We covered the topic of taking over an old domain name from someone else and how that can sometimes be problematic in the Google SEO world. But here is a more recent comment from John Mueller of Google that is more encouraging on the topic.
The post is on Reddit where the owner of the domain name said "I launched a brand-new website on a new domain, everything looks solid" but "the site refuses to appear in SERPs for even the most basic branded queries." He added that "this domain used to belong to a completely different company," and asked "I’m wondering if the domain’s past life could be holding it back — like a reputation penalty or some kind of lingering Google baggage."
John Mueller from Google replied, "Sometimes it just takes a lot of time for the old state of a domain to be shaken off (sometimes that's also the case when it was parked for a while), and the site to be treated like something new / independent."
These things can take time for Google to reset things with the domain he said. But he did add that this owner should "keep using it" and keep building it up on this specific domain.
John wrote, "My suggestion for you specificially would be to keep using it, and to try to grow your visibility on other channels in the meantime."
Here is some of the additional advice he wrote in the thread:
- There's nothing manual that you can / need to do here.
- I would double-check in Search Console to make sure that there are no URL removal requests pending, and that there's nothing in the manual actions section, but I'm guessing you already did that.
Then when it comes to building up this domain name again over time, he gave some examples:
- It looks like you're findable via your Linkedin page, which links to your domain name. If you're active on LInkedin, and using that wisely to reference your domain, users can find it that way.
- Similarly, you could be active in other places, such as YouTube or other social media sites (The YT video for your company name is currently on a private profile, which can be ok, but which you could also do on a company-branded profile.
- Or, of course, a Reddit profile) In short, make it easy for people to find your content regardless of location when they search for it, especially for your company name.
- From there, expanding to the kinds of searches that could lead users who don't yet know your company to your content, would be the next step -- and even there it's useful to be active on various platforms.
Forum discussion at Reddit.
