Copy former sites...anyone ever done this?

[Gerry]

Curious to know something -

pm me if you don't want to answer in public.

Let's say you catch a dropped domain.

And that domain not only has decent age to it but it also has good history, backlinks, etc.

And it was a former active site.

There were no TM's or copyrights.



It is simply a dropped domain.

It is very easy to see what the former site looked like and what the keywords were, etc.

But now the site is no more.

How sad :disappointed:

Has anyone ever copied that former site and brought the site back to life using the same domain and the previous contents?

 

[Donald Aquilano]

The answer is a simple no. Why would I want to copy someone else's work. It obviously didn't work out to well for them since they let it drop so I can't see it working out for me. Better to take it in a new direction don't you think?

 

[Gerry]

It is not a question of "would you".

I am curious to know "have you" , as in anyone, ever done this?

As an example: dropping 14 year old domain, 596 Alexa back links, 14,800 Yahoo links, 484 WayBack, 9,700 Google Links of a company that has gone out of business, merged, or whatever - you can hardly call them a failure simply because the domain is dropping.

Domains with age drop for any number of reasons - some good, some so-so, some horrible reasons (death) that we simply do not know of.

To automatically think a former website and its contents and all the back links and its history and its age and its ranking is a failure simply because it (the domain) has or is dropping - well, I wish every one in the domain business saw things that way.

Sure would make things easier for me if every one felt that way.

-----------------------------------

Getting back to the question:

is this a form of scrapping?

With parking going into the gutter, taking aged sites (domains) back to their similar selves seems to be a logical choice.

Re-construction or Restoration more or less.

 

[Seraphim]

I've done it before to get a domain unbanned from Google, then once the domain had a clean bill of health, I removed the content, as I didn't want to wait around for a cease and desist.

 

[dotNetKing]

I've done this once for a small Peruvian geo domain and I'm considering do it again an a recently acquiried Peruvian geo domain, where possible giving acknowledgement for the work done by the previous owners.

I seem to remember getting an e-mail from the previous owner last time saying he was pleased that the domain and information were being put to good use.

 

[Area52]

Sounds like what BO is doing with the old Clinton administration.

Kidding aside, why wouldn't someone copyright the result of long hours of work it takes to create a decent and original site from scratch?
The former owner might have "borrowed" the content from someone else.

 

[cursal]

I have done this as well. I used archive .org and did "rebuild" a site.
It kept its pr and back links.
I did change the layout/design and did as Seraphim. Removed old content, then forwarded old pages to new ones via htaccess, looking at all the 404 gave a very easy list of to dos.

I say go ahead, but change it up to make it your own once you have a handle on the name/site.

 

[Dale Hubbard]

Yep. I have done it and it works okay but add new content sharpish It works because the backlinks work in terms of people finding what they are looking for. However, a content update is good for Google. You can use archive.org to your advantage.

Edit: Keep the URL structure the same.

 

[Gerry]

I have done this as well. I used archive .org and did "rebuild" a site.
It kept its pr and back links.

I say go ahead, but change it up to make it your own once you have a handle on the name/site.

EXACTLY what I was thinking. PR and backlinks drop quickly.

How rapidly did you build the site to keep the PR and backlinks?

Yep. I have done it and it works okay but add new content sharpish It works because the backlinks work in terms of people finding what they are looking for. However, a content update is good for Google. You can use archive.org to your advantage.

Edit: Keep the URL structure the same.

BINGO!

New content but the structure, product/service, and overall "theme" remain the same.

Good to know.

 

[cursal]

EXACTLY what I was thinking. PR and backlinks drop quickly.

How rapidly did you build the site to keep the PR and backlinks?

When: Last time I did this was little over a year ago.
Time: Within 48 hours of registering the name I had the site structure and what ever content was "there" before done. (I had researched the domain previously).

I swapped out content daily until it was all replaced. It was a relatively small site and pages that I couldn't save were 301'ed to the index. Not just a blanket 404 to the index, but using cpanel stats of 404 pages to show the bots and spiders that I was taking the time and cared about those lost pages. Same for old html files --> 301 to same-name.php I could have used a handle change, but again I like the htaccess so the bots get cozy with the site.

So total time from reg-to-mini-site with new look and content: a few hours a day for 1 week.

 

[Bender]

yes, I've done it as well- not using the texts the previous owner had, but the same menus, pages, and "look and feel".This way, everybody is happy.

 

[Gerry]

Thanks to all.

Good responses.