in the near future. Is there anyone that can give me some reason why I should or shouldn't do this?
Link Building | | BridalHotspot0 -
Does anyone have a list of bad site's. I should not be on or submit to?
My Gatlinburg Cabin Rental site is losing ranking on the keyword "gatlinburg cabins" I was wondering if anyone had a list of site's it should not be linked on so I can demote them.
Link Building | | GatlinburgMan0 -
Have sitelinks after 5 days buy domain
Hi all! My name is Tung, i from Vietnam. I new join SEOMoz PRO. Today i have question: My domain: cauvongmedia.com Query: https://www.google.com.vn/search?q=cau+vong+media&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 (keyword: cau vong media) This domain i buy only 5-6 days ago but have sitelinks with this keyword And my question: Does Google have done allows sitelinks with new website?
Link Building | | buithanhtung16419920 -
Good Link VS Bad Bounce Rate what wins?
Hi all, this is only my second question on SEOmoz since becoming a member over three months ago so sorry if it’s a little bit basic. As small part of one of our websites promotion we have been giving really good advice on good authority blogs/forums related to our product website. One of the sites we have offered advice on is from a US website and we added a link to our guide for the problem to our UK site. In hindsight the product solution is not branded the same in the US so our bounce rate is over 90%. So the question is when is a link from a related site not worth the high percentage bounce rate?
Link Building | | jtay1230 -
Why are good authority links to my site not showing?
Hi, about a month ago, I obtained a couple of good authority external links into my client's site. One of these is from a local government site, ie a .gov.uk website, which has a Domain Authority of 99 according to OSE and a page authority of 67. However, these links are not showing up in SEOmoz or OSE and the domain authority of my client's site has not changed. Why do the links not show? Surely a period of 5 weeks is long enough for these links to be indexed?
Link Building | | mfrgolfgti0 -
How to track/find new organic backlinks to your domain
I use Google Alerts to track domain-level backlinks (via the link:http://www.example.com trick) but is there a way to track/be alerted of long urls, not just the domain, without having to set an alert for each specific url?
Link Building | | EricPacifico0