High PageRank Domain Fraud
EF NOTE: This is for those among you who want to buy domains based on their Google PageRank (PR) ratings, and are willing to pay a premium for higher PRs. Shopping through registrars like GoDaddy and auction sites like eBay for good, clever and very marketable domains without regard to PR (and their higher prices) don’t have to be quite as worried about the “fraud” described here, but you may still want to use some of the really helpful domain checker tools mentioned in this very useful article.
By Jerry West
This article covers the rising rate of fraud in the industries of selling expired and used domains.
I recently purchased some good and seemingly well-established domains (they had good PageRanks) from a broker. However, when I “got them home” so to speak, they were far from what I thought I had purchased. In my investigation into this, it was clear the domains I had purchased — and many of the domains being sold today from brokers (especially on eBay) — are littered with fraud.
Domain names are investments, and any investment should be researched. Never make the assumption that the domain broker has done this research for you. Chances are, he hasn’t.
Just as there is fraud in PPC, there is fraud in domain purchasing. Just because the Google Toolbar states a PageRank 5 doesn’t mean it is.
First, let’s discuss the process and how the con artist works. Most SEOs and knowledgeable webmasters know the value of a high PageRank site. And how it can take months, even a year to get a solid PageRank 5 site. So, many SEOs and webmasters turn to domains being sold to get a jumpstart on the process. Their thinking is, “If I spend a few thousand on this site, it will shave months off my work schedule.”
The thinking is sound, but unfortunately, the bad guys know you are thinking this and they take advantage of a “loophole” in the system that isn’t known to most SEOs.
The Google Toolbar
Google really didn’t know they were starting “addictive behavior” when they first introduced their toolbar back in 2002. Now, millions of webmasters all have “Green Bar Addiction” and they watch their PageRank values often as closely as investors do the stock market.
The Loophole
In order to protect their algorithm from their competition (Yahoo! and Microsoft) and “black hat” marketers, Google publicly shows “delayed” PageRank. Much like the free stock quoting tools online are 15 minute delayed, the Google Toolbar is delayed too. Only, it isn’t just a few minutes, but 3-5 months.
So, the PageRank you see displayed is actually the PageRank the page had some time in the past few weeks or months. I am sure you know where this is going now.
Google updates their toolbar about once every three months. So, the con artist usually does one of two things. The first is that they will hijack the PageRank on another domain. I won’t go into how this is done, so amateur thieves can’t replicate it. The second way they do this is that they will buy or beg for temporary links from other sites or networks, drive up the PageRank to a 5 or 6, and when the Toolbar updates, they cancel all the bought links, lowering the real PageRank to zero. You see, even though Google “delays” the showing of the PageRank by a couple of months, they use the current values in their ranking process.
So, even though the site can “verify” it is a PageRank 5, the actual value (what Google currently counts) is 0. You basically bought a “vapor domain.” Here is a systematic way to check to ensure what you are being sold is genuine. This is your “gotta make sure this Rolex is really a Rolex” cheat sheet:
1. The first thing to do is to just go to the site directly and see if the PageRank is the same as advertised. Sometimes the con artist gets lazy and doesn’t realize a toolbar update happened and their “PR5″ site is actually displaying “PR0.”
2. While you are there, look at the site. Is the domain online? Is the site still live or is there a “placeholder” page? If it is a placeholder, the domain is probably dead.
3. Next, you want to look at the site’s history. When was the domain registered? To whom? Where is it hosted? Is it on its own IP or is it sharing with hundreds or thousands of other domains? What was the site before?
A great place to start your research is DomainTools.com There you can find key information: when the domain was registered, where it is hosted, and if the domain has its own IP address or not. If it is sharing an IP address, you can access the Reverse IP Tool, and often you can uncover networks of sites. This does require at least a Silver Membership which currently runs $15 a month. It will also tell you if the domain is on any email black lists.
To find out what the site was before, you can use the Wayback Machine. The reason you want to do this is if the domain you want to acquire was a child porn site five years ago, you’ll know. You’ll want to pass for obvious reasons.
4. Is the site listed in the Google index? Just because it has PageRank doesn’t mean it is still listed, so check. The best way to do this is to check the Google Cache. Do a query in Google for cache:domain.com (home page check) or cache:domain.com/subpage.html (subpage check). Please note that if there are no results that come up, the Google couldn’t cache the site. If that is the case, use the site: command instead. I like using the “cache” command first as that allows me to see the most recently indexed page and what it looked like. If it is different than what is currently displayed, that could be a red flag.
5. Verify the PageRank is legit. In the domain buying space, PageRank is often faked — especially on eBay or other auctions. I have been a victim of this in the past.
So, how can you protect yourself? Easy. You can use the free PageRank Detection SEO tool over at SEO Logs. Just type in the domain and it will check. If it comes back and verifies that it is valid, are you safe? Not quite. One more check.
Use the Google PageRank Prediction tool at iWebTool. It will give you a prediction based on current link counts from MSN. You should also check Yahoo!’s Site Explorer. These are two great resources because they update their links on a weekly basis, whereas Google updates theirs about once a quarter.
That was a lot to digest, I know, but this is how I make sure that I never get taken when buying domains. Getting ripped off is never something that is pleasant — and domain fraud is a killer as your ability to recoup your loss is slim to none.
Now you have the knowledge that you need in order to verify what is being presented to you is real.
Jerry West is an SEO Analyst for Web Marketing Now, an SEO Testing and Research agency. He is the author of the SEO Revolution, a paid membership site for webmasters and SEOs to get access to his testing information from over 500 domains and he is faculty member of StomperNet, the leading eCommerce online instructional community.
