How do you tell if someone owned a domain previously?

I think the domain might be penalized

[Lorel]

I have a client's site that had the domain purchased Dec of 2004 and the site has never done well even though it looks perfectly ok (i've had it checked out by two other SEO folks) and we can't find anything that would affect keyword rank.

Is there a way to tell if someone else owned the domain before my client? I have the original data when he bought it but don't know how to tell if it was owned previously.

[Lorel]

My question should have been re an IP address. I called the host and the host said the IP appears to be new and not used by another company previously but he wasn't sure.

Is there a way to search out previous use of an IP?

[stu2]

You could try looking up the domain's website history at archive.org