This is part of why people buy sites on Flippa or Borderline.biz or whatever. There's a lot of factors that go into it: is it still getting traffic? Is it reputable? Is it listed as a malware site? How closely related to your own site it is, etc.
If you're starting out on a new project and would like to get almost _any_ organic SEO traffic in the first year of your existence, you should probably buy a domain (domain age is that strong of a ranking factor).
This is part of why people buy sites on Flippa or Borderline.biz or whatever. There's a lot of factors that go into it: is it still getting traffic? Is it reputable? Is it listed as a malware site? How closely related to your own site it is, etc.
If you're starting out on a new project and would like to get almost _any_ organic SEO traffic in the first year of your existence, you should probably buy a domain (domain age is that strong of a ranking factor).