Is it worth buying banned domains?

Greetings again, friends.

I have to say I have been very fortunate when it comes to domains and Google. I’ve only ever had one domain ‘banned’ by Google, and that appears to be as a result of incorrectly configuring , or using, a plugin to ping XML. The domain was soon dropped from Google, but it does rejoice in substantial traffic from Yahoo! and Bing so I retained the domain.

Anyhow, recently I saw a discussion about the benefits of domain age and whether or not it is worth buying an aged, but banned, domain and then submitting a Google re-inclusion request as the new owner of the domain. That way, as least as the theory goes, you benefit from the domain’s age with a more or less clean slate for your SEO efforts. Seems like a winner, I agree.

However, poking around a little further, I found this recent post over at the SEO Roundtable. It seems to be a proxy Q&A involving that ever-affable, yet ever-ambiguous, public face of Google, Matt Cutts. If you read over the presentation notes, scrolling down to about 10:45 it gets quite interesting for anyone considering buying a domain, in particular a banned domain. Be sure to check over the history of a domain before buying, Cutts recommends. Ok, fair enough, seems like common due diligence to most. But then adds something along the lines of if you have a banned domain then drop it and start with a new domain since fresh ground is level ground.

Ok, this may sound like one of those Nostradamus type riddles that crop up from “people in the know”, but it seems as though he is suggesting that there is now far too much effort involved for the owner to get a domain unbanned. This appears to weaken the grounds for the previously recommended action of submitting a re-inclusion request.