How do you to tell if Domain has been previously banned?

...you've just bought a new domain

[Equiano]

How do you tell if a domain you have bought has been banned in a previous incarnation.

I have a domain that has been at pr0 for a couple of months now. It has a inbound link from a pr6 site and a few pr3/pr2 sites and no outbound links.

I was perplexed as to why the pr remained at 0 but decided to give it time. However I recently read a thread about the un-banning of sites by google and it occured to me to check my domain in the Wayback Engine and lo and behold the domain was in use between 2000 - 2001.

So is there anyway to tell if in this previous existence the domain had been banned? This is google specific as this site is already getting hits from Lycos (yes Lycos!), MSN and Ask Jeeves.

[CCowboy]

A Gray bar is the mark of being banned. The exception being newer sites.

A white bar just means you page rank has not been added to the updated Index.

You really need to wait 3 or 4 days after the update ends to know for sure!

[Equiano]

Thanks for the response. I think I have to clarify what I was asking...

If a domain has been dormant for a longtime (HTTP 404), is no longer in Google and is available for sale.

Is there anyway of checking if it was penalised in its previous existence, before one buys the domain.