Buying a website purely for its age and/or PR authority

[garethb]

Would anyone more experienced in IM ever consider buying another even if it were unlikely to be profitable in its own right? I'm looking at something that is around 8 years old, has a PR of 3 and would use it to link some of my newer sites to. the site I'm thinking about doesn't generate much traffic itself as it hasn't been worked on and there are more active competitors on the same keyword. So, I'd never get my purchase price back (low though it is), in terms of Adwords or whatever, but wondered about the merits of linking my other sites to it.

Any advice welcomed

[JJMcClure]

If the merits are to the site you're considering buying, then why wouldn't they help it? Do you mean that it would help your other sites? I doubt that, they'd have to be on topic and if Google ever spotted a connection they'd nerf the site.

[garethb]

The merits would be for my existing sites in terms of having relevant links from the newly acquired, "aged" site, and I thinik also for the site I'm buying in terms of relevant content on the site from sites I already have. If this makes sense...

[Nidec]

The merits would be for my existing sites in terms of having relevant links from the newly acquired, "aged" site, and I thinik also for the site I'm buying in terms of relevant content on the site from sites I already have. If this makes sense...

You still run the risk of Google cutting it adrift on forthcoming algorithm changes. If you think the price low enough to make it worthwhile then fair enough, but make allowances for this possibility in your valuation

[Matteo]

The merits would be for my existing sites in terms of having relevant links from the newly acquired, "aged" site, and I thinik also for the site I'm buying in terms of relevant content on the site from sites I already have. If this makes sense...

I have never purchased a site based on this, but I have sold a few websites for that very reason. These weren't for sale, I was approached by interested buyers. The buyers figured the relevant site could help their network. I even sold one 4 yr old site that had only about 20 static pages (but did had a listing in DMOZ) for $3,000. That site generated zero revenue since I never tried to monetize it.

[grynge]

I have whole networks of sites that don't make money or only a few dollars. It all depends on the site and what you want to do with it. Once I even bought a site because they were linking to my main competition. So yeah I would buy an old site just for the links.

Because of panda and penquin links are all up in the air at the moment, so make sure if you do purchase it no to leave any trace that the link is owned/being paid for by the same person.

[Matteo]

Once I even bought a site because they were linking to my main competition.

Great thinking here. Most people wouldn't see that obvious option.

[garethb]

make sure if you do purchase it no to leave any trace that the link is owned/being paid for by the same person.

Would I be right in thinking then that multiple hosting accounts are common once a portfolio gets to a significant size - even when you can in theory manage "unlimited" domains within your original hosting package?

Peter I find over the years that this is the cheapest option to link building. You can control all aspects of the links from when, what and how they are placed. Even deep linking is easy because you control it. Without paying a small fortune try do deeplinking for a product and see what that will cost. As long as the site is on topic and and your content with the link/deeplink is ontopic.

Interesting to get both points of view here in terms of the efficiency of buying a site for the linking benefit vs doing the linking "legwork" alone. I had wondered whether buying the site wasn't just am expensive route to get links but appreciate the control aspect mentioned by grynge. Also, I've wondered about whether the current links would actually remain once the site changes into my hands or whether there aren't some important ones that might be removed/lost once any transfer completes. The site would obviously still have its age etc but would I'm guessing its PR would suffer if some of the links went. Not sure what benefit there'd be purely from the age of a site..

[Slowdive]

Another thing to keep in mind is that this is a tough time to buy domains, at least old established ones. I have seen a lot of supposed steals, which have been dropped as they are basically poisoned .coms. I rather like them I have picked up some tasty two word domains lately on the cheap. However with huge incoming link profiles all from a few very sworded sources, its little wonder the owners let them slip.

[petertdavis]

I've done this before myself. What it ends up being, though, is an overly expensive way of doing link building. If it is a highly competitive niche, though, it may be worth it to you to be able to lock up the site and have it only link to you and not your competition.