Hi, If I were to buy an expired domain name and someone does a WHOIS query, do they get to see when the domain was originally registered (by its first owner, i.e.)? Thanks
The creation date of previous registration will not be seen by a WHOIS querry. The date shown as Created date will be the one of your new registration.
Aiks! That is what I feared. So, when people say that Google likes old domains (assuming that is true), does Google equally like a domain name that was once registered, then expired and was re-registered
Follow Up Question: If you buy an expired domain which had a lot of links pointing to it, does your new site get the benefit of those existing links?
If the links are live you will get the traffic. Pure speculation but over a period of time I would quess that it would help your PR. I don't really know how refined the ratings are or how the SE's go about monitoring expireds.
I think Google resets any valuation. PR for instance is zeroed. Even a ban can be cancelled if there's a new owner, but apparently you need to apply for a new unbanned status. So, Google links are useful only for the traffic, not for pure SEO purposes, for other search engines they are still useful. Obviously it depends for what keywords it was indexed and if it was indexed at all. The use that you will make of the website could count. And finally I am not sure if it helps with PR, even in the long run.
Shucks, so my plans to build an empire out of expired domains crumbles. Let me rush and delete some of the SNAPNAMES orders before they get executed