Domains with backlinks and page rank / domain authority often are more desirable and command higher prices than comparable domains without.
But is that PR5 domain with hundreds of backlinks as good as it looks? Domains with former activity and links can be great for parking, expiring domains with valid authority are useful from an SEO standpoint - however prime candidates are often picked up, used for spam, and then dropped again or flipped when Google drops the hammer.
Figures Don’t Lie … Or Do They?
Unfortunately, a lot of the metrics used to evaluate the authority and "trustworthiness" of a domain are unreliable:
To get the full story, you need to check out the actual links behind the numbers.
“So Why Should I Care?”
If your business model is buying cheapie Godaddy closeouts to flip for a couple dollars profit, doing this research is probably more effort than it's worth.
Still with me? Awesome - let's get started!
Backlink Checking Tools
We need some tools to see what links to the domain. Unfortunately, the best of the bunch come with hefty subscription pricetags, but they all have limited free versions that can still provide important clues as to whether or not the domain has been used for anything "naughty."
You might find something for less, but in my experience, the cheaper backlink checkers are generally aimed at noobs and pretty lame. Steer clear of anything that uses Alexa and PR as primary metrics for reasons stated earlier. "Cheap" can still waste your money.
Here are our options:
TIP: If you're negotiating a big purchase directly from the current site owner, ask if they will temporarily give you a RESTRICTED SHARE of their GSC account. That way, you can check for backlinks, keyword / ranking information, manual penalty notices, and a slew of other useful data.
On a budget? There are ways to do decent backlink research in volume without breaking the bank on a subscription, but I’m going to be a tease and save that for a future post
.
Now that we have our toolbox, let's dig in. For this post, I'll be using graphs from Ahrefs in my examples.
Digging Into the Link Profile
So now that you have some data, what exactly are we looking for? I grabbed a few PR2-4 expiring domains to use as examples.
Anchor Text
Anchor text is the clickable text in a text link to your site. It’s the most important thing to check and can usually give you a good idea of how the domain has been (mis)used in the past.
It should be pretty obvious that you don’t want to see this!
This site was hacked, spammed, and flooded with spam links.
What about this? PR3 domain was a generic phrase for a type of lamp holder gadget. English language domain of a foreign manufacturer maybe? Cut and paste a few of those babies into Google Translate …
Nope - Casino spam. The first keyword translates to “Naruto Casino.”
Similar one in English – This was a PR3 web designer cityname geodomain. You’ll see there are still a few web / internet links out there, but most links are off-topic. This domain used to be a web designer site/blog and it was picked up off a previous drop and used for auto dealer spam.
Surely this next one can’t be bad? It’s a travel-related domain name with travel-related anchor text.
The caveat here is that 100% commercial keyword anchor text practically screams “Hi Mom – I made these links myself!”. Google hates that. Natural link profiles have a much lower percentage of keyword anchor text and more branded and URL anchors. Like this one, for example …
Relevant keyword anchor text isn’t a red flag “avoid at all costs” signal, but it is definitely something you should be aware of as it could trigger an algorithmic or manual penalty for unnatural links. In that case, if I were interested in the domain I would look at the actual links in question to see how many links we're talking about and what kind of sites they were from.
Suspicious Spikes
How your domain is linked isn’t the only thing that matters – the rate at which the links were acquired can also be a sign of trouble. The most common example being “pump and dump” link blasts.
A lot of links acquired in a short period of time will show up on link graphs as a “spike.” One of these two examples was from a spam blast, the other from a story in the mainstream media that went viral. Can you guess which is which?
In this case the first one was from the media coverage, the second was the auto dealer spam I showed you earlier. The only way to tell these apart is to look at the linking domains. Example #1 has links from sites like Washington Post, Huffington Post, Reddit, Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance. Example #2 has things like free “seo” directories, random off-topic splogs in a variety of languages and comment spam.
Unnatural Patterns
The last thing I want to point out is unnatural linking patterns. This includes things like
It also doesn’t hurt to be at least a little familiar with the types of links Google considers “link schemes” – again, not necessarily a showstopper (every site has some bad links), but you don't want to see a lot of them either. Always look at the whole picture to assess the situation.
Finally -The End!
Well, that’s a wrap! Thanks to the diehards who’ve stayed with me to the bitter end – hope this helps you make smarter purchase decisions and more profitable sales. Have a great week!
But is that PR5 domain with hundreds of backlinks as good as it looks? Domains with former activity and links can be great for parking, expiring domains with valid authority are useful from an SEO standpoint - however prime candidates are often picked up, used for spam, and then dropped again or flipped when Google drops the hammer.
Figures Don’t Lie … Or Do They?
Unfortunately, a lot of the metrics used to evaluate the authority and "trustworthiness" of a domain are unreliable:
- Google PageRank (PR) – Never did show Google’s “real time” data. That combined with increasingly long “lag time” between updates (last updated in December 2013, and that was by accident ), makes it virtually useless. It's pretty certain that Google will zero out the data and pull the plug on it once and for all in the not-too-distant future.
- Domain Rank (Ahrefs) Trust Flow/ Citation Flow (Majestic), Domain Authority (Open Site Explorer) – These are all link-based metrics so, like PageRank before them, they can all be gamed.
- Archive.org (Wayback Machine) - This may or may not have the whole story. Like any other crawler, ia_archiver can be blocked from accessing a site.
- Alexa - Know anyone with the alexa toolbar installed in their browser? No, neither do I.
To get the full story, you need to check out the actual links behind the numbers.
“So Why Should I Care?”
- Because You Want to Get What You Pay For - If you're dropping a chunk of cash on the domain based on the PR/DA, then you don't want to get ripped off, do you?
- Sales Potential - Mr. or Ms. Corporate End User will be a little reluctant to invest in a domain with a "bonus" helping of blog spam and p*rn links. Don't assume they won't look.
- Parking – Do you park your domains while waiting to sell? Backlinks, good and bad, affect parking options and revenue. There's some discussion of backlinks on @smurge's awesome thread on parking starting around here.
- Development - Trying to clear a link penalty sucks. The last thing you want to do is put a lot of time and effort into developing a site only to find out it's "cursed" from the get-go. While link profiling can't tell you for certain if the domain was penalized, it can help you assess the risk.
If your business model is buying cheapie Godaddy closeouts to flip for a couple dollars profit, doing this research is probably more effort than it's worth.
Still with me? Awesome - let's get started!
Backlink Checking Tools
We need some tools to see what links to the domain. Unfortunately, the best of the bunch come with hefty subscription pricetags, but they all have limited free versions that can still provide important clues as to whether or not the domain has been used for anything "naughty."
You might find something for less, but in my experience, the cheaper backlink checkers are generally aimed at noobs and pretty lame. Steer clear of anything that uses Alexa and PR as primary metrics for reasons stated earlier. "Cheap" can still waste your money.
Here are our options:
Ahrefs - http://www.ahrefs.com
My personal fave. You can't go wrong signing up for a free account. The free "Newbie" version only gives you 5 rows of results in Site Explorer, but you can export up to 5000. If you plan to do a lot of data analysis, subscription plans include some really useful, time-saving tools and start at $79.99/month.
Majestic SEO - http://www.majesticseo.com
My other favorite. The free plan lets you see 10 rows of data and limits the number of searches you can do daily for domains you don't own. If you control the domain, you can verify it and Majestic will show you all the information for that domain for free. Very useful if you need to deal with a link penalty and are low on funds! Subscriptions start at $78.99/month with a discount if you pay quarterly.
Open Site Explorer - http://opensiteexplorer.org
Moz's backlink checker: the index isn't as large or frequently updated as Majestic or Ahrefs though it sometimes catches links they miss. Plans start at $99/month for full access. I think the free version currently shows you up to 50 links, but only provides full info for the first 5
Google Search Console (GSC) - http://www.google.com/webmasters/
Free - the catch is you can only use it on domains you manage. It doesn't list ALL links to your site, and will give you links that no longer exist (like Majestic's "historic" index). But did I mention "free?"
My personal fave. You can't go wrong signing up for a free account. The free "Newbie" version only gives you 5 rows of results in Site Explorer, but you can export up to 5000. If you plan to do a lot of data analysis, subscription plans include some really useful, time-saving tools and start at $79.99/month.
Majestic SEO - http://www.majesticseo.com
My other favorite. The free plan lets you see 10 rows of data and limits the number of searches you can do daily for domains you don't own. If you control the domain, you can verify it and Majestic will show you all the information for that domain for free. Very useful if you need to deal with a link penalty and are low on funds! Subscriptions start at $78.99/month with a discount if you pay quarterly.
Open Site Explorer - http://opensiteexplorer.org
Moz's backlink checker: the index isn't as large or frequently updated as Majestic or Ahrefs though it sometimes catches links they miss. Plans start at $99/month for full access. I think the free version currently shows you up to 50 links, but only provides full info for the first 5
Google Search Console (GSC) - http://www.google.com/webmasters/
Free - the catch is you can only use it on domains you manage. It doesn't list ALL links to your site, and will give you links that no longer exist (like Majestic's "historic" index). But did I mention "free?"
TIP: If you're negotiating a big purchase directly from the current site owner, ask if they will temporarily give you a RESTRICTED SHARE of their GSC account. That way, you can check for backlinks, keyword / ranking information, manual penalty notices, and a slew of other useful data.
On a budget? There are ways to do decent backlink research in volume without breaking the bank on a subscription, but I’m going to be a tease and save that for a future post
.Now that we have our toolbox, let's dig in. For this post, I'll be using graphs from Ahrefs in my examples.
Digging Into the Link Profile
So now that you have some data, what exactly are we looking for? I grabbed a few PR2-4 expiring domains to use as examples.
Anchor Text
Anchor text is the clickable text in a text link to your site. It’s the most important thing to check and can usually give you a good idea of how the domain has been (mis)used in the past.
It should be pretty obvious that you don’t want to see this!
This site was hacked, spammed, and flooded with spam links.
What about this? PR3 domain was a generic phrase for a type of lamp holder gadget. English language domain of a foreign manufacturer maybe? Cut and paste a few of those babies into Google Translate …
Nope - Casino spam. The first keyword translates to “Naruto Casino.”
Similar one in English – This was a PR3 web designer cityname geodomain. You’ll see there are still a few web / internet links out there, but most links are off-topic. This domain used to be a web designer site/blog and it was picked up off a previous drop and used for auto dealer spam.
Surely this next one can’t be bad? It’s a travel-related domain name with travel-related anchor text.
The caveat here is that 100% commercial keyword anchor text practically screams “Hi Mom – I made these links myself!”. Google hates that. Natural link profiles have a much lower percentage of keyword anchor text and more branded and URL anchors. Like this one, for example
…Relevant keyword anchor text isn’t a red flag “avoid at all costs” signal, but it is definitely something you should be aware of as it could trigger an algorithmic or manual penalty for unnatural links. In that case, if I were interested in the domain I would look at the actual links in question to see how many links we're talking about and what kind of sites they were from.
Suspicious Spikes
How your domain is linked isn’t the only thing that matters – the rate at which the links were acquired can also be a sign of trouble. The most common example being “pump and dump” link blasts.
A lot of links acquired in a short period of time will show up on link graphs as a “spike.” One of these two examples was from a spam blast, the other from a story in the mainstream media that went viral. Can you guess which is which?
In this case the first one was from the media coverage, the second was the auto dealer spam I showed you earlier. The only way to tell these apart is to look at the linking domains. Example #1 has links from sites like Washington Post, Huffington Post, Reddit, Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance. Example #2 has things like free “seo” directories, random off-topic splogs in a variety of languages and comment spam.
Unnatural Patterns
The last thing I want to point out is unnatural linking patterns. This includes things like
- All the links are from one IP
- All the linking domains have the same “whois”
- Very small number of linking domains (especially if there are hundreds or thousands of actual links)
It also doesn’t hurt to be at least a little familiar with the types of links Google considers “link schemes” – again, not necessarily a showstopper (every site has some bad links), but you don't want to see a lot of them either. Always look at the whole picture to assess the situation.
Finally -The End!
Well, that’s a wrap! Thanks to the diehards who’ve stayed with me to the bitter end – hope this helps you make smarter purchase decisions and more profitable sales. Have a great week!
