How to background check a domain before purchasing.

[mbuna]

Ok, if you were going to buy a domain from someone can you outline what steps you take to verify the authenticity of the domain (name, ownership, pagerank, backlinks, ?,?,?,?) before the purchase?

Just trying to nail down everything I should check before I drop any $$ on a domain.

Thanks!

 

[Peter]

Some of the things people tend to check are things such as the Alexa Rank, you can use link:domain.com in google if for example it is highly ranked pr wise to see where it is getting some of the pr from. You can also check the Wayback Machine to see what the domain has been used for in the past (it may show you a several cached pages of the site since it was registered).

To try and ensure the pr is as genuine as possible you can use tools such as THIS 1 (there are plenty of others).

If you have a domain tools paid subscription you can also check things such as whois history for the domain.

 

[Damion]

Google link command isn't very accurate, you could use Yahoo's site explorer or a diversified lookup tool that gives you information on:

Pagerank Analysis
Check Page Rank In 67 Data Centers
Age of Domain
Check out Internet Archive (archive.org)
Check to see if domain was ever dropped and other domain related information

Directory Listings
Listed in DMOZ.org: Yes
Listed in Yahoo: No

Backlinks:
Google:
Yahoo:
Altavista:
AllTheWeb:

Click on the number of indicated Yahoo backlinks and you'll see the Site Explorer's results

Indexed Pages

In overall a useful page :imho: