I have two similar questions. The first being, if I where to buy an expired domain especially one that has pr and has been indexed, can you avoid the sandbox "reset" that occurs when the domain expires and the whois occurs? The second being, if I where to buy a domain that had not expired from someone else, how can I avoid the sandbox "reset"? Could I have the seller set up a whois protection and as he transfers to me keep that protection in place . I'd really like to get a hold of some old domains and start throwing weight at them without being penaltized.
I have bought a couple domains like this. I did not get penalized for the buy, but not saying that it will not happen to you. It is going to be up to Googles system if they pull the page rank from the domain and that is a 50/50 chance it is going to happen.
Sometimes you loose the PR sometimes you don't. You pays your money and takes your chances. With the sandbox, there are 2 scenarios: 1) buying an expired domain: Google sometimes treats this as if it's a completely new domain and sometimes doesn't. If you can develop a site along the same lines as the previous one then that seems to help. 2) transferring a domain from someone else: (NOTE this domain hasn't expired). I've never yet been dumped into the sandbox doing this, nor have I ever lost PR. I dare say that if you went and developed a site which was in no way related to the previous site, then pointed loads of weight at it, you might find the sandbox welcoming you. These are only my experiences, I know that others have seen different things. Personally, I think that when buying an expired domain you need to limit the amount of time where the bots don't find any site. I try to have the new site (or at least a redesigning holding page) in place so that there is always something there.