how can I know if repurposed domain will rank?

I am going to buy a domain with existing backlinks for the purpose of running a money site from it. I am going to upload a lot of inner pages in the hope that by the power of the homepage backlinks, the inner pages will easily rank.

I am reading past threads on this forum about this topic and I am not really getting a straight answer

since old domains with good backlinks cost an arm and a leg, I need to be sure that it will rank.

how can I know that it will rank? is it random and some will rank and some won't rank and you just dont know why?

is there some investigating that I can do to figure out if it will rank before I buy it? maybe for example look at the anchor texts?
does domain have to be topically relevant? for example if old site was about christmas can the new site be about plumbing?

if it fails to rank, is there something I can do to make it rank?

Buy one with a lot of power at least in the thousands usd or it will be too weak. Match it to the old website in every way possible. You have to do an extreme amount of due diligence and implement it correctly in order to have a chance. Use wayback, ahrefs, check anchors, the domain must be 100% clean. No guarantees of course in all things seo. If it doesn’t rank then just abandon the project.

Axeton said:

Buy one with a lot of power at least in the thousands usd or it will be too weak. Match it to the old website in every way possible. You have to do an extreme amount of due diligence and implement it correctly in order to have a chance. Use wayback, ahrefs, check anchors, the domain must be 100% clean. No guarantees of course in all things seo. If it doesn’t rank then just abandon the project.

Click to expand...

so when you say match it 100% to the old domain
that means the old domain and my new website cannot be about different things? they need to be topically relevant?

Juice is better from relevant back links and anchors. It’s also more like to pass a manual review. If they don’t match maybe it will still work but maybe not, better to just wait and bid on a relevant domain unless the niche you are looking for is way out of your price range.

From what I've read... it's a hit and miss game.
Haven't used expired domains, I prefer to buy old sites.