Lately I'm buying domains for my new network...
and I'm doing lots of research on domains that I'm buying.
So I have created this little tutorial on aged domain buying.
Please note this is not about entire websites, only domain names!
OK I assume that you have domain that you want to buy.
1) Sneaky and shady stuff checking
Check if domain is redirected or some other sneaky stuff,
so go to google.com and search for "info:domain.com"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&g...l=&oq=&gs_rfai=
If some other site is in the result then don't consider this domain.
Also search this: "site:domain.com"
you will see how many indexed pages this domain have, this number don't have to be true!
Click on cached to see what domain is about.
2) Domain age checking
Go to web.archive.org and check domain age and check what domain was about in the past(content)
Welcome to The Internet Archive Wayback Machine
you can also check domain age at who is record:
WHOIS Lookup at DomainTools.com - Domain Availability and Registration Search
Look for info when domain was registered.
3) Valid Google PR?
Check if Google PR is valid and some basic link popularity:
Check Page Rank!
it will tell you if PR is valid or not.
also tip from step 1 can tell you if PR is valid:
google search --> "info:domain.com"
4) Checking link popularity
This is great and very accurate tool:
Majestic SEO: Link Intelligence Tools
it will show you how many backlinks domain have and from how many different domains, also .edu, .guv and different IP addresses, great tool
5) Checking types of backlinks
Another backlink checking tool is from SEOMoz
Open Site Explorer: Link Popularity & Backlink Analysis Tool
This tool will help you discover anchor texts pointing back to that domain as well as do-follow and no-follow links, img backlinks, 301 redirects, etc...
6) More backlink checking
This is universally known backlink checker, but it is still good:
Site Explorer - Yahoo! Site Explorer
7) Even some more checking
Also search google in quotes for domain name "domain.com"
That way you can get more info about domain, what domain was about and about backlinks that are pointing back to that domain.