Buying an established site - will Google ranking change?

[ownerrim]

I'm thinking of buying a site and I'm curious as to what, if anything, will happen to the site's current google rankings when/if ownership changes. I'm clueless on this.

[miedmark]

Will this be staying on same server? Will content change? You'll also update ownership, right? I'd say - too many factors. Who knows what will happen, and I don't think anyone can guarantee you that nothing will happen. I heard of loosing ranking just from changing servers (hosting that is).

[tedster]

I've never heard of a mere change of ownership hurting ranking. But as miedmark suggest, don't jump into any other major changes for a while.

[ownerrim]

The host server would change, and so would the whois information obviously. But the existing content on the site would remain. The only difference is that more content would be progressively added over time to what is currently a decently ranking, though stagnant, site.

[somerset]

ownerrim, thanks for raising this.

I also have an established site, which has just changed nameservers. Google traffic has suddenly and coincidentally dipped drastically.

I am hoping that this is a temporary lull because of the nameservers change.

Anyone else had this reaction to nameservers change?

The site works fine, just as before, no errors. No changes have been made otherwise to the site.

[larryhatch]

I changed Host ISPs once, no other changes at the time.
Google rankings remained the same. -Larry

[Crush]

we do ip's dns all the time, no worries.

[old_expat]

" .. when/if ownership changes .."

Sometimes an owner will have an arrangement for incoming links .. sometime from high PR sites/pages.

If those are suddenly removed, the traffic and PR can drop significantly.

[Pass the Dutchie]

moved several domains over the past 3 years and we had no adverse effects but there is a protocol and it must be followed by the book.

If you purchase a site, change the Whois data then do no major changes for one and best two major updates. If the old owners added lots of fresh content then your gonna have to keep this up to a degree. If it was a site that was never updated and new content rarely added leave well alone. Continue to add the odd link once in a while for good measure but this would not be the best time to being adding 100’s off links at a time (not that there is a good time to hoard!)

If all is good after updates settle then change the server. If you change the sites content all at once then no matter what you are up to the site will be sandboxed. If you plan to build a new site make the old site accessible to spiders and possible not users. If you swap one site for another on the same domain....sandbox.

IMO doing this to beat the sandbox does work but it’s a fine line and in some cases it can take just as long.

Best thing is to either start new domain or purchase a site which is very similar in content to the one you wish to develop.