Yes, a domain’s past can indeed affect its current SEO. There are several ways in which this can occur:
- Manual Actions: Google’s manual actions can affect a domain’s current ranking. If a domain has been involved in manual actions such as violating Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, it can negatively impact its current search rankings. These issues can be checked using Google’s Search Console.
- Negative History: Even if a domain has changed hands and is repurposed, its past activities can still influence its present ranking. This can range from moderate to severe impacts depending on the domain’s past.
- Link Profile: The link profile of a domain, including its inbound and outbound links, can also impact its current SEO. This includes checking for any spammy links or negative associations.
- Previous Ownership: The previous owners of a domain can also influence its current SEO. If the domain was used for spammy link building tactics or other shady SEO tactics, it can affect its current SEO.
Before acquiring a domain, it’s essential to conduct due diligence to understand its past. Tools like Majestic, Ahrefs, and SEMrush can be used to check the domain’s history and link profile. Additionally, checking the domain’s history on Archive.org can give a real-time history of the domain going back ten years or more 2.
If a domain has a negative history or penalties, but not severe enough to abandon it, remember that these issues will gradually resolve over time. John Mueller from Google has assured that such issues do self-resolve given time.
How long does it take for negative history or penalties to resolve and have an impact on a domain’s current SEO?
The resolution time for negative history or penalties can vary significantly and there isn’t a definitive timeline set by Google. However, according to John Mueller from Google, the past history of a domain tends to resolve over time. He suggested that if the bad history was short-lived, it will eventually disappear on its own.
If the period of bad history extends over a decade or longer, then it may be a cause for concern. In such cases, site owners may have to start over with a new domain if the URL they’ve acquired has a significant stretch of negative activity 4.
On the other hand, the time to lift a penalty can vary significantly — from 48 hours to a year or even more 3. Some cases can be left unanswered for months, which affects the entire penalty removal process. This shows that the time to resolve a penalty is not fixed and can depend on a variety of factors, including the nature of the penalty and the actions taken by the website owner to rectify the issues