John Mueller, Google Search Advocate, described using expired and repurposed domains as the wreckage of a ship or its cargo found floating on the water or washed up by the sea.
He wrote on Twitter:
“Many expired, repurposed domains are SEO-flotsam, index-cruft, and luckily search engines have had a lot of practice with dealing with that appropriately. 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.”
At this point, it is recommended to start with a new domain and build its authority from scratch, rather than buy an old domain thinking that it comes with authority, backlinks, and traffic.