Backlinks to a domain that was expired

MOH

I've just put together a website for someone who had one previously with the same domain name, but whoever was looking after it for him let the domain expire.

I've re-registered the domain, and if I google it I I get a dozen or so link from various service directories that were obviously there from when the site was up before.

Are these still useful, or does the fact that they were linking to a non-existent site for a while (don't know how long) mean that google will ignore them?

link8r

Simply put:
The value of links to a site are based on a percentage of their PageRank based on the relevance of the two.

I'm not 100% sure but I'm 99% sure that Google isn't too worried/too up to date on whether it was an "old" site and a "new site". PageRank and SERP's are based on an explicit domain name - so "mydomain.com" is not related to "mydomains.com" - so links to it are links to it - thats why Drop-Catching is such a big business (catching domains dropped by people - the more IBL's the better).

So it depends, as do all links, on what the relevance and what the value of them are.

D.W

Can't but help IMO. However get the site up and running and do a backlinks check down the line and see if these "old links" show. Depending as link8r said on what their relevance is or not will be a determining factor.