Whether it is a .com or dot anything, you need to be sure that the domain you are paying a lot of money in is safe and worth every penny you are putting in it.
Buying a used domain is like buying an expensive used car, it may look fancy but you don't know what is under the hood. So, you need to check everything, get a report, and be comfortable knowing that the domain you are driving won't run into an accident in the future because you did not spend one hour doing some check-ups.
The following 14 points is my checklist, you can use it as is, or add more to it if you like:
Buying a used domain is like buying an expensive used car, it may look fancy but you don't know what is under the hood. So, you need to check everything, get a report, and be comfortable knowing that the domain you are driving won't run into an accident in the future because you did not spend one hour doing some check-ups.
The following 14 points is my checklist, you can use it as is, or add more to it if you like:
- site: search on the domain name in Google, Bing
- info: Search
- Google the domain name and check reputation
- Keyword search volume, and competition (AdWords KW Planner)
- Check the Domain age http://moonsy.com/domain_age/
- Check the way back machine at Archive.org
- Check robots.txt file and see if archive.org is disabled
- Check Backlinks quantity and quality
- Check domain and IP health and if it is blacklisted http://mxtoolbox.com/
- Check domain and IP health on https://www.ultratools.com/domainHealthReport
- Check if blacklisted: http://www.blacklistalert.org/
- see if the Domain or IP is currently listed in the live Spamhaus Domain Blocklist (DBL) http://www.spamhaus.org/lookup/
- check if it is on DMOZ or Yahoo Dir
- Find contact info on Whois.net. If not private, run a search on the contact person
