Do better at SEO from the get-go by checking a domain's backlinks before buying it.

Buying a new domain? Don't start at a disadvantage. Do your due diligence to see whether the domain has been penalized by Google.

If you buy a domain that has been penalized by Google, ranking will be even harder than it usually is — and that can affect your growth. Andrea Bosoni of Zero to Marketing suggests checking a site's backlink profile before buying to see if there are spammy backlinks. If there are, that's a red flag. You can check backlinks with Ahrefs' free tool. Beyond checking the backlinks, Matt Cutts of Google suggests checking the Wayback Machine to understand the history of the domain, and see if previous pages looked shady or used blackhat SEO tactics. He also says to search site:domain.com and steer clear if the results are slim or if the index page doesn't show up at the top of the results. If the domain isn't looking so good but you still just have to get it, consider disavowing the spammy backlinks.