As any good domainer would do, I inventory my domains on a monthly basis.

I determine which domains are worth investing more in renewal fees based on a few metrics of my own.

Well, preparing for this month, I had a handful of domains that were to renew on the 1st of the month.

I typically pay for all of my domains a month at a time, using various discount codes when applicable.

When times permit and when I’ve sold a few domains more than my monthly goal, I try to take care of all of my domain name renewals at an annual rate.

This way, I don’t have to worry about large domain renewal bills from month to month.

Because I am a Discount Domain Club member of Godaddy, I get a handsome discount for owning thousands of domain names.  

This, in addition to GoDaddy discount codes, helps me to save a tremendous amount of money on an annual basis that an everyday person not in the club or using discount codes could not save.

But back to this month and domain renewals.  This month, I had 135 domains that were set to auto-renew.

I tend to watch my domains and their renewals very much like a hawk watches its prey.

So imagine my surprise when I logged into my GoDaddy account and viewed domains that were set to auto-renew had not been renewed.

I received an email from a regular blog reader of Kickstart Commerce.

This person totally stoked about how they read my latest blog about finding and buying domain names.

They found an expired domain name to die for, let them tell it.

I was super excited, as I usually am, to hear from our readers about this reader’s good fortune find.

I was elated until I researched the readers’ good fortune domain name.

The reader did almost everything correctly based on their email.

The one missing piece the reader did not note was performing a search on the domain itself for negative or scam reviews using Google or another search engine.

Had the reader performed this simple step, the reader would have figured out that another company had used their so-called good fortune of an expired domain name to run a scam.

I was surprised and heartbroken for the reader when I searched.

Once touted as the holy grail of SEO, ranking an exact match domain could put you on the map to receive instant search rankings and increased traffic for your website.

Often composed of highly competitive and costly keywords, exact match domains could help you get and keep an edge on the competition without much effort in terms of content.

The simple fact of an exact match domain containing keywords was enough to rocket a website to front page search rankings.

Hundreds and thousands of exact-match domain websites popped up overnight, and exact-match domains were strongly commanding search rankings across major search engines.

Deceptive exact match domain ranking sniffed out

But like previous SEO advantages that were deceptively used to rank, Google launched an exact match domain update targeted to lessen the preference of exact match domains compared to non-keyword specific domains.

However, the EMD update, as often referred to nowadays, would not penalize the ranking of an exact match domain if the website met and adhered to sound SEO ranking factors as other websites per Google’s SEO Guidelines and Policy.

Good, bad or ugly: The endless exact match domain arguments?

In recent years, there is much good, bad, and ugly conversation to be had about whether or not exact match domains still rank well in search engines.

There is the camp that says ranking an exact match domain has lost its step and way in search engines.

They consider exact match domains archaic as dinosaurs and ineffective as the US Postal Service.

Others argue and say exact match domains are still the greatest thing since sliced bread when used according to search engine SEO policies.

Regardless of which camp you belong to, I think it’s safe to say that owning an exact match domain still provides value and an advantage over a domain that does not contain keywords.

In today’s post, I’ll attempt to address some exact match domain concerns while giving insight into one of my latest exact-match domain experiences.

Just when you think you have the perfect name for your business or you think of the most perfect domain name, you find out that the domain is registered.

Start over, surely not? Don’t let a domain name being registered get you down, especially if a website has not been developed on the domain.

You may or may not know it, but there are many ways to go about landing the perfect domain name to build your business on. One of the most common ways to land the domain name of your dreams is by buying it via an expired domain auction.

As luck would have it, sometimes domain owners forget to renew their domain names or purposely don’t renew their domain names for a multitude of reasons.

Nevertheless, one domain owner’s misfortune in losing a domain name can be your luck in finding and buying an expired domain name.

Today, I’ll discuss a few things you’ll want to consider when finding and buying expired domains. The entire process of finding and buying expired domains can be a rollercoaster experience, to say the least.

Nevertheless, with persistence and patience, you can end up with the domain of your dreams finding and buying it as an expired domain. Let’s get started.

Much talk can be had regarding buying domain names with hyphens or dashes.

The don’t ever buy a domain with a hyphen camp…

There is the camp that is totally against it, as if buying domains with hyphens is an unforgivable sin.

If a hyphenated or dashed domain were the last domain name on earth to use, they wouldn’t dare think of buying and surely not using such a domain name.

The use of hyphens is like breathing camp…

Then some fall into the camp of not blinking an eye at buying and using domain names with hyphens.

This camp of folk buy and use hyphenated domain names even when non-hyphenated domains are available.

The hit-or-miss hyphen camp…

Then you have those in the middle that, depending on the day and hour you catch them, are a hit or miss on buying and using domain names with hyphens.

This crowd tends to base their decision to buy and use domain names with hyphens much like flipping a coin.

They don’t necessarily have a method to their madness for buying or not buying and using dashed domain names.

Which camp do you best relate to, and, more importantly, which camp will stand the test of time?

But no matter the camp you find yourself in, I think it is safe to say that buying and using domains with hyphens is nothing new under the sun in the Internet world.

There will always be a market for selling and buying domain names with hyphens.

But before you scurry off into the deep abyss of buying hyphenated domain names, I’d like to share some thoughts on why and when to consider buying and using domains with hyphens.

I’m constantly asked about the length of time it takes to see SEO results and why results cost so much.

It’s to the point that I now start most conversations by informing the customer that it takes anywhere from 1 hour to years to see SEO results. 

Based on the website’s health and a long list of various SEO attributes, customers could immediately see positive or even negative SEO results.

So there, I said it. You can expect to see positive or even negative SEO results immediately.

The irony in making such a broad, sweeping statement is that neither party has an accurate definition of “immediately,” nor can either party definitively express in great clarity what “SEO results” are and are not.

SEO professionals’ lack of clear definition and communication typically sets unrealistic expectations in both time and results for most website owners.

And confusion enters amongst a twisted he said, she said game of trying to figure out whether SEO results were delivered as promised and on time.

Whether by accident or purposely not renewing domain names, owners will neglect to renew them if they are careless. 

Have you ever forgotten to renew a domain or lost ownership of domain names?

I can’t say that I have personally had the experience of losing ownership of a domain name due to inaccurate contact information or credit card information on file for the domain or outright theft.

However, I’ve read many stories where owners have committed the following errors:

• forgotten to update their contact information
• forgotten to update their credit card information for an expired credit card
• did not enable or set their domains to auto-renew
• turned off their renewal notification emails

You name it, and I’ve read or know someone who has experienced it at one point in the many years of owning and developing domain names into viable businesses.

I often receive an email inquiring about a lost domain name that an inquirer states they were the previous owner.