In Plato's Cratylus, Socrates says that Heraclitus "is supposed to say that all things are in motion and nothing at rest; he compares them to the stream of a river, and says that you cannot go into the same water twice" (Benjamin Jowett's translation, 402a). The short form people quote today, that you cannot step into the same river twice, is a later paraphrase. Plutarch, writing centuries after Heraclitus, has "we cannot, as Heraclitus says, step twice into the same river". Even in Plato it is reported speech, not a quotation.
The idea fits a bought domain well. The name stays the same. The water that gave it a reputation has moved on: the owner, the pages, the reasons anyone linked to it. So the question a buyer asks, whether the old backlinks come along, deserves a careful answer. Google has said some things about redirects and a few things about bought domains. It has not said much about the two together, and this post separates what is written down from what staff said in passing.
What Google documents
Google's page on redirects (updated 14 April 2026) says Google Search "uses certain types of redirects as a signal that the redirect target should be canonical". A permanent redirect such as a 301 shows the new address in results. That page does not mention PageRank. We read it in full and the words "PageRank" and "link equity" do not appear.
The line people quote comes from Google's page on site moves and migrations (updated 20 August 2026): "Don't worry about link credit. 301 and other permanent redirects don't cause a loss in PageRank." The same page says to keep redirects "for as long as possible, generally at least 1 year", so that Google can transfer signals "including recrawling and reassigning links on other sites that point to your old URLs".
Read the context. That page is about changing the URLs of your own site's existing pages. It says nothing about a buyer who points a purchased domain at a different site. The older Change of Address tool help page gives a different period: keep redirects "at least 180 days", after which "Google does not recognize any relationship between the old and new sites".
What Google staff have said
Here is the record, oldest first. We opened each source in October 2026. Two of John Mueller's tweets have since been deleted. We read an archive copy of one and Search Engine Roundtable's embed of the other.
| Date | Who | What was said |
|---|---|---|
| 25 Feb 2013 | Matt Cutts, Webmaster Help video | The PageRank lost through a 301 is "currently identical to the amount of page rank that dissipates through a link". He added: "We don't promise that it will be that way for all time and eternity." |
| 26 Jul 2016 | Gary Illyes, Twitter | "30x redirects don't lose PageRank anymore." Asked if there is not even a dampening factor, he replied: "for PageRank, no." |
| 7 Oct 2016 | John Mueller, office-hours hangout | On a 301 from every old page to the new home page: "we will see that as a soft 404". |
| 18 Jan 2017 | Gary Illyes, same thread as July 2016 | Asked if that also applies to a 301 to a new domain after a rebrand, he replied: "yah". |
| Oct 2019 | John Mueller, Twitter | Asked if buying and redirecting expired domains with high DA is a good trick: "No. We don't use DA, and redirecting expired domains hasn't made sense for a long time now." |
| 10 Nov 2020 | John Mueller, office hours | Asked directly if Google resets the backlinks of expired domains, he described how Google's systems try to tell abuse from normal ownership changes. He did not answer the reset question. |
| 20 Aug 2026 | Google, site moves page | "301 and other permanent redirects don't cause a loss in PageRank." |
Three notes on the record:
- Cutts and Illyes spoke about how much PageRank survives the hop. Neither addressed what happens when the old and new sites have different owners.
- The 2016 Mueller answer was about an owner's old subdomain redirected page by page to the home page of the main site. A bought domain sent to one home page is the same shape, but he did not say it in those words. The Illyes "yah" reply from 2017 is a one-word answer on Twitter, not documentation.
- Search Engine Land reported on 27 July 2016 that Mueller said Illyes's tweet confirmed what was already so. That is Barry Schwartz's account of a conversation, not a Google statement we could open.
When the new site is not the old site
Google's spam policies (updated 28 August 2026) define expired domain abuse as a domain that "is purchased and repurposed primarily to manipulate search rankings by hosting content that provides little to no value to users". Their examples include casino content on a former elementary school site and commercial medical products sold on a former non-profit medical charity site.
Notice the wording. The policy targets the purpose and the lack of value. It does not ban buying an expired or aged domain. It also does not say what Google does to links when it finds such a site.
Mueller's 2020 answer points the same way. He said that sometimes people revive an expired domain and run the old site again, and sometimes a domain changes ownership, and "those are all normal situations". The cases Google works to catch are domains picked up "that are totally unrelated to what they've been working on". He added that this is "sometimes a bit tricky, and we have a lot of practice with that", though he also said "I don't think we always get it right".
A tweet attributed to Mueller in December 2022 is blunter. Search Engine Roundtable reproduced his tweet, which has since been deleted: "Build a new site if you want, don't assume there's old & tasty SEO-juice to lick up just by placing a site on an old domain." We could only read it as quoted there, so treat the wording as secondary.
What nobody has said
We did not find a Google document or staff statement that says backlinks are reset when a domain is bought. We did not find one that says they carry over to an unrelated site either. The one time the question was put to Mueller straight, in November 2020, he talked about abuse and did not say yes or no.
So the honest answer has three parts:
- Moving your own site with proper redirects: Google documents that 301s do not lose PageRank.
- A different owner or a different topic: nothing Google has written promises a transfer. Staff comments lean toward "do not count on it".
- Unrelated content bought for its links: this is the case the spam policy names, and no source we opened says it works.
Heraclitus did not claim the river was gone. He claimed it was different water. A link points at a page, and the reason someone placed it was that page. When the page changes, the reason changes with it.
What to do if you buy a domain
- Find out what linked to it, and why. Open the pages that link to the domain. Are they about the same subject as your plan? Our guide to checking an aged domain before buying lists what to look at.
- Match old pages to new pages. If you rebuild the same kind of site, map each old URL that still has links to the closest new page and use a 301. Do not send every old URL to the home page. In a 2016 hangout, Mueller said Google sees that as a soft 404 (his example was an owner's own old subdomain).
- Keep the redirects. Google's site moves page says at least a year. That advice was written for your own move, but it costs little.
- Do not pay for the links alone. The 2019 tweet said Google does not use DA, and our post on DR, DA and authority scores explains why those numbers disagree. Judge the pages, not the score.
- Build something real. If the new site gives readers something real, it falls outside the policy's "little to no value" wording. Our post on domain age as a ranking factor covers why age alone is not a lever either.
None of this says an aged domain is worthless. A domain that people have linked to for years can still send visitors who follow those links. The claim to avoid is the guarantee, that links will move with the name. Nobody outside Google can promise that, and we do not.
Frequently asked questions
Do backlinks transfer when you buy a domain?
Google has not said so. Its documents say 301 redirects do not lose PageRank when you move your own site. We found no Google statement that links carry over to a new owner or to unrelated content.
Does a 301 redirect pass link value?
Gary Illyes wrote in July 2016 that "30x redirects don't lose PageRank anymore", and Google's site moves page says the same of permanent redirects. Those statements cover the redirect hop, not what the destination is.
Does Google reset backlinks on an expired domain?
We did not find an answer. John Mueller was asked in November 2020 and spoke about abuse without saying whether links reset.
Is it against Google's rules to buy an expired domain?
No policy we read bans buying one. The expired domain abuse policy covers domains repurposed primarily to manipulate rankings with content that gives users little to no value.
How long should I keep a 301 redirect?
Google's site moves page says "generally at least 1 year". The older Change of Address help page says at least 180 days. Both were written for moving your own site.