What happens to rankings after domain is taken away, then restored?

[Life Is Good]

A client has one of their domain names taken away from them because of a possible infringement case. The case involved many web sites that were in the same situation but when visiting the web site, the domain redirects to another site and also the ownership rights of the domain have been changed to the company who is now calling on infringement.

When the domain is returned to its rightful owner, will Google penalize the original domain holder? The domain is a few years old and has never had issues and was ranking very well.

Thanks.

[balibones]

Life Is Good - You're in a fairly rare situation that I've (luckily) never found myself dealing with. But I've dealt with similar situations and here's how they've turned out for me:

Google in the past has said they look at several different things when a domain changes hands. If all of these things change at the same time, chances are you're going to lose the benefit of most of the old links and rankings.

- IP Address
- Registrar Info (WHOIS)
- Content
- Topic

Those last two things are key. Companies change owners all the time. When a big brand name like Twitter is sold to a new company, has new registrar info and is put on a new server, it would be silly for Google to suddenly discount all of the links and reputation the site has built up.

But if a site like Twitter gets sold, put on a new server, and has new registrar info AND the content changes so it's now an ecommerce site that sells bird houses - the new owner can't expect those old links and all of that trust to continue with the new site.

One thing we ALWAYS do when buying a website, even if our plans are eventually to change it, is to leave the old site up for awhile. Change the Registrar data, but leave it on the same server if you can. If you can't then move it to your new server, change the registrar data, but leave the old site up.

About three to six months later you can start making some changes to the site. About a year later you can probably safely redirect the entire thing if you want.

That has been my experience. I hope it helps.

PS: The longer that domain stays in someone else's hands without your content on it the lower your chances of getting your old rankings back. This is ESPECIALLY true if they are showing a 404 or 301 code. If the site returns a 200 code your chances are slightly better, but only temporarily. If it shows a 302 code you're in pretty good shape if you act quickly. Same with a 500 or a 503.

Good luck.

[Life Is Good]

Hi Balibones,

Thank you for your thoughtful and very detailed reply - it is highly appreciated!

We have found some new information. It appears that the domains have been transferred back to the registrar with the registrant as the company filing the charges.

As of right now, the web site is still on the server but when going to the domain, the domain forwards to the parties complaint which has been issued by the court to take it down.

Also, according to #*$! and the server stats tab, the response code is 200.

Is there a better way to find out what the response code is?

[balibones]

Just put in the URL into an http status code checker. There are plenty online if you Bing them.

E.