Why using expired domains to increase SEO rankings is debatable…
Quick Summary of Contents
We live in a world today that can hardly do much or without being powered by the Internet at some point throughout the process.
More specifically, the internet is being driven by a variety of different types of domain names.
Depending on your domain name being keyword-specific or an exact match domains, or premium domains, it can be the difference in driving a handful of visitors, if any, or millions of visitors daily.
Have you ever typed in a domain name into a web browser to find that it has been taken and filled with search ads, but not being used a business?
I’m sure you’ve wondered why and how to get your hands on this premium virtual real estate and gem of a domain without paying an arm and a leg, right?
Well, it is possible to secure such domains.
However, it may require you to play the waiting game for months, years or even decades.
Where to buy expired domains
This waiting game consists of you waiting until domains expires.
Then, it requires you to attempt to purchase expired domains via auction websites like the following to name a few:
There are over 250 million domain names registered and hundreds of thousands of domain names that expire annually.
From domain names that are worthless to the most scarce and sought after premium domain names, expired domain names have been thought by some as a cost-effective way to generate and increase website traffic and revenue.
Why expired domains are sought after, yet questionable…
More importantly, it has been thought that expired domains that ranked well in search engines provided and search engine optimization (SEO) advantage.
Expired domains are thought to transfer their SEO juice and favor to other websites.
In today’s post, we’ll shed light on why you may want to reconsider purchasing expire domains as your primary SEO effort to forward to your primary domain or to use as your primary website.
There numerous pros and cons of using expired domains to increase web traffic to be discussed.
Most importantly, I choose to focus on the cons of using expired domain names.
Using expired domains SEO is definitely an area of gray and highly debatable.
There are mixed opinions as to whether one should use expired domain names for any type of SEO or for new development efforts.
Obviously, using expired domains can help increase website’s backlink count and search ranking while also increasing website traffic by redirecting the expired domain to your website.
Matter of fact, depending on the domain, it can boost your traffic exponentially.
As many website owners quickly find out launching their new website or online business, it can take years to achieve desirable PageRank, credible backlinks, and SEO favor across major search engines.
And here enters expired domains.
Yet building a website from a credible, expired domain can take less time if you know what you are doing and what to look for before purchasing, redirecting or developing a website on an expired domain.
Listed below are my top reasons you should consider not using expired domains to increase search engine ranking and website traffic:
Expired domains are sometimes a house of cards
As we all know, a house of cards is built deceptively on a very shaky foundation and is not structurally sound as can be the case when purchasing expired domains.
Sometimes expired domains are made shine and glimmer as the answer to your SEO challenges when in fact they attain serious and costly SEO pitfalls that force you to start over.
Starting with a new and clean domain is the best route to take instead of developing your website on an expired domain.
After all, the expired domain may be heavily penalized by search engines for deceptive SEO practices by the former owner.
Plain and simple, starting new will save you money in the long run.
All traffic is not good traffic when considering expired domains
For most website and expired domain buyers, they base their buying decisions on an expired domain’s perceived volume of website traffic without verifying the authenticity of the traffic.
Expired domains with deceptive website traffic can sometimes be churn and burn websites.
Essentially, website owners use a domain to build a spammy website to make money off the traffic or to deceive a unknowing website buyer into buying a website based on inflated traffic volume.
Once the website and domain are heavily penalized or de-indexed from search engines, then they let the domain name expired because it is no longer useful.
The expired domain will still maintain traffic, but most of the traffic can be categorized as spam (i.e., bots, crawlers, automated scripts).
Again, you’ll want to use SEO tools to perform expired domain due diligence.
However, my advice is plain and simple, and that is to stay far away from these types of domains.
Expired domain age comes with a reputation
Age can be a good thing when speaking of expired domains, but sometimes it is the reputation that comes along with it that can make purchasing and using expired domains a costly and deadly decision.
Much like having a bad or deceptive web host, expired domains can sometimes be used or associated with disreputable companies or people that are blacklisted by search engines.
If the price and bids for the expired domain auctions are severely low, move onto a different domain or better yet, hand register a domain that has never been registered or owned before.
You’ll thank me later.
Buying expired domains can cost you in time and money
I’ve researched, waited, placed my bid and purchased my fair share of legitimate expired premium domains only to have the previous owner renew them.
The typical expired domain name auction process can take up to 45-60 days and is not guaranteed.
All accounted for, I’ve sometimes wasted 5 or more hours that I could have used to be billable on profitable work.
Yet, I lost that time bidding on expired domains eventually renewed by the previous owner.
Expired domain auctions can turn into a bidding war
The thing about buying expired domains from auction websites that I despise is that it can sometimes turn into a costly bidding war.
These expired domain bidding wars can sometimes force you to pay more than market value of the domain name.
Don’t become emotionally attached or you could very well find yourself paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for an expired domain name that might not be worth a penny.
Personally, although you can place bids days and hours before the expired domain auction is to end, I’ve found the most success in purchasing expired domains within the last 5 minutes of an expired domain auction.
Sometimes, when buying via the GoDaddy auction, I will purposely not place bids on expired domains that do not have bids.
Once auction ends, expired domains enter a closeout bin.
Closeout expired domains can be purchased anywhere from 40 – 50% off the bid asking price which is almost equivalent to hand registering the expired domain as a new domain.
Should I purchase or use expired domains?
Used by many website owners and marketers as a way to increase SEO presence and website traffic, you have to be well-educated and informed when buying expired domains.
Expired domains are an option to increase website traffic and SEO presence.
However, this is only when you’ve performed a thorough due diligence to account for any deceptive SEO practices that may or may not have occurred by previous owners.
Using heavily penalized or de-indexed expired domains severely impacts your web presence, whether the expired domain is developed as a new website or simply 301 redirected to your primary website.
Do your homework if you are considering using expired domain names.
Again, if it seems that the expired domain is too good to be true, then it is likely you need to do more due diligence on the expired domain.
Dig a little deeper using SEO tools and I’m sure you’ll find hidden secrets and deceptive SEO practices not easily visible at surface level.
Remember, much like all traffic isn’t good traffic, the same can be said for expired domain names.
All expired domains are not good domains, and shouldn’t be treated equal.
I want to hear from you. What has been your expired domains experience?
Alvin,
You made some really good points for reasons not to buy an expired domain. All of those points are true but they can also be used to help someone find the right expired domain to buy. It’s all about doing your homework and finding the best one to suit you needs. My website takes some of the guess work out of finding a quality expired domain by listing VALID page rank, traffic, age, page authority, domain authority and other key SEO related data. If done right expired domains can be very powerful. Once again great write up and you and your readers are invited to try my website to find expired domains.
I can tell you out of experience, DON’T do this anymore. This strategy has lost it’s power. More domains that i bought from up to pr 6, all went to pr 0. SO DONT DO THIS. Dont waste your money on the selling on those guys. But a whole site but not just the domain. You will regret this.
“Remember, much like all traffic isn’t good traffic, the same can be said for expired domain names.”
Here here, sometimes you see crazy expired domains with no logic (I’ve checked all parameters) and traffic; then multiple bids!
Ah, Cheers Alvin! What’s going on with the text box? LOL, I’ve got all caps and above and is making me look like an early 90’s net nerd. 😉
Hi Howie, Thanks for the comment. There was a CSS bug. We should be good to go now. Thanks again! 🙂
Getting an expired domain can be really tricky. I agree with Alvin Brown, the process of searching and getting a valuable expire domain can consume a lot of time. How ever there was one time that i had the best opportunity to get a expired domain with good link value. That never happened again!=)) It is pretty the best practice to check the domain one more time before getting to make sure the PR, and domain authority is correct!
Again thanks for the complete blog. Thanks Alvin
Nice post Alvin i think with this i really need to thread softly as regards buying an expired domain.
I was thinking of buying high PR expired domains and 301 them to my site to build PR. I guess that’s a bad idea.
Thanks for your response Dan. I wouldn’t say it’s a bad idea. I have quite a few high PR expired domains that I’ve purchased and 301’ed to various websites. However, it’s just like with everything else in life, you want to do it in moderation and not extremes. Too many in a short period of time, or not the right genre of domain, and you risk penalizing your website.