Buy domain with great name and bad links or a new one with worse name?

[Jkjk]

Hi,

I can buy a domain which according to majestic seo has 110 referring domains with 14000 backlinks. The backlinks are rubish and spammy and the domain has no google rankings for the anchor text keywords. The domain has excellent name for the product I want to sell on it(buy+product name.com), so that's the reason I'm thinking about buying it.
Another option is to buy a new domain with worse name.

I'm pretty confident that I can get new quality backlinks and rankings for the domain. My question is, if I buy the first domain, wouldn't the spammy links mess up my rankings?

Thanks,

jk

[tedster]

wouldn't the spammy links mess up my rankings?

Yes, they might.

In the past, Matt Cutts suggested sending a Webmaster Tools message after you've cleared all the old content, describing your purchase and confirming that you want the backlink history set to zero. There have been some threads here in the past about this action being successful.

[Robert Charlton]

describing your purchase and confirming that you want the backlink history set to zero

In conjunction with Penguin, I can see that this issue might become more complicated, as this could become a dodgy way to rescue otherwise burnt domains.

Change of ownership might be subject to more careful scrutiny than before. Google would want to make sure it was really a change, rather than simply a transfer from one company name to another.

[Jkjk]

Aren't the links simply discounted? How can I check if there is a penalty on the domain? Ask the seller for webmastertools access? When I search the domain name, it shows up in the results.

I have a dilemma if I should buy the domain (buyproduct.com) or register a new one with dash in its name (order-product.com)

[MarieHaynes]

Although Google says you can possibly have a domain's history wiped clean in regards to spammy backlinks I wouldn't want to rely on that.

I'd buy the one with the not so good name personally.