Do Dropped Domains Keep Their Page Rank (Link Juice) or Do They Get Wiped?

[illmasterj]

I've found a domain that has been used for government purposes (very legit). Wayback Machine last indexed it in 2014, so it's been dead for a long while. It has around 20 quality referring domains.

Can I buy this and redirect it to my site that is on a similar topic. Will it make any difference? Is there a risk in doing so?

 

[Future State]

Can I buy this and redirect it to my site that is on a similar topic. Will it make any difference? Is there a risk in doing so?

5 years of not being in the index runs a big risk of those links being worthless. What you can do is buy it and put something up on it and see if you can get it to rank for a term that has a little competition. Rebuilding exactly what was there may bring the trust back to it too, letting it sit in that state for 3-6 months. I wouldn't immediately redirect it. There is probably some amount of risk if it's not seen as a real acquisition and just an SEO move.

 

[Graytuna]

I've found a domain that has been used for government purposes (very legit). Wayback Machine last indexed it in 2014, so it's been dead for a long while. It has around 20 quality referring domains.

Can I buy this and redirect it to my site that is on a similar topic. Will it make any difference? Is there a risk in doing so?

Not sure how much value it would pass on as it has been dead for so long. Also how relevant is it would you say to the topic of your site?

The thing about expired domains as well is that the value of the links pointing to it tend to decrease over time. Each year X number of links will drop off/be lost and the value of your investment shrink.

A year or so ago I picked up an expired domain that had been part of a marketing campaign by a telephone provider here in Scandinavia. It had some nice media links and even links still coming in from the telecom company. However in the year we've held it a number of those links have vanished so we just ended up not continuing with it. However for a short to mid-term tactic, it might be OK as long as you don't overdo it.

 

[VerySuperMario]

Not sure how much value it would pass on as it has been dead for so long. Also how relevant is it would you say to the topic of your site?

The thing about expired domains as well is that the value of the links pointing to it tend to decrease over time. Each year X number of links will drop off/be lost and the value of your investment shrink.

A year or so ago I picked up an expired domain that had been part of a marketing campaign by a telephone provider here in Scandinavia. It had some nice media links and even links still coming in from the telecom company. However in the year we've held it a number of those links have vanished so we just ended up not continuing with it. However for a short to mid-term tactic, it might be OK as long as you don't overdo it.

I did that one time years ago, and I recall receiving a notice to release the domain...take care

 

[proto]

@CCarter there is a dilemma that I'm facing recently. All the gurus will say to not touch any domain that got used as a PBN and 301. But when some domain gets dropped all the original links (nytimes etc) are still there, are they really junks? The last time i have tested there was some indexing issue but i didn't have the chance to test a lot of domains

 

[Ryuzaki]

@CCarter there is a dilemma that I'm facing recently. All the gurus will say to not touch any domain that got used as a PBN and 301. But when some domain gets dropped all the original links (nytimes etc) are still there, are they really junks? The last time i have tested there was some indexing issue but i didn't have the chance to test a lot of domains

If a domain was used as a PBN and now isn't being used as a PBN, it's likely that it was deindexed. Which would explain why you'd have indexing issues on a domain like that. It's probably under severe manual action. And if that's the case then none of its backlink profile is going to be worth anything.

The thing with a dropped domain is it falls out of the registry, it's whois birthday resets, and this basically confirms that there's no solid reason (like a new company bought it or the current owner is re-purposing it) to not discount all the existing backlinks to it.

Some people will gamble with these kind of dropped domains and some say that the juice comes back, but you're far better off getting a domain that never dropped at all and something has remained in the index the whole time.

 

[CCarter]

All the gurus will say to not touch any domain that got used as a PBN and 301.

The reason is you could be wasting a ton of time and resources on a waste of time. If it was part of a PBN and 301-ed I personally would move on because the juicy links may not be worth all the effort and time. You could spend $5K or 400 hours trying to revive it when you could have spent that same money or time into building a brand that just doesn't rely on SEO for traffic.

The last time i have tested there was some indexing issue but i didn't have the chance to test a lot of domains

Sounds like exactly what @Ryuzaki suggested. If there is an indexing problem then it was de-indexed and mostly you'll have an even harder battle ahead.

Stop thinking about the tactic of getting "juicy backlinks". Why would they delete/drop the domain if it was worth it? You have to go beyond SEO and think in terms of branding and marketing because otherwise you'll be chasing some SEO metrics that will lead you down a crazy rabbit hole.