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Many SEO specialists understand the overall importance of domains in capturing a large part of the market – which is why many of them buy expired domains as an investment or for their personal business success. But what exactly can this do for you?
What Are Expired Domains?
Essentially, expired domains are domains that were never renewed. The original owner may not be able to keep the website up, unable to pay the fees, or simply decided that it isn’t profitable enough to remain online. Regardless, an expired domain therefore becomes available for sale to those who will find it useful.
Why Buy Expired Domains?
Expired domains can provide incredible benefits for their new owners, as long as you know how to use them. Following are some of the benefits of making that all-important purchase:
- Expired domains were once live and active websites – which means that while they were in use; these domains managed to accumulate back links and page rank. These do not disappear when a domain expires which means that after purchase, you DON’T have to start from scratch. The expired domain already has a modest rank and would therefore require less work.
- With so many competitors in the market today, chances are your preferred domain name or keywords are already registered through a specific host. Choosing different keywords wouldn’t work so well because it would be difficult for your target market to locate. The answer? Buy expired domains! By doing so, you get the name you want along with the reputation that comes with the old website.
- Domains can be treated as an investment since they’re essential online real estate. For example, if the keywords of the domain name are popular, you can resell it to a different user for profit. Those involved in the buy-and-sell of domain names typically purchase the domain by ‘improving’ it. This is done by cultivating back links and generally increasing the page rank. Once this is over, the domain can now be sold at a better price.
- Expired domains can be incredibly specific, allowing you to target sub-niches in a specific market. With this, you have the chance to capture the fringes of your target market and funnel them through your official website.
- Another great plus of an aged domain is that directory listings may already be completed. New domains typically have a hard time getting into the directories of names like Yahoo and DMOZ – but this may be included in the package upon purchase.
- You get a head start against the competition, allowing you to cover more bases even as they try to figure out how to start promoting their website online.
Of course, those are just few of plus points of buying expired domains. Keep in mind though that regardless of the milestones of the domain before it expired, what you do after purchase is still crucial.
Checking the Domain
Note that not all expired domains are the same. Some of those provided real, useful content when they were still in use while others mostly contained spam. Buying the latter won’t help your cause and can actually make it harder for you to obtain a respectable and high-ranking page in search engines. That being said, following are some information you should know about when it comes to domain checking:
- Wayback Machine – you can go to archive.org, a program that helps you trace an expired domain. Created in 1996, it helps identify all the indexes made under the domain name you’re searching, allowing you to accurately date the page. The Whois function also works, but not nearly as accurate as Wayback. Remember: older domains are better, at the very least around 2 years of age.
- Domain Metrics – there are currently several programs that offer domain metric services. Basically, these websites makes it easier for you to assess the domain in one convenient spot. One of the checkers would be Moz which measures Domain Authority based on rank, size, age, and popularity. Higher ratings are better. Typically, those who buy expired domains opt for ratings at 15 or higher.
- Trust Flow – another online metric similar to Moz is Majestic SEO which helps measure the trust factor of the site. Like with Domain Authority, your Trust Flow must be around 15 or higher to make it worth your while.
- Page Rank – unfortunately, Page Rank is no longer a reliable source of information when it comes to domain quality. Google stopped updating page rank several years ago.
Note that those are just few of the things you’ll need to consider when you buy expired domains. For a more complete guide, check out this page.