Purchase of existing domain best practices

How to avoid the common mistakes

[Pass the Dutchie]

I have stumbled upon a domain which has been parked for 3 years. The original website founded in 1997 was an authoritative site and now the domain is being sold by a broker. The domain has PR3 on home page and a few PR5 internal pages. The site has been well parked and the content produced is on theme with the original site .

We are also in the same business as the original website content which makes this an attractive buy.

What is the best way to transfer this domain? Do we:

a) change the WHOIS data, at the same time switch the domain to our registrar and point the domain to our existing related site?

b) change the WHOIS data, at the same time switch the domain to our registrar and point the domain to a completely new domain and start a new site from scratch?

There are about 2000 inbound links pointing to this domain. Is there any risk to our existing site if we simply point this domain to our site?

Would pointing this domain pass any SEO benefit to our current site?

Is it a good idea to do this in stages, like leave a month or two between changing the WHOIS data and changing the DNS settings and then another couple of months before creating new website content? I don't want this domain to be sand boxed and I don't want to pose any risk to our existing domain.

[Habtom]

Is there any risk to our existing site if we simply point this domain to our site?

Shouldn't the list of things you should do with the site depend on why you are buying the site on the first place?

[edited by: Habtom at 9:45 am (utc) on Nov. 14, 2007]

[oziman]

From an SEO point of view - do you want the site to rank by itself, do you want the link love, etc?

Whois wise - buy, add privacy.

SEO wise - 301 is your friend.

[Pass the Dutchie]

Shouldn't the list of things you should do with the site depend on why you are buying the site on the first place?

Thanks Habtom. As explained the domain is currently parked so I am not buying the site, just the domain and all the relevant links that come with it. I am also not entirely sure what you are getting at, sorry ; )

Whois wise - buy, add privacy.
SEO wise - 301 is your friend.

Cheers Oziman. Sound advice but isn't it bit gungho!

Adding privacy - should that come before changing Whois data or after? Is privacy really hiding the info from Google?

301 is your friend - I agree for new, related domains but I am worried it might create too much of a surge in inbound links and get the site I am trying to promote banned.