If you’ve been looking for domain names for your business, you’ve probably come across expired domains. An expired domain is a domain name that was used by someone else but wasn’t renewed. Hence, it goes back to the pool of available domains for sale.
Unlike a new domain where you have to do all the work, an expired domain already has SEO value. The owner has invested money, effort and time into promoting the domain. It has built backlinks online and you can take advantage of someone else’s work by knowing which expired domains has the most value.
Why you Should Choose an Expired Domain
Target the Right Traffic
A benefit of an expired domain is that you capitalise on existing traffic. No business can succeed without traffic. It gets the customers in the door and generates revenue for you. A new domain offers a clean slate but you’ll soon realise that growing your traffic takes months and sometimes years to accomplish.
You need to optimise for keywords, publish great content on your website and guest post on authority sites. Think of an expired domain like cutting the line and heading straight to the top.
Higher Ranking
Google uses domain age to rank a website. An older domain means the site is established. Spammy websites faze out quickly because they are continuously jumping domains. Older sites have more juice than newer ones.
An Established Backlink Profile
When you buy a high-valued domain, the previous owner already has a good backlink profile with authority links. Some are listed in Yahoo, Google and DMOZ directories. Even the best SEO companies will tell you that building high-quality backlinks takes time.
According to Google, it’s a solid indicator of authority. When you buy an expired domain, you have less work to do where link building is concerned. You’re simply building on someone else’s efforts.
Established PageRank
Google uses PageRank to rank web pages. A higher PageRank means higher SERP position. Once again, it takes time to accomplish this task. An Ahrefs study revealed that most top-ranking pages are 2 years or older. Only 5% of new web pages are on the first page results.
How to Find and Evaluate an Expired Domain
Check the Availability of the Expired Domain
First, enter the address of the site in your browser. If it displays an error message, that’s a good sign. Enter the name in your preferred registrar to know if the domain name is available for purchase. A few things to look for include
Link popularity: This is the value that qualitatively evaluates incoming links to a website. While the PageRank algorithm determines the popularity of the links, it doesn’t fully access the domain’s relevance.
Check the Domain Authority
While the domain authority could be manipulated, it’s a good indicator of the power of a domain. As a rule of thumb, it should have a minimum of DA 20+. You can use Bulk DA Checker to analyse a long list of backlinks.
Check Citation Flow and Trust Flow
For foreign domains, the statistics from the Citation Flow and Trust Flow are indicators of a good or bad domain. Citation Flow is an indication of the number of linking domains and Trust Flow shows the trustworthiness of the domain. The number for the Trust Flow should be high as an indication of trustworthiness.
Check the Backlink Profile Pointing to the Expired Domain
Focus on links to subdomains and internal pages. Many people make the mistake of only focusing on homepage links when there are more links to the domain on other pages. Majestic is a good tool for analysing backlinks.
Go through the links manually to ascertain that they are there. Sometimes, it shows as a link but when you look, it could belong to another domain name or may have been removed.
Check that all the links are from the same domain name. A domain name with 20,000 links from one site or message board is not the same as 10,000 links from 500 different domain names. The links should come from multiple sites for a healthy profile.
Check the Google Index
Search to see if the domain name is indexed on Google. The first result that is generated should be the domain name you’re interested in. If not, investigate to find out the problems. According to Domain 4 less, you can put the domain name in quotes where the domain name doesn’t show up. It generates the results of other websites where the domain name was mentioned.
Check the Online Reputation and Security of the Domain Name
A Google search will tell you the kind of website the domain name was used for. A WHOIS check can also provide details of the IP addresses associated with the domain. Use Norton Safe Web or an alternative to ensure the domain is clean, It’s also a good tool for tracking malware and malicious codes on a website. In addition, it will show if the domain was previously blacklisted for use of malware.
Look through the archive.org version of the site. If it redirects to a different domain name, ditch it. If you notice any unrelated content on the site, it’s an indication that you don’t need the domain. For instance, if the original content was about dogs and cats but the new content is about electronics, that’s an unrelated content.
What Can You Do with an Expired Domain?
Domain Flipping
There are many auction sites online where you can buy and sell domains with PageRank. Established marketplaces include Sedo and GoDaddy Auction. You can sell an expired domain you bought for $10 for $50 easily. If you start by snatching up 30-50 expired domains and sell them in one a day, that’s over $200 every week.
If you want the big bucks, it takes time. You need to actively promote the domain and speak to prospects to attract a sale. Do not use assumptions to arrive at a domain flipping strategy. Each sale is unique.
Leverage the Domain for a High Authority Website
A good domain name already has traffic that you can leverage by creating content and building on the efforts of the previous owner. You can rank high immediately by hosting the site on the expired domain. It saves money on social media marketing and SEO marketing. If it already ranks high for a keyword, you can build content around those keywords.
Get link Juice with an Authority Blog
An expired domain can host a blog that features backlinks to your other domains. If the expired domain has a higher authority than your current website, it will help increase your ranking. Publish relevant pieces and naturally integrate links that lead to your websites. The key is to find an expired domain in your niche with a spam-free history and clean link profile.
301 Redirects
If you don’t have time to manage a blog or high authority website, a more direct approach is to use a 301 redirect to pass over the link juice and authority of the expired domain to your primary website. This only works if the expired domain has existing traffic. Most web visitors don’t mind a redirect as long as they get the information they came for.
Sell Affiliate Products
You get a percentage of every sale made through your website. It’s an easy way to make quick cash. Chances are, most affiliate networks already have an offer relevant to the niche of the expired domain. You receive an affiliate commission when you make a sale through the expired domain.
Conclusion
Conduct your research and follow the steps we’ve listed. Google will penalise your website if you buy an expired domain name with a poor history. A domain name is only profitable if it has PageRank value and no issues whatsoever.
