Buying sites - age trust remains?

[deeper]

Hi,
have read a lot about buying expired domains and alive sites becauce of included backlinks. Matt Cutt said, basically PR should be resettet...blabla


But what about the trust a site has according to its age? Let us assume I'd like to buy a site which is online for more than 10 years. No backlinks, so I don't have to worry about being resettet or not. Do I get the age bonus? Couldn't find comments of Matt Cutts about this matter. All people just talk about Backlinks and PR...

What do you think? Anyone here knows a statement of MC concernig age bonus after buying a site?

Thanks,

deeper

[tedster]

As I see it, age or trust related to the domain name is also reset when Google feels a site has been re-purposed by a new owner. For this reason, many people who experiment in this area don't make any content changes for an extended period after buying an expiring domain.

[aristotle]

buying expired domains

If it's currently being used as a parked page for ads, you might want to avoid it.

[tedster]

In the current thread Google to Target Overly SEOd Sites [webmasterworld.com] I brought up this idea of redirected domains as one of the signs Google may well be looking for as a signal of being overly SEOd.

Google has moved away from the approach that SEOs have long made into their mental model - ranking as a way of "adding up" all the items on a checklist. Their approach is under a profound evolution into something our model won't work for. Chasing that algorithm checklist is not long for this world.

Instead, Google is looking for signals of the quality of a website and a web business altogether. Buying expired domains and redirecting them solely to acquire their backlink strength is a kind of manipulation, and not something Google wants to reward. I believe their algorithm in just this small area is much more sophisticated than we can guess, and actively being improved, even now.

Is there an online business you actually want to buy and consolidate with or merge with your business? That's fine and real. Going after technical PR points through buying expired domains is not.

I believe this practice has no future.

[deeper]

The site is still alive, it's not an expired domain. I'd like to buy it because of the age (trust). Buying a site and NOTHING changes... no, topic would stay the same, but to be honest, I at least want to set some links to some of my existing sites and adapt the content a bit.

So there is no comment of MC, but as good speculation there may also be a reset of trust, though MC never mentioned this?

But i have a chance by being patient and waiting how long until setting links? Some months?

[SnowMan68]

I agree with tedster on the over optimization side. I monitored a site that is in a very competitive market using expired domains and redirecting them to their site drop in rankings recently. It happened with the last update March 22nd-23rd. They held a ton of number 1 spots but dropped off for ALL of them.

[tedster]

The site is still alive, it's not an expired domain. I'd like to buy it because of the age (trust). Buying a site and NOTHING changes... no, topic would stay the same, but to be honest, I at least want to set some links to some of my existing sites and adapt the content a bit.

Given all that, I think you're in good shape. Don't get impatient about utilizing the site for links - maybe start by adding some new content after a couple weeks. But you do stand a good chance of making this work, I'd say.

My guess? Trust would only wobble if you give Google a reason to suspect that the site isn't as trustworthy.

[deeper]

What do you think about the following idea:
Already shortly BEFORE the official change in ownership, the seller places the links I'd like - instead of me after the trade.

So I do not have to place "suspicous" links (in the eyes of Google) as new owner - it's already done!

Only works with cooperation of the seller....