How to research history of pre-owned domains?

How does one avoid getting stung buying a tainted domain?

[Webdetective]

Is it possible to research the history of a domain that might have had a previous owner? Lots of domains expire everyday and go back into the pool of available domains that anyone can grab, but the problem is how can one find out if the domain might have belonged to a spam site and might be banned from a search engine?

A friend of mine believes he got stung on this issue. A particular domain of his has never been able to get into Google's index, and remains permanently PR-0. He suspects it was a banned domain.

[moltar]

I'd imagine search engines would clear all the records of the domain if it expires. I am not about this though.

I know for sure that the domain looses it's PR and back links after it expires.

[microcars]

I know of one web-based whois search that apparently offers this as a paid feature.

I've not used it myself so I can't tell you how good it works. but it would appear to be what you are looking for, just not "free".

sticky me if you want the URL I guess.

[monki]

i'm pretty sure that when a domain is sold/expires and the whois changes the domain gets a clean slate. Don't quote me on that but that's what I've been hearing

[gpmgroup]

I know of one web-based whois search that apparently offers this as a paid feature.

Be careful it may only be a history of who has looked at the domain using their page! not a history of the domain!

The easy way to check without signing up is to view the domain, click Ctrl + refresh and see if the Number of "Whois History:" records stored increments by 1 ;)

Their "Whois History" record now contains another record - Your IP address

[luckychucky]

You could try goofing around with the "Wayback Machine". (search for it on Google)