Person using expired domain and its links to drive traffic

[HandyWoman]

Hi, I know about people using expired domains to drive juice to their primary site but what about people using AN expired domain as their primary site (totally changing that site into a trashy affiliate-marketing vehicle)?

The site I'm looking at is thegunzone.com.  It has, according to Semrush, almost 38K links.  It used to be a legit 17-year-old firearms hobby site, and this is what it originally looked like:

http://web.archive.org/web/20120213184627/http://thegunzone.com:80/

Here is its last page before it closed and the domain purchased by the affiliate marketer:

http://web.archive.org/web/20170315084035/http://www.thegunzone.com/

It closed around February of 2017, and some affiliate marketer bought it and all its backlinks.  However, all those backlinks, which were previously to various articles, are now directed back to those articles (which don't exist anymore) but the homepage, including Wikipedia links.  Here's an example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygonal_rifling

At the bottom, in the 7th Reference, there's a link to an article called " "Learning About Shooting . . ." but if you click on the original link, it just goes to thegunzone.com homepage.  Again, the site's totally different.   And there are just thousands of such backlinks to former articles that don't exist anymore but are redirected to this schlocky site's homepage (and it's passing its juice through too).

My question is this:  this cannot be kosher with Google backlinking policies, right?  Is this prevalent on the internet?  Why hasn't thegunzone.com been found out and its rankings penalized yet?  And how do I report him?   I see tons of other sites using this basic strategy too on search results with various hunting keywords.  (Disclosure:  I do own a hunting/firearms blog, but I don't do any backlinking at all.)

Any help would be sincerely appreciated.

[EGOL]

I think that it is extremely risky.  The more work and money that you have invested in the website that will be the recipient of the redirect the greater the risk.

This is a methond for people who do not have a big investment in their website and are simply looking for a low effort way to gain a small amount of ephemeral juice.

[Cfarcher]

Can we get a 2019 update on expired domains.

Do you think it's a good idea to research and find high powered DA expired domains to point back to a website or page?

Do you think it's a good idea to research and find high traffic expired domains to point to website or page to generate more traffic?

Does Google look at buying expired domains as a negative.  Anyone got feedback on expired domains and what they recommend etc.

[HandyWoman]

Thanks, EGOL, for your advice.  Yes, I will follow it (i.e., spend time on creating the best site I could).  On thing, though:

"Is expired domains against Google's webmaster guidelines?  I don't think that it is."

Well, Google has punished private blog networks on the past, and this site is sorta like a PBN except it's only one site.  However, like a PBN, it took an expired domain's backlinks and redirected to itself (i.e., it uses another site's backlinks--the previous thegunzone's backlinks--for itself).  The two incarnations of the site are totally different.  This is what irritated me.  The guy didn't at all earn those backlinks, esp. since almost all of them go to articles that don't exist anymore (but are redirected to the homepage).

Oh, well, whatever.  I'll follow your advice.  Thanks!

[EGOL]

We can look at almost any SERP and see people doing things that we don't like, things that we think that Google should be slapping down.  Sometimes what they are doing is directly against Google's terms of service.  Sometimes they are not against terms of service and Google really doesn't care.  Is expired domains against Google's webmaster guidelines?  I don't think that it is.  https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en

You can use them too if you want, but I would not use them because I don't think that they are a good bet.  I think that my skills are better spent on building something right from the beginning and working long term.

Crime?  Not crime?  Either way, inside and outside of Google people get away with things all the time, but if they do enough crime or sneaky stuff or shortcuts, things usually fall apart on them or they get caught.  I can look back at "who was in my SERPs" over 15 years and about every five years there is almost a complete changeover - but the people working to make a great site remain and get stronger.  Crime and sneaky stuff gets weeded out.  Some sites that used to be good get weeded out because they take their foot off the gas or start taking shortcuts.

If these things bother you, then you are probably doing your best to run a good site.  So just keep working, doing a high quality  job.  Spend 100% of your energy there and waste no energy thinking about people getting away with stuff, because, in the not very distant future, people doing the sneaking, the crime, the shortcuts will drop to below competitive positions, if they do not disappear completely.   Hang in there!