Comments on: Mr Cutts are you sure about that?

By: Tina

Tina — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 05:57:18 +0000

I personally agree Igore. I have seen websites, that had been sold, they ownerships been changed, even the hostings, and there has been no change in the results. Matt is High I guess

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Simple Block segmentation analysis • Tim Nash UK SEO Blog — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:09:00 +0000

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By: Igor The Troll

Igor The Troll — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:27:26 +0000

Tim, you better go see Matt and clarify this. From what I gather there is no consensus to support this claim.

What Matt means is that if you buy a travel related domain and use it for SEO blog or viagra, etc. incoming links will be devalued.

But you never know, need to verify with him! He does talk in riddles! I guess he tries to see how much he can scare Black Hats off and always pushes the envelope.

By: Tim Nash

Tim Nash — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:17:40 +0000

Thanks Greg but I don’t think that is the one Brian means as it does not mention him using phased whois as part of a contract which is what I was after Unless he meant

Good question….I try to change as little of the whois as possible….getting their register login is the ultimate….beyond that, I try to change as little as possible…that’s all I’ll say.

Not quite the same thing at all but I can understand why he said it when he did, though it is related very much with the sandbox which is not something that really exists these days.

By: Greg Johnson

Greg Johnson — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:52:45 +0000

here’s a link to Jim Boykin’s article talking about buying sites
jimboykin.com/screw-the-sandbox-buy-and-old-site/

By: shah

shah — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 09:13:40 +0000

If this is true, then why do banned domains continue to be banned by Google long after they’ve expired and re-registered by other people?

By: Igor

Igor — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:16:07 +0000

This sounds like more Warmongering and inducing fear on Webmasters.

Matt Cutts give it a break!

The guy who buys your house after you cannot pay your bank note can resale it for a value greater than zero, something around the market going rate!

A property does not become valueless just because it changes ownership!

Google needs to stop playing God!

By: Melanie Prough

Melanie Prough — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:23:28 +0000

The links should stay as in all honesty the belong to the site/domain. If I am to sell a online store, clearly I am going to make it rank and do some pretty significant link building to make it a better offering for purchase. So if the buyer is running related content, or in this case the developed content, why on earth would the site stand to lose its backlinks or rank.

So, Google me this… Yahoo sells to MSN they should lose all authority, rank and inbound links… Right? To hell with any merit a domain may have, I think not.

The links, rank, trust, and authority are exactly why domains do not depreciate in value… Unless you screw one up.

When you 301, backlinks are transferred regardless of the name. It then boils down their worth… Are the considered relative enough or will they be devalued. They will however remain attached to the domain, and transfer over (After a while).

By: Tim Nash

Tim Nash — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:10:34 +0000

Hi Doug, yep from quotes by yourself, Brian and Todd on Sphinn it would appear this was old news rewrapped in light of Matts more recent comments. Though finding the earlier quotes to add to the story is proving elusive so perhaps there is some running ground left.

Many people would be horrified if as Matt said sites (which people are buying as businesses not a domain) were to suddenly lose their rankings because their inbound links were cut. It would if true (which ever single commentator who has purchased, sold domains in this thread have said it just is not) completely change the whole turnkey site industry and seriously damage the value of sites when it came to sales. Even if it is just for expired domains it would have some impact.

Now if the new owner changes the content to a completely different subject as mentioned further up the comments then quite rightly the links are going to lose their weight. But lets put it another way why should a name change on the whois document effect rankings?

By: Doug Heil

Doug Heil — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:58:26 +0000

Isn’t this old news? Didn’t Matt discuss this about two years ago now? I’ve got to ask; why should the incoming links stay as is if ownership changes and the site content or anything else changes?

Anyway; anytime you change things up with your domain, many things can happen. It’s the same thing if you just change the name to redirect to another domain name. I just thought all of this stuff has been covered over and over again on many different types of fora, etc. It appears some out there don’t get out too much.