What's the difference between catching expiring domain and registering just dropped?

[Fking]

In case A you win the domain on auction like godadday's for example. It becomes yours before it's totally dropped.
in case B you register just expired domain at any registrar for $10


Is there any difference SEO wise? Especially regarding to PageRank. Does it lose all it's benefits like age, history and PR once it's dropped, even if it's for few hours?

 

[lothos]

the domain will lose it's age when it drops.

 

[Fking]

the domain will lose it's age when it drops.

ok and what about the PR?

 

[NoHeroes]

PR depends on backlinks, not the domain age. In my experience, I've had both expired and dropped domain retain PR. I've also had both lose PR.

IMHO, PR is useless. Forget about pagerank and worry about search ranking.

 

[4pm]

PR depends on backlinks, not the domain age. In my experience, I've had both expired and dropped domain retain PR. I've also had both lose PR.

IMHO, PR is useless. Forget about pagerank and worry about search ranking.

according to Google (you can google their developers posts on this) PR still affects search ranking among other metrics. but the weight of this particular factor is well kept secret

..domain age is also taken into consideration for ranking purposes as far as i know, no big impact thou.. i may be wrong