If you are thinking of purchasing a domain, you may want to make sure that your host server is safe and free of red flags. In this blog post, I will walk you through the process.
Why research your host's server
If your server’s IP address is flagged for spam, it may hurt all of the sites on that server.
In 2013, Matt Cutts confirmed in his video on the effect of this hosting issue on site rankings, that normally, a few spammy domains hosted on the same server as your site should not affect your ranking. However, if there is an excessive number of spammy sites on that server, your site might get flagged as well.
If you are purchasing an already existing domain, especially for a high price, this initial research is even more crucial. The reason being that this domain might have been involved in black-hat SEO practices. Once burned to the ground with thousands of spammy backlinks and flagged by Google, the domain registrar might attempt to sell that domain to an unassuming individual like yourself.
In this case, SEO-wise, you wouldn’t start at the same level as you would if you had bought a new domain. This is one of the reasons why proper research is extremely important.
For more SEO insight, see my 200 SEO Ranking Factors – The Complete List (2018).
How to check if the server is safe
For this example, I’m going to use Bluehost to demonstrate how this is done. When you follow along, simply replace it with any other hosting provider you might be looking into.
Step 1: Run a Google search for “Bluehost name server”
Step 2: Reverse look-up the name server with Who.Is
Step 3: Pick a sample website and look it up with yougetsignal.com