If I buy an existing website will it lose its PR on transfer?

I'm thinking of buying an existing domain with PR4 as an ongoing business, i.e. I will preserve and enchance the existing content over time. When the domain is transferred to me, will the domain lose its existing PR and will the existing backlinks become worthless?

 

The only way you loose PR when buying a site is if somehow you loose links to the site at the same time ... which is not likely.

 

I'm not sure what you mean mikey1090. Isn't the toolbar value just a snapsot of PR at a particular point in the year: could the PR have been lost prior to the toolbar export?

I had heard Google tried to reset PR to 0 when it detected a domain transfer. Has anyone else heard of this?

 

Not true. Where did you hear that? They have been known to do it with expired domains in the past.

 

Secret Squirrel,

Try looking at the posts at these links:

http://www.johnon.com/543/mattcutts-domainroundtable.html
http://forums.seochat.com/google-op...-need-help-with-guidelines-please-198720.html

 

You need to go and read those posts again. They are talking about expired doamins. The question above is about an existing website/domain.

 

Thanks Secret Squirrel. I wanted to be sure I wasn't reading too much into the posts. I'll be more confident in purchasing a site now.

 

No, you never loose the PR on any domain transfer. A PR4 on a domain is pretty
darn good!! .com I hope.

 

It's a PR4 .com with about 100 visitors a day. I've still got to figure out how much it's worth.

 

No way! The PR won't change because of change of ownership but all the inbound links should remain intact

 

You should not actually lose the PR as far as you dont lose the content and back links(mainly)..so dont worry much.

 

I think it depends both on contents and backlinks. if both stay sames then no worries.

 

I haven't ever heard that changing the owner will change the PR immediately.
If so, no one would like to buy an existing website.