Buying a Domain on SpamHaus Blacklist

Is this a Dumb Idea?

[egomaniac]

I found a domain that I would like to buy, but the current owner of the domain is on the SpamHaus blacklist of "Register of Known Spam Operations".

Is such a domain just too toxic to own?

IF I were to acquire the domain, then ownership title and IP#s would change and be different that what is currently listed with SpamHaus.

However, I am concerned that the spam history of the domain may cause future problems.

Anyone have any insight on this?

[MamaDawg]

I know one person who unknowingly bought a domain with a "bad history" - took them well over a year (and some begging) to convince Google to lift the penalty.

Here's an old thread where Googleguy talks about domains with a tainted past:

[webmasterworld.com...]

I don't know if anything's changed since then.

[egomaniac]

Thanks for the reply.

I am actually interested in knowing if being listed on Spamhaus's blacklist causes problems with Google.

As far as I can tell, the domain does NOT have a history of spamming Google or anyone elses index. The domain has good incoming links and a PR4 rating currently.

Its bad history is with email spamming.

So can email spamming cause problems with Google or any other SEs?

I am considering buying this domain and turning it into a blog...

[MamaDawg]

The situation I mentioned was a domain that had previously been used for email spamming. So, yes - that caused problems with Google even when the domain was under new ownership on a completely different IP with legitimate content.

[edited by: MamaDawg at 1:02 pm (utc) on Sep. 8, 2006]

[egomaniac]

Thanks for the clarification.

This is good to know, I won't touch this domain then.

[Frequent]

If it's a truly good domain (good type in traffic) then it is probably still worth having. I would just use the blacklist to beat them down on price.

Freq---