In this video of Google Webmasters, Matt Cutts is responding to the following question:
How can we check to see if a domain (bought from a registrar) was previously in trouble with Google? I recently bought, and unbeknownst to me the domain isn’t being indexed and I’ve had to do a reconsideration request. How could I have prevented?
So what should be done? Well, first, Cutts says that doing a site-colon search on the domain name (site: domain name) is a good idea. “If there’s no results at all from that domain, even if there’s content on that domain, that’s a pretty bad sign,” he says.
Something else that Cutts has suggested was doing a simple search on the domain name, without the .com or the extension. This can also be useful for researching the reputation of a site.
And also, you can utilize Archive.org, a site where you are able to view previous versions of the site t see if it had any sort of spammy or auto-generated content on it. If you are buying a site from a previous owner, it’s recommended by Cutts that you see the site’s traffic analytics so that you can see if there was anything funny going on with the site prior to your purchase.
“Overall, if you do a site-colon search, or you search for the domain name, or you look for it in internet archive, that’s a really fast, quick way to get an idea of whether it was owned by someone that used it for ill, or whether they were doing some good stuff with it,” says Cutts.