Check the history

History decides whether a name helps or hurts you. Three free checks take ten minutes.

1. Registration data. Use the ICANN lookup for the creation and expiry dates.
2. The Wayback Machine. Open snapshots across the years at web.archive.org. Look for gaps, topic changes and spam pages.
3. Search the name. Search the domain in quotes and site:domain.com plus casino, pills or loans.

Why it matters

Google's spam policies name expired domain abuse and hacked content as violations. A site with that past can carry the damage to you. If the seller manages the domain through Search Console, ask to see the Manual actions report. More on spotting a penalised site.