Question about Referring Domains

It's a good idea to check what these domains are actually referring to you

Brandonthebear said:

Would it be of any difference if that one backlink was from Google itself? (given scenario)

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This is my last post this time:
- one element you seem to have overlooked is you are not getting a link from the homepage, but a link buried somewhere in the archives; that link is a number of magnitudes less strong than a homepage link.
I recommend you read the numerous SEO guides on this site, as SEO is not a trivial matter despite what they say.

safeSEOboost said:

This one IS my last post as you are trying to play smart with your question/post(s):
- one element you seem to have missed is you are not getting a link from the homepage, but a link buried somewhere in the archives; henceforth that link is a number of magnitudes less strong than a homepage link.
I recommend you read the numerous SEO guides on this site, as SEO is not a trivial matter despite what they say.

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I'm not sure why you're being so impatient to my questions or think that I'm "playing smart" with you but my apologies, if you think so. I've always thought the forum was a place for healthy discussions and debates. That being said, I think there's a detailed thread here about building PBN. I'll go read it up.

Brandonthebear said:

Would it be of any difference if that one backlink was from Google itself? (given scenario)

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Still NO

The thing with RDs is that many people don't "actually" get what works and what-not. I've done a few PBNs to myself (actually revive them from the scratch, so it doesn't really look-like a cheaply-made PBN), and I always (ALWAYS!) check the RDs before anything else. Usually, I have a hunch, but then to prove that my hunch is correct I do a split-testing (unfortunately, I am not a fan of case studies, so I did not record them). It is very hard to explain it, but I'll try my best to break it down here...

Scenario 1:
Domain 1 has 100 RDs = 20-25% of them came from Authority sites, the rest are legit looking sites
Domain 2 has 500 RDs = 1-3 Authority sites, the rest are a mixture of crappy and legit looking sites.
Test result --> Domain 1 can move rankings to anything linked from that site.

Scenario 2:
Domain 1 has 1k+ RDs = No Authority sites. All crappy sites.
Domain 2 has 200 RDs = 2-5 Authority sites, the rest are a mixture of crappy and legit looking sites.
Test result --> Domain 2 can move ranking to anything linked from that site.

Whatever and how much RDs pointing to your domain should-be and should-not-be considered. This is because it is up to your judgment. Rule of thumb would always be: "Check all the RDs you can gather" and "Always on the look for crappy sites"

There should be balance between the RD count and the Quality of the RDs. One look at the list you'll know if RDs are from legit sites or not.

As for the backlink counts vs RD count, well, sitewide links are not yet altogether dead, especially if it comes from a strong,trusted website. Otherwise, nobody will be doing sidebars and footers today.

As for @Brandonthebear scenario, let's say that "yes, it is worth it to have 1 RD, just because it's from an Authority sites", well, what will happen if the link got removed? Obviously, you now have a domain with ZERO RD.

If that happens, you're just like buying a brand new domain then. Defeats the purpose of scraping expired domains, I think...

Brandonthebear said:

Would it be of any difference if that one backlink was from Google itself? (given scenario)

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A backlink from Google isn't magic. They actually apply their own algorithms to themselves. News stories every now and then pop up saying things like "Google's own spam filter flagged one of their own ads as spam omg omg omg." They seem to mostly do the same with their own pages in the SERPs / in terms of SEO.

Brandonthebear said:

Thanks for the heads up, Matthew. I'm not too active on the forum here but thanks for the reminder.

I'll look into that case study.

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You're welcome. It's a decent article. Worth reading.

If that multiquote thing was unclear, you might check @BassTrackerBoats' tutorial here:
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/how-to-use-the-multiquote-feature-on-bhw.975670/

If the domain is still getting traffic then it's still good. In some cases, new domains can rank just as well as old domains. Some old domains still have penalties on them...