Saw a 10-year-old domain on the market last month. Clean WHOIS, long expiry, seller asking ~$400. I almost pulled the trigger.
Ran a history check first: turns out it hosted grey-area pages in 2019–2021 and changed topics 3–4 times. Walked away. Someone else bought it a week later for slightly less — six months on, it's still not indexed.
Age is the least valuable metric when buying aged domains. Here's my checklist before any purchase:
1. Site history (most important)
Was usage long-term and consistent? Any topic flips, blank periods, or shady chapters? A domain that did grey-area content a few years ago can carry that history into your new site.
2. WHOIS
Creation/expiry dates, status, lifecycle. Confirm it's genuinely tradeable and the dates line up with the seller's story.
3. Backlinks — structure, not total
Backlink totals are easily inflated by duplicated pages, internal links and historical accumulation. What matters: how many unique referring domains are left, whether the important sources are still alive, and whether they're topically relevant to what you plan to build.
4. China accessibility (if it matters to you)
GFW blocking, DNS pollution and WeChat domain blocking are three different layers — verify each separately. A domain can be registrable yet practically unusable. Quick tip: don't judge blocking by a single ping. Look for a stable difference between mainland-China and outside results, then cross-check with independent DNS, TLS and HTTP signals.
5. Historical filings
Past ICP filings show the domain was genuinely used in China before — useful context, but don't treat old filings as a transferable asset or pay a premium for them.
6. Batch screening
When you have dozens of candidates, filter cheaply first and deep-check only the finalists. Spend the expensive queries where they matter.
I run these checks on aiyucha.com — it covers WHOIS, site history, backlinks, filings and China-accessibility checks, plus batch screening. Whatever tool you use, never skip the history check. The most expensive domain is the one you can't use.
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