Anyone ever sell an expensive domain name then the buyer drops it? Interesting opportunity opened up

[hopkism]

Just had a weird incident happen the other day in which a domain name I sold at auction on Flippa for high five figures nearly a year ago somehow got dropped by the previous owner and was unknowingly scooped up by what I'm assuming is a domain investor.

From my perspective the value was the website, the hundreds of pages of content that I wrote that ranked really well. The buyer dumped all of that and now the new owner is just parking the page. For some reason I saved all of those files in my hosting account.

What would you do? I'm thinking of just buying a quick domain name and throwing up all of that content on it. It was making great money for years just sitting there. My concern is whether or not any of it will rank again since it was all on the previous domain name. What are my options?

 

[promo]

How about throwing the current owner an email asking what he wants for the name now?

 

[mr-x]

Just had a weird incident happen the other day in which a domain name I sold at auction on Flippa for high five figures nearly a year ago somehow got dropped by the previous owner and was unknowingly scooped up by what I'm assuming is a domain investor.

From my perspective the value was the website, the hundreds of pages of content that I wrote that ranked really well. The buyer dumped all of that and now the new owner is just parking the page. For some reason I saved all of those files in my hosting account.

What would you do? I'm thinking of just buying a quick domain name and throwing up all of that content on it. It was making great money for years just sitting there. My concern is whether or not any of it will rank again since it was all on the previous domain name. What are my options?

Put up the content, then get the backlinks changed to the new domain. If you anyone else is using your content, file copywrite complaints with G and their hosting company. Ez-PZ.

 

[promo]

Changing backlinks to a new domain is hard/impossible to achieve on a website that is years old.

I would buy the old name as long as you can get it at xxx-xxxx$.. You sold it for 5 figures right.. Maybe you can do that again.

 

[mr-x]

Changing backlinks to a new domain is hard/impossible to achieve on a website that is years old.

I would buy the old name as long as you can get it at xxx-xxxx$.. You sold it for 5 figures right.. Maybe you can do that again.

I've done it. Not hard but time consuming. If you can get the name cheap, that's a good option.

If not..

 

[promo]

You changed 10s of thousands of backlinks and shifted domain on an established site? This is a site he sold for 5 figures, not your local directory site.

Anyways, if you value your time, then estimate how long it would take to achieve this and then compare it to buying the old domain. My time would be more valuable than buying it if its in xxxx$ but its a matter of perspective.. And earnings.

 

[mr-x]

You changed 10s of thousands of backlinks and shifted domain on an established site? This is a site he sold for 5 figures, not your local directory site.

Anyways, if you value your time, then estimate how long it would take to achieve this and then compare it to buying the old domain. My time would be more valuable than buying it if its in xxxx$ but its a matter of perspective.. And earnings.

1) Thousands of links is an assumption.

2) If you have links in DMOZ, call someone who works there. Once their links are corrected, the others will update. I know because I've done it.

3) Assumptions make you look like an ass.

 

[promo]

Right.

I can hear you really know what you are talking about. Call someone at Dmoz and your backlinks are fixed. I look like an arse......

 

[mr-x]

Right.

I can hear you really know what you are talking about. Call someone at Dmoz and your backlinks are fixed. I look like an arse......

That's right, you do.

 

[mr-x]

@hopkism Sorry OP. This wasn't supposed to be a pissing contest.

Both ideas have merit.

As for fixing back-links, in my experience it's easier than getting links. Bonus you can ignore the spammy ones.

Good luck with your new site. If you need SEO help, keep me in mind.

 

[hopkism]

Thanks for the advice guys. Yes, I sold the domain name just over a year ago now. The buyer was passionate about the backlinks I built (guest posting) and liked that several of my pages were bringing in great passive income through affiliate links. I think he underestimated the amount of work involved in keeping the site fresh and encouraging further linking. In the year he owned it he did absolutely nothing. Set up a new Wordpress theme and left all of the sample pages. I was happy to have made the sale, but felt bad that money was being left on the table.

I've reached out to the current owner who bought on behalf of another party in Latin America. Apparently it is not for sale and for what I sold it for I have that money tied up in inventory in another business. It was never an EMD, but had a brandable element to it.

I'm torn on the backlinks. They weren't necessarily great links, but they were mostly honest backlinks from sites that found the content useful to link to. I can see it being worthwhile to reach out to some websites and try to get the new links. The domain name itself is not tied to the content at all as far as the writing is concerned. As mentioned, my time is valuable and it would be quite easy with little time invested to simply buy another domain name and upload all of the files to that.

I've been away from SEO and all of that for a couple of years. What is the impact of uploading all of the content from to a new site when it was already indexed and ranked on another domain for 5+ years and had a whole year off? I'm starting to think I have nothing to lose, just trying to see if I'm missing something in the equation.