Expired but not dropped

Can you still benefit from the domain being old?

[eljefe3]

As per the subject, if I buy an old expired domain that hasn't dropped, will I get the benefit or will it basically be like buying a dropped name. Ones I am looking at all have parking pages on them now, but in the past had actual content.

[Webwork]

The closest I've come to a "rational approach" to this situation is IF you mimic the URL structure of the expired site AND build linkworthy content on the pages that existing links point to (currently ghost pages) THEN, strictly from a development perspective, you might gain an advantage going forward.

I don't know anyone who has answered the question definitively, publicly. A person I deem authoritative, if elusive, suggested that a certain search engine might use domain parking data, from their feed, to automate collateral processes - such as resetting inbound link juice to zero on domains that moved from websites to parked domains.