Matt Cutts, head of web spam, offers a few quick tips on how to avoid purchasing a domain name that was once destroyed by a spammer; so in the future, when you go to buy a domain name from a registrar, you will know which red flags to be on the lookout for that indicates a domain name that is tainted by spam.
First step when buying a domain name, do a site colon search on Google (site: domain name); if there aren’t any results from that domain name, it’s a bad sign and you might want to rethink your options.
You can also research the site’s reputation, by performing a simple search on the domain name; don’t use .com or whatever extension your site uses.
One final strategy is to search your site through archive.org; this is where you can view previous versions of the site to see if it contained any auto-generated or spammy content. Also, if you’re buying a site from someone else, be sure to ask that owner for access to his or her site’s analytics; when you have this information, you can view the traffic and you can identify any abnormal trends.
These strategies are quick and easy ways to see if your domain name has a history of Black Hat SEO, or if its slate is clean.
For more information, please give Boston Web Marketing a call at 857.526.0096.
Joe Giorgianni