Bought domain that used to have 302 redirect - domain history issue

[SimpleMan Learning]

Hello,

Bought a previously owned domain, and only afterwards found out that its most recent previous owner had been using it with a 302 redirect, so that when people typed in the domain URL of the domain I bought, it used to redirect to a banned content [po:rn] site.

Even though I wish I would have known about this before buying it, so that maybe I would not have bought it, my question is, now that ownership is transferred and it is mine to use as I please, will it matter?

Meaning, in the eyes of g@@gle, the most widely used search engine, will they think that I own and am using a domain associated with illicit content (because it used to 302 redirect to that, possibly as recently as 1 - 2 months ago), or if I use it for content having nothing to do with smut, then that previous redirect history can't hurt me in the eyes of g whatsoever?

[aakk9999]

in theory, change of domain ownership should reset domain history with Google, although this may not always happen in practice.

I would suggert that you create a new Google Webmaster Tools account, verify your purchased domain and then send Reconsideration Request to Google asking to reset domain history as the domain changed owners. Make sure that before sending reconsideration request your domain has at least a few pages developed. Provide as much details as possible in your reconsideration request.

You may also want to read the following thread we had on this subject, especially the last post [webmasterworld.com...]

[swa66]

When I buy domains they often were parked before I got hold of them.
I usually let them sweat it off without any content/redirect at all on them for a few months before I do anything with them.

I've had issues in the past with a domain that I did not do that with (it hadn't been parked either, I just put slightly different content on it from the past owner). But apparently they had some content G's search engine disliked quite a lot (no obvious clue as to why), so that Google Adsense refused to serve any and all ads on certain URLs.
After contacting Adsense support they told me that they had removed the blocking that the previous owner had caused and ever since ads show up nicely. [The previous owner did not use Adsense AFAIK]

[lucy24]

I would suggert that you create a new Google Webmaster Tools account

Either this is counterintuitive or I'm misunderstanding. Wouldn't it would be more to your advantage to add the site to an existing account where you are a known quantity?

[aakk9999]

Either this is counterintuitive or I'm misunderstanding. Wouldn't it would be more to your advantage to add the site to an existing account where you are a known quantity?

My fault on not being clearer! I meant a WMT account different from the previous (old) owner. But I was not thinking - if it is just a domain, there would be no hosting with old WMT verification.

Lucy, you are right, adding it to an existing one of the new owner (if exists) is even better.

[suzukik]

If the domain is still affected by manual action (i.e. penalty), it will appear in Manual Action Viewer in Webmaster Tools. If not, you'll see no massage there.

I heard this from John Mueller of Google on Hangouts. Matt Cutts also explains what to do if you've accidentally purchased a domain that had been a spam before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHpRlextjL0 [youtube.com]
(Start from 1m39s.)

Hope this will help.

[SimpleMan Learning]

Thank you to all who replied. aakk9999, read the other thread you referenced, which did have some helpful points.

It seems that most here think that it will be a "start fresh" scenario now with the change of ownership (even though it used to 302 redirect to 'adult' content), yet maybe you all can understand the extreme caution and concern on my part with the increasing strictness of g in the past three years.

And since I do not operate, visit or own po:rn sites and do not plan to, I for sure would not want to do anything seen as negative whatsoever by g.

At the same time, I would strongly prefer to not have to file a reconsideration request, disavow links, or any thing else begging g for anything.