Should I buy a domain for its Pagerank?

What are the considerations?

[sachban]

I want to purchase an old domain which already has a established PR.

I am not sure of quite a few things
- Is it at all a good idea or should I start from scratch?
- Would PR remain the same, as the theme of the site will change.
- If the answer to above is yes, should I look forward for a similiar themed website

Any ideas or suggestions are most welcome in this regard. Are there any check points that I should follow?

[Quadrille]

"- Would PR remain the same, as the theme of the site will change. "

No. Not for very long at all.

"Is it at all a good idea or should I start from scratch? "

Rarely, unless you intended to carry on pretty much what they were doing.

"Are there any check points that I should follow?"

Visible PR is at least three months behind the facts; you CANNOT rely on that for a reference. A recent penalty and Google ban may be the reason the site is for sale. Make your own checks.

Personally, I'd not bother unless the domain name was (a) Really, really good (eg a good four or five letter word) and (b) was going for a song (say $9.99 or thereabouts).

Your mileage may vary.

[sachban]

Thanks Qaudrile this was helpful.

I am also confused about the pricing. I see pricing varying from $20 to $200. What should be the idle pricing for a PR 4 website with the domain name having 30 characters.

[Webwork]

If I were buying a website I'd be more interested in the quality (authoratative, local sphere, etc.) and naturalness (rate of growth of links, distribution amonst type of sites, etc.) of the inbound links than purely buying based upon toolbar PR. I wouldn't buy just based upon a sales pitch that the "site has a PR of X".

What's the PR of internal pages?

[Quadrille]

What should be the idle pricing for a PR 4 website with the domain name having 30 characters.

Three cents, tops.

You could devise some four million names that would serve you better than buying a used cr*p domain name.

You ignore Quadrille's Oft-Quoted 14th Law at your peril:

More than one hyphen is international shorthand for idiot webmaster; More than two hyphens is Galaxy-wide shorthand for "I'd be a spammer if only I knew how"

Who's counting? Not me. But it's the look of the thing; would you really spend money at: [my-wonderful-domain.info...]

I'm half kidding - but you get the point?

[edited by: Quadrille at 3:55 pm (utc) on Mar. 25, 2007]

[sachban]

Thanks again. It makes sense.

I am just sharing the next plan based on the above comments.

- Buy a domain which has business theme relevance and may be pages which are ranking.
- Buy a new domain.
- Put a redirect initially (around 1 year) to the new domain. So that initial effort of ranking your site and sandbox can be avoided.
- After a year transfer completely to the new domain.

Comments / Suggestions? Does that makes any sense?

[wolfadeus]

PR is assigned to a page and not to a domain - surely, it does help to have a good domain for buidling a successful site. But 30 characters honestly does not sound like a terribly good domain to me.

[adamnichols45]

30 characters and then you will have your page names.

WOW

Word of mouth wont be working out on this one my friend.

[sachban]

Thanks everyone. It was a very helpful.