Purchased an expiring domain, Now the pagerank has gone.

[umtmedia]

A few days ago I had asked a question regarding purchasing an expiring domain to redirect to a new related site. The post can be found here >>> http://www.seomoz.org/q/purchasing-an-expiring-domain-with-quality-related-links

The domain has some great links with several being from PR5 pages on nih.gov aswell as several keyword rich domains. This made my day and I ended up paying $309 for it.

So today I have the domain with the registrar network solutions who I believe are owned by Google, not sure if that is the truth or not as I can't find any info on that. now my domain is no longer indexed in Google and the toolbar's pagerank has dropped from a 4 to a 0. It was not my choice to use network solutions but namejet only use them or ENOM.

I have now installed a wordpress site on the domain to see if any pagerank exist, if it does then the site will shortly be indexed in Google without me building any links to it.

Just 2 days ago the site was in Google, had the correct info:domainname.com command and now the info: command shows nothing. the site is either banned or all of the actual pagerank has been removed by Google.

I am a little bit dissapointed in this even though it was initially an experiment to see if I could purchase good links through expiring domains.

The thing is I am seeing people purchase domains with good links in excess of $3000.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

[Monasor-Atairu]

Such site must still exist in the google cache to maintain pr. In order to complete the process -  rebuild the old site with the entire content from the cache . And you should be ok.

[brint]

That's a goofy way of looking at things.  Acquiring properties and folding them into your marketing mix isn't black hat in the slightest.  It's business.

[randfish]

Thanks for the feedback Umit. We obviously have different views about what constitutes manipulation (and about the simplicity of the all-caps statement you've written above). That said, if the Moz community can be helpful to you on white hat types of tactics and questions, we'd love to be a resource.

Re: WB Friday - sorry to hear it. If you ever have suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or drop us a line.

[umtmedia]

Hello Rand,

I could say that you are the ultimate Guru when it comes to manipulating the search engines but we all have our views right? Would love to see a post from you on the subject.

You are teaching people what works and what doesn't. You have the entire web to play with so you are revealing publicly what is working and what is not through your correlation data, is this not teaching people how to manipulate the search engines? How about your moz tools and OSE, are they not to help people manipulate the search engines?

black, grey, blue, yellow we all do what works right? I am learning and testing my methods. Want to label me as a black hat? that hurts especially when I am more legitimate than the majority of people practicing SEO

Does everyone here do "white hat SEO" if so then all people need to know is:

CREATE GREAT CONTENT THAT ATTRACTS NATURAL LINKS

I completely understand my mistakes by posting here, I have gone over the boundaries of what people see as ethical SEO and for that I appologise to you and anyone else reading this, it will not happen again.

Rand, I hope in future you can dedicate more time on producing better quality WBF's. I like to feel excited that a new WBF has just come out, lately I couldn't care less.

Have a great day and thank you for having such a great site.

[randfish]

Umit - I just wanted to chime in and note that Ryan's correct on the guidelines and focus of the community here at Moz.

Your question is OK, but it does push on the boundaries of our community. While we'd love to have you as a member and you've clearly got some great ideas and experience to share, we don't generally support or try to provide advice/help to those attempting to manipulate search engines with black/gray hat tactics.

[umtmedia]

Ryan, again you are going off of topic. White Hat / Black Hat this is one of seomoz's categories in Q&A.

I do not post on other forums, especially black hat SEO forums as it seems a lot of people are extremely confused about SEO. This is not a question of who knows better than who or what is white/black hat.

If you would like to create a discussion on  another thread I would be happy to participate.

I am grateful for your views and assumptions on this discussion.

Have a great day

[RyanKent]

The entire point I was sharing, which you seem to clearly understand, is the process of acquiring domains solely for their PR value is a black hat technique. As with most black hat techniques, they will often work for a period of time then stop working as Google makes adjustments.Google is very patient. Whether they adjust right away or in 6 months doesn't seem to matter much to them.

I understand your question. You want to minimize the risks involved. You are asking how to manipulate the system and not get caught. It's a perfectly fine question. I am not a priest and I have never worked for Google. Because I choose to practice white hat SEO I do not look down in any way upon those who practice black hat SEO. It is your choice.

The bottom line, you are trying to analyze the details of how to manipulate search results. SEOmoz focuses on the white hat side of SEO. The community focuses on adding lasting SEO value to websites. Your question would likely be best answered on a site which specifically focuses black hat SEO.

[umtmedia]

Thank you, and now you know how it feels.

I'm not angry that the PR dropped, I knew what risks were involved and strangely enough I have previously purchased domains that lost toolbar PR but came back a few days later and that is without a PR update.

I am now at a stage where I am being asked for sites in bulk that have PR5 - PR6 PR. Previously I would buy PR4 domains which have always been easily obtainable for under $100.

Now I am being asked to supply 10 X PR5+ sites that are hosted in the UK and that is when things become serious, I don't want to pay $500 - $2000 on a domain knowing that it's worthless in terms of ranking other sites? even if that is what my client want's, i'm not here to scam anyone.

My process is to acquire domains that have been abandoned by the original owner and for me to come in and buy his domain along with the links that point to that domain and create high quality paid directories out of them, are directory links worthless? my main client does not seem to think so and nor do several respected and unnameable members of SEOmoz.

I want to expand my business to the best i can possibly be, but I can't go and spend $2000 on a domain for it to only lose it's pagerank and value. This does not happen all of the time, but it does happen and I don't know why.

Ryan, I can't just have someone tell me that what I am doing does not work. I need proof. If what you say is true then why did toolbar PR flow to my inner pages of my directories on the last update a few days ago? Pagerank is a level of importance given by Google themselves right? I have not built any additional links to the sites.

Maybe I just have to deal with the occasional domains losing value. There is something that is a little strange, when I search for the domain in OSE it reveals that the domain was blocked by robots.txt, I wonder if that is the cause to the domain losing PR? and maybe it will come back when it i cached next.

[RyanKent]

You completely misunderstood my reply. I did not make any personal attack towards you. I simply shared the practice of purchasing domains for their PR value is a black hat tactic. That statement is valid and is not an attack on you which requires "proof". No one has been even the slightest bit rude to you. No one has made any accusations.

My sole goal here was to respond to the question you asked. I understand you are not happy with not having the PR you expected, but that is no reason to get angry with me for sharing accurate information.

I would ask you keep your responses on the topic. You don't have any knowledge about my age nor any black hat SEO experiences I may have had so it would be best to simply focus on the question you asked.

[umtmedia]

I don't understand anything you are saying.

What has the fact that I practice black hat SEO got to do with anything?

I have been practicing SEO for 14 years and some young guy comes here to tell me that I am manipulating the search engines, honestly buddy I came here for some advice from the experts yet it seems I am only getting answers from rude people that make assumptions. Where is your proof?

It seems to me that you have never practiced black hat SEO so how can you feel confident in answering my questions?

Unless you can be polite, keep this thread on topic, and provide actual proof to whatever you are trying to say, I would like to request that you no longer give me advise.

Today Google re-indexed the site and provided accurate information from the info: command

Google has yet to reveal that any trust is being passed to the domain as it is not being found by it's main keywords, I will wait and see what happens once it gets re-cached. This is disappointing especially when I can provide other expired domains that still rank competitively.

[RyanKent]

I can appreciate your question and I understand what you are asking. It is pure black hat SEO. You are taking actions with the express purpose of manipulating rankings. Your efforts offer no benefit to users whatsoever.

Even if you are successful, you are one algorithm change away from losing everything.

Google is making every effort to stop any form of manipulation such as what you are doing. Even if you are successful, it is likely the quality of your current sites which seem to be mass produced is going to be lower then the sites which actually earned the original links. The other signals sent by your site will likely indicate to Google your rankings are not accurate.

[umtmedia]

Ryan,

What if I did the following:
my registed company moved location
I changed my name
I decided to stop investing in traffic
Decided to change domain name and 301 redirect it to a new one
Accidently forgot to renew the domain until it was near enough deleted

These are just a few what if's that Google must think about before deciding to devalue pagerank of a domain.

I currently have pagerank domains that produce 20,000 indexed pages without me having to build any links. That is clear proof to me that google does not pay attention to this.

As i'm sure you are aware there was a pagerank update a few days ago, some of my sites did lose some pagerank the majority remained the same and one even went up to a PR5 from a PR4.

I have just recieved your email thank you, I will reply in the morning as i's 2am now and I am about to fall asleep.

[RyanKent]

Toolbar PR is only updated once every 3-4 months. Has there been an update since you purchased those domains?

No one knows exactly how Google's internal processes work. Here is what we do know:

1. Google wants to maintain the integrity of their system.

2. Google does not want people to buy domains for their PR. One example would be this short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91XhqF6iZk0

3. Google has tens of billions of dollars in incentives and resources behind their processes, so they have the ability to measure and achieve their goals.

The exact nature of how Google zeroes out PR is also a question. If I were to take a guess, I would assume it is an algorithmic combination of removing the value of all back links and then measuring the actual traffic and stats (bounce rate) of the links over time.

[umtmedia]

Hello James and Ryan,

I currently have 100+ domains that i have purchased from namejet 40 of which are PR4+

Each of those domains did not lose toolbar PR when I purchased them, they did not become de-indexed from Google, actual pagerank still existed, and the majority have kept the same PR after the recent update.

Both of you have stated that Google is responsible for my domain losing PR and becoming de-indexed, sorry but I don't get it because it does not make sense, why are my other domains still good?

I honestly could only think it was due to network solutions but now i am just baffled.

Maybe someone could take a look at it for me please? my email is info@umtmedia.com

[RyanKent]

Google does not own the domain registrar networks, but as James shared Google is a domain registrar. They are clearly aware any time a domain is bought or sold.

Google's job is to provide authentic search results. Those results are ranked in part based on a site's history. You are trying to cheat the system, Google knows it and adjusts accordingly. Domain sellers hype sales based on a lot of misinformation such as 'the longer you register your domain, the more value it has to Google" which is simply not true.

When you purchase a domain, the driving factor should be you believe the domain name itself is a good fit for your business. If a domain name has any natural traffic, that has value as well. You may receive traffic from pre-existing backlinks to the site. If you decide simply to 301 all those pages to your home page those links likely wont have much value and your bounce rate will be high. If you 301 redirect those links to pages on your site which offer quality content on a related topic to the original link, users will likely be happy and Google may then recognize the old links as having value for your site.

[JamesNorquay]

If the domain is registered as a dropping domain Google can take the power away from the domain, they note the loss in back links, I have tested this many times the thing is that Google is a registered domain buyer and seller so they have huge lists and know exact what is dropping or what is a policy delete domain.

My advice is to not worry, but to re build the site and re build content, make new links and then see over time it can in fact bring back some of the power which has been lost from the domain.

I am not just an SEO I personally am a domainer to so I know quite a bit about this type of stuff.