Google's John Mueller said he would recommend you look at Archive.org's WayBack Machine to see if a domain name or URL had a previous sketchy or spammy history. He said this on Reddit, "archive.org is pretty useful -- it doesn't cover everything, but it's easy to check what kind of content used to be hosted there."
I know many SEOs have this part of their toolsets when doing some investigation work. It doesn't always work but it can help uncover legacy issues with some sites.
Google has recommended use of this tool numerous times over the years. More so when you want to buy old domain names or acquire a web site and you want to check if the site had maybe adult content on it or a spammy history.
Forum discussion at Reddit.
