Historical PageRank vs Modern Trust Score: A Better Way to Assess Domains

I recently evaluated several expired domains for a side project and noticed something interesting.

One domain had a strong historical PageRank, which initially looked promising. But after digging deeper, its backlink profile showed clear signs of spam, making it a risky investment despite the legacy metric.

That experience reminded me that no single SEO metric tells the full story. Historical authority can provide useful context, but it's worth validating it alongside backlink quality, trust signals, referring domains, and overall link health before making a decision.

For anyone working with expired domains, niche sites, or domain flipping, what's your go-to metric when deciding whether a domain is worth buying?