Last week I saw a write up on Search Engine Roundtable linking to a Reddit post about, well, I’ll just do a block quote:
I launched a brand-new website on a new domain, everything looks solid:
- Indexed in Google (shows up with
site:domain).- No errors in Search Console.
- Sitemap and robots.txt are clean.
Here’s the strange part: the site refuses to appear in SERPs for even the most basic branded queries. Not ranking for generic terms is one thing, but not showing up at all for my own company name (let’s call it Octigen GmbH)? That feels really odd.
Now, here’s the twist: this domain used to belong to a completely different company (also called Octigen) that went bust years ago. Old links still exist in forums, ecommerce sites, etc. 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.
This was a notable SEO story because John “J Mu” Mueller, “Search Advocate” at Google a.k.a. a go-between from Google’s internal search team and all the poor souls trying to rank in Google, chimed in.
He said (bolding is my addition btw):
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. 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.
My suggestion for you specificially would be to keep using it, and to try to grow your visibility on other channels in the meantime. For example, 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.
So, to recap:
- there’s nothing you can do
- try posting on Youtube
- try posting on Reddit
If only there was a tool, some kind of Console related to search where you could indicate such things, and instead of living in obscurity trying to sacrifice rabbits to a digital god that doesn’t know you exist–much less care, or saging your domain to try and clear lingering spirits, you could indicate that an old domain is not being used for a new purpose. Or something
Could be good!
But I didn’t just want to complain about useless advice here (not JUST that), I also want to share some experiences I have had with this in the hope it might be useful to people going through this. I mean, any advice, even “try inserting a fork into the wall outlet” is better than the advice from the Search Advocate, so. Low bar.
Losing My Religion Traffic and Rankings
I’ve mentioned this before in my newsletter, but here is the story in public.
In the wild old days of 2019/2020 I ran an affiliate site related to vaping (so cool). The brand was mid, but it was getting like 1k-2k visits/day at peak. This is a story about the peak.
I grabbed an aged domain that used to belong to a similar-niche, a brand that was acquired by a huge roll-up company that they let expire. It was a MUCH better brand AND it had some juice.
I thought, I’ve acquired/301’d domains like this before a hundred times. This is a slam dunk.
I did my diligence.
I did my research.
No problems with the expiring domain, no issues with trademarks.
Time to dance.
The domain landed in my account and I went to work.
- Put all the content from my original domain on the acquired domain
- Implement all the 301s so that each URL goes to its new URL
- Sit back and wait.
Actually, in this case the third step was to do some dabbling in search console to tell Google “hey bro, this is my new URL. Let it be known”
I don’t usually do that step, but this domain made a really solid affiliate income and had a ton of traffic, so I wanted to be extra about it.
Traffic started to drop… no big deal, this is expected: 2-4 weeks of pain until rankings stabilize.
This time, though, they kept dropping.
And dropping.
Dropping.
As rankings and revenue collapsed like a colony of bees in 2007, I consulted many friends in the industry.
We tried everything, every best practice, every stupid idea and it just kept dropping.
I spent an hour or two searching and found screenshots I shared with Nick LeRoy at the time:
Here is the difference in traffic from where the site was after it tanked vs. the same day of the week average:
I tried everything I could think of to get these keywords going, but it wasn’t happening.
Finally, I unwound the rebrand.
All content back on the original domain, 301’d every URL from the new domain to its proper home on the original domain.
2-4 weeks of pain and everything came roaring back.
Here’s a peek at what the keywords dropping looked like, and just how IMMEDIATE they returned:
(those little crowns represented that keyword having the featured snippet, which is a little SERP feature that used to be around back when we could still have nice things before AI overviews. Immediately these KWs popped back in the featured snippet/#1 spot).
It seems Google’s index had a fixed idea about what content belonged on that site and was entirely unwilling to change its mind.
Could I have kept the experiment going longer to see if
*checks notes
posting on LinkedIN about my stupid affiliate site would have helped?
Sure.
But the losses were real, and even using Google’s specific tool that they provided for this very scenario saw my traffic going down to about 100/day instead of 3000, so I pushed it back.
Fun anecdote, the organic traffic came back better and stronger. My take on why: all URLs were juiced up by an additional aged domain with juice (even one Google hated for this rebrand) linking to them.
I eventually sold this affiliate site and no longer own it.
How to Solve For This In The Future
I’m tempted to give a “this is what you should look for before you rebrand or initially brand to a domain you acquired that has a history one way or the other,” but I’ve already proven that I cannot really tell with 100% accuracy if it will work or not.
I thought I had all the answers here before that failed rebrand.
However, this is something I’ve done a ton of times, so I have a robust perspective.
So instead of saying “here’s how to do it and not F-it up,” I’ll say:
Here’s How I Handle Newly Acquired Domains These Days
First, do the due diligence.
This is not a post about how to do due dil on a name you’re acquiring (should I write that? LMK), but here’s a quick overview:
- do a site:search — you’re looking for it to exist in the index. Not existing is a bad sign.
- put it in Ahrefs or Semrush and look at incoming domains and anchor text. Not spammy? That’s good news.
- put it in web.archive.org and REALLY poke around. If it wasn’t used for p*rn or betting or other obvious red flags, good!
That’s the 80/20.
Once you’re sure it’s clean (or that, even if it’s dirty, you want to take the time and pain to rebrand… don’t look at the history of THIS domain lol), it’s time for step 2.
Build the site out, but don’t move everything over yet.
Let’s take the example from OP on Reddit.
You’re Octigen, and you just grabbed Octigen.com @ auction. F-yeah! EMD for the win, you got the .com for your brand, you are killing it.
You create a bunch of good content, a beautiful logo, a well-design, good-looking site. You push it all live, set up GSC, submit the sitemap, etc.
Nothing.
Not a god damned thing happens (as is the case with OP).
Here’s what I’d suggest doing instead:
Set up a ten page site. Make the H1 include your brand, put it in the meta data, write about who you are what you do, etc. etc. It doesn’t have to be particularly beautiful or well done, you are truly only writing for the algorithm at this point.
Put up some blog posts on super longtail topics that relate to your site or brand. A simple about page and a contact page. Heavily brand them. Make it look REAL. Logo in the footer, updated copyright, interlink–all of it.
Submit the sitemap via GSC.
Do 10 minutes of link building to get the brand anchor text linking from all the obvious places.
If you have an “in” in the “in”dustry, build a niche relevant link or two.
At such a time as you start getting some search console action for your brand name (important!) or your long tail blog posts (a nice to have!), or at such a time as you googling your brand returns a result in the first few pages of Google, you can go ahead and make the move.
This has all been distilled down from building on a ton of aged domains that I acquired mostly through GoDaddy auctions.
Sometimes it’s a rocket ship and you only have to lay some extremely niche content down.
Sometimes it’s not going to rank no matter what you do to it, Google’s algo gets stuck and will die on this hill.
I get it, it’s not very sustainable to bid hundreds or thousands on a domain you want to rebrand to, and then test if it’ll work, and if NOT, just throw it away.
But if you’re going to go down this route regardless, you can at least test things before you invest heavily in the design and waste a bunch of time putting content on the site before you know if the name will be beloved of Google.
