Is buying an expired domain good for SEO?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  Jason Smith: It all depends, you should check the spam score before buying. Also it depends on the history of the site, for example if it was a porn site and you want to sell household items, this will make the back links irrelevant. I`m not an expert but this is what I have read.
  
  22h
• 
  Thomas Underwood: Jason Smith surely it’s only worth whole if the backlink profile is topical and relevant to your niche?
  
  21h
• 
  Jason Smith: Thomas Underwood that`s what I was trying to say but saying that, I used to sell sex toys but now I`m selling Gothic, Pagan and Wiccan items using the same domain, while it did drop in the rankings for a month during the change over stage, it soon picked up again. As I said, I`m not an expert on this and hopefully someone will be able to help you.
  
  19h
• 
  Thomas Underwood: Jason Smith you probably saw my old post but I was thinking of similar niche and then maybe branching into nightwear as built up my products
  
  What sort of MRR are you getting and did it take a few years to build up to this?
  
  19h
• 
  Jason Smith: Thomas Underwood sorry I didn`t see your old post. My MMR is quite low at the moment as I`m rewriting the descriptions of 1900 products to hopefully get on Googles good side instead of repeated content. I started the Pagan stuff around November last year but I have illnesses which hinder how much I can do a day but no money to hire anyone, so I`m in a catch 22 situation where I`m having to learn everything my self.
  
  19h
• 
  Thomas Underwood: Jason Smith just dm as had a couple more questions which are now off topic to my original thread about expired domains
  
  19h
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  Michael Martinez: Search engines don`t use Domain ity. If you find an expired domain with thousands or hundreds of thousands of backlinks, it`s more likely they were spammed than naturally earned. Once in a while a legitimate domain with a lot of natural links is let go, but they are a small percentage of the high-DA sites that are recycled by people trying to milk links.
  
  If the links were redirected after the domain expired, then any value they COULD pass would be sent to the new targets - or simply lost if the algorithms don`t like the new targets. So you need to be careful about assuming all those links exist.
  
  In my opinion, you`d be better off finding a good, brandable domain name and creating real value around it. My partner and I have had good success doing that
  
  19h
• 
  Emad Gnawi: Let me advise you to forget about
  
  13h
• 
  Thomas Underwood: Emad Gnawi forget about…?
  
  13h
• 
  Emad Gnawi: Thomas Underwood believe me yes.. dozens of my clients paid to end up with a fail (not to say scam or ranking penalties) and come looking how to limit damages .. is an advise based on experienceLook at how Google algorithms works you`ll see clearer
  
  13h
• 
  Thomas Underwood: Emad Gnawi this is what I thought and why I asked if it was consider blackhat but wanted to check what people thought.
  
  I know some people swear by some blackhat techniques and others avoid.
  
  12h
• 
  Emad Gnawi: Thomas Underwood believe me it will end up with a ban or at least a loss of DA and ranking
  
  11h
• 
  Sourav Ratul: Buying an expired domain can do more harm than good if the backlinks are spammed and not from your relevant niche. You should check the relevancy of the site with your niche, and the spam score before you go for something like that.
  
  5h
• 
  Ash Nallawalla: In SEO we don`t look at this thing called DA. If your only interest is buying and selling websites, it might be useful. Some tool company`s measure isn`t a Google measure.
  
  2h