Google's John Mueller was asked about a domain name purchased several months ago but still does not rank well in Google Search. John explained that the domain has a "long and complicated history." "It's going to be hard to convince search engines that it's something very different & unrelated to what was done in the past decades," John added.
In short, he is saying that not only was this domain abusing search engines for a long, long time, but also that the new content on this old domain is not different enough or unrelated enough from what the topic was previously where the search engine would consider it a brand new site and wipe the site clean.
Here are these tweets:
Looking at https://t.co/DusIkyCibB, that domain has a long and complicated history. I think it's going to be hard to convince search engines that it's something very different & unrelated to what was done in the past decades.
— johnmu is not a chatbot yet 🐀 (@JohnMu) March 6, 2023
Google has often said it is important to check the history of a domain name before purchasing it. In fact, and if you do, and you realize later, you might just need to give up on that domain name and move on to something new. In short - you don't want to start fresh by having to dig yourself out of a hole.
Forum discussion at Twitter.