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question What things do I look at before buying an expired domain?

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Sanjay Sagar

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I am using spamzilla and expireddomains net for finding expired domains and got 2-3 high da domains but don't know whether to buy them or not.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
What is the end use? Sell? Keep? Develop? D.A. is not so important as keyword volume imo. Do you have a pool of end users in mind? Or do you have a project planned?
 
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What is the end use? Sell? Keep? Develop? D.A. is not so important as keyword volume imo. Do you have a pool of end users in mind? Or do you have a project planned?
I mainly do SEO and I was looking for a high DA domain to make an affiliate site.
 
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Look for an extension that is commonly used by your target customers so if it's U.S.A. then .com or if it's U.K. then co.uk or if it's Spain then .es you get the picture mate. Keyword volume is far more important than D.A. for S.E.O. but also consider it's use for P.P.C. since S.E.O. isn't a sustainable traffic source imo. Go short as possible one word or two words and choose something that makes sense to someone who is seeing your domain name for the first time. Example bikerholidays.com makes sense to most people because it's probably a website about motorbike vacations where bkhols.com doesn't tick that box. You get me mate?
 
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DA, TF, MOZ are good metrics; unfortunately they are the ones that many use so the domains are backordered at high prices.
Alexa is also a good metric but is highly affected by spam so be careful.
 
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Look for an extension that is commonly used by your target customers so if it's U.S.A. then .com or if it's U.K. then co.uk or if it's Spain then .es you get the picture mate. Keyword volume is far more important than D.A. for S.E.O. but also consider it's use for P.P.C. since S.E.O. isn't a sustainable traffic source imo. Go short as possible one word or two words and choose something that makes sense to someone who is seeing your domain name for the first time. Example bikerholidays.com makes sense to most people because it's probably a website about motorbike vacations where bkhols.com doesn't tick that box. You get me mate?

Ya, I got it thanks for the explanation. :xf.smile:
 
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I'm a blogger and I can easily say that you don't even need a good domain to start a blog or an affiliate site. Any extension will easily rank on the first page of Google if your content is well written and SEO optimized. Remember.... Like Neil Patel said, "Content is King."
The only thing you need to keep in mind is, Spam score should not be higher than 10%, DA should be high (like 30+), domain must not be banned by Google and you're good to go.
However, if your plan is to sell the domain, you need to register a good domain with lots of potential buyers.
 
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One thing to beware of at Godaddy auctions is that the traffic can include "picture hits". Like if an image at somedomain.com was hosted for some other site, and the other site is still operating.

So the traffic number could be high, but it may not be actual traffic to the domain. In that case, instead of pageviews, it's actually just hits of the image.

Anyway, that's how it worked some years ago... I don't know if GoDaddy still shows traffic stats that way, but it was a risk in the past when buying a domain for the traffic.
 
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I'm a blogger and I can easily say that you don't even need a good domain to start a blog or an affiliate site. Any extension will easily rank on the first page of Google if your content is well written and SEO optimized. Remember.... Like Neil Patel said, "Content is King."
The only thing you need to keep in mind is, Spam score should not be higher than 10%, DA should be high (like 30+), domain must not be banned by Google and you're good to go.
However, if your plan is to sell the domain, you need to register a good domain with lots of potential buyers.
Thanks for the info :xf.smile: The reason I am not looking to buy a new domain is it takes 4-5 months to get out of the sandbox. I have 3 sites that rank good in Google but you know creating backlinks is a lot of hassle.
 
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One thing to beware of at Godaddy auctions is that the traffic can include "picture hits". Like if an image at somedomain.com was hosted for some other site, and the other site is still operating.

So the traffic number could be high, but it may not be actual traffic to the domain. In that case, instead of pageviews, it's actually just hits of the image.

Anyway, that's how it worked some years ago... I don't know if GoDaddy still shows traffic stats that way, but it was a risk in the past when buying a domain for the traffic.
Thanks, buddy this is some new thing I got to know today.(y)
 
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Get a second opinion my names appear on expireddomains great for exposure but i will always check for difference if buying with supplied stats and .... as have seen some have fooled numbers.
 
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I'm a blogger and I can easily say that you don't even need a good domain to start a blog or an affiliate site. Any extension will easily rank on the first page of Google if your content is well written and SEO optimized. Remember.... Like Neil Patel said, "Content is King."
The only thing you need to keep in mind is, Spam score should not be higher than 10%, DA should be high (like 30+), domain must not be banned by Google and you're good to go.
However, if your plan is to sell the domain, you need to register a good domain with lots of potential buyers.

I enjoyed your post, may I ask what your view on project24's view are ? ,

also in your response to backlinks, do you feel the same with organic backlinks ? , I am not experienced, these are honest curious questions. But I did research alot, organic backlinks seem near evergreen pending niche.
 
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I enjoyed your post, may I ask what your view on project24's view are ? ,

also in your response to backlinks, do you feel the same with organic backlinks ? , I am not experienced, these are honest curious questions. But I did research alot, organic backlinks seem near evergreen pending niche.
Income School's Project24 is one of the best courses available in the market.
And for the backlinks, you can reach out to bloggers from the same niche and exchange links.
However, your contents/posts will rank with our without backlinks if it's well written and researched.
 
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I am getting back into the whole process. I came here to see if I could learn something more, but I seem to follow all of these processes and some. I am flipping domains, as well as building some out though, so I like to look at the whole picture.

For me:

1- I have been looking through expireddomains.net lately and use the filters. I also sometime use the marketplace auctions section of the site. TF of at least 10 (especially if I am thinking of building out) Also I use other filters, but it depends on your personal criteria of what you want to find.

2- I look in the wayback machine at archive.org and make sure there is no spammy sites related. (Nothing in Chinese or Russian.) And make sure the domain has relatable sites and little to no redirects.

3- I do a search on Linkody.com (free to use) to find other metrics such as TF, CF, Spam score and DA

4- I do a quick search also on SEMRush (in backlink analytics) (free tool) to check other site metrics, make sure the backlinks aren't spammy and are relatable.

5-Also I do a search in Google for the site to make sure nothing spammy is popping up.

6-Also make sure the site is not banned in google

7- I make sure the domain makes sense, has a keyword / words attached to it, and see what other similar domains have sold for.

I hope this helps.
 
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What is the end use? Sell? Keep? Develop? D.A. is not so important as keyword volume imo. Do you have a pool of end users in mind? Or do you have a project planned?

Competition is likely more important factor especially for keywords with high search volumes. Because there are dozens, probably hundreds of nTLD's. One can likely find many high search volume keywords available to register with nTLD's.

TLD is not a notable SEO factor in most cases, probably except ccTLD's or domain hacks. Even EMD is also not a powerful factor as before at least on G.

So in short, investing in domains for SEO will likely be waste of money and/or disappointment. Its exceptions might be age and length of domain. But overall SEO power of domain names will be low. That's why there is only 1 king in SEO. It's not domain, backlinks, etc. It's content. Content is king. Other factors are the peasants of the king who have to obey what their king dictates them.

DA, PA, backlinks will likely not bring SE traffic for long unless the new owner can reinstate the website with its old content. In most cases it's impossible for new owners of expired and dropped domains. Also the old owner may claim copyright for the content even if you can fully reinstate an old website (e.g, it might be a 1 page website and you somehow saved and keep that page or found that page on archive sites)
 
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Competition is likely more important factor especially for keywords with high search volumes. Because there are dozens, probably hundreds of nTLD's. One can likely find many high search volume keywords available to register with nTLD's.

TLD is not a notable SEO factor in most cases, probably except ccTLD's or domain hacks. Even EMD is also not a powerful factor as before at least on G.

So in short, investing in domains for SEO will likely be waste of money and/or disappointment. Its exceptions might be age and length of domain. But overall SEO power of domain names will be low. That's why there is only 1 king in SEO. It's not domain, backlinks, etc. It's content. Content is king. Other factors are the peasants of the king who have to obey what their king dictates them.

DA, PA, backlinks will likely not bring SE traffic for long unless the new owner can reinstate the website with its old content. In most cases it's impossible for new owners of expired and dropped domains. Also the old owner may claim copyright for the content even if you can fully reinstate an old website (e.g, it might be a 1 page website and you somehow saved and keep that page or found that page on archive sites)
Thanks but I disagree with most of your post. "TLD is not a notable SEO factor in most cases" is not true. CCTLD is VERY important for SEO. Are you saying co.uk is able to rank exactly the same at .xyz for a local search in U.K.? Would most people trust an unkknow extension over a trusted local extension and therefore click on it more? No. Another false statement "investing in domains for SEO will likely be waste of money and/or disappointment" it's simply not true as many here will attest to and I personally know. You are basically cancelling out my entire reason for being here and these statements have to be challenged. You are correct about the importance of content. Thanks for your contribution.
 
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I already wrote ccTLD's as an exception, probably you have missed it.
All TLD's are almost the same from technical perspective except ccLTD. But the SEO power of ccTLD on local search rankings is low. For instance, a site on co.uk domain if hosted in the US can unlikely rank better than a site with xyz domain which is hosted in the UK.
 
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I've read a few times here and some other places that age is no longer a factor at least for Google with page ranking.
 
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I mainly do SEO and I was looking for a high DA domain to make an affiliate site.
You *must* check the backlink profile. Boosting DA to mislead buyers is a piece of cake and is something a LOT of people do. Check the backlink and anchor profile. Check the archive. Check if it has been used as a pbn before. Do not buy it if it has been used for casino, meds or adult products(unless you are in that niche). Also, if it has chinese anchors and an extraordinarily high DA, hard pass.

I've read a few times here and some other places that age is no longer a factor at least for Google with page ranking.
Age might not be but the backlinks that the expired domains have are. You just need to create a new page to the same addresses(that have the most dofollow RDs) and the backlinks to that will give your domain juice again. Also, if you buy auction domains(not expired), you can skip the sandbox period.
 
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However, your contents/posts will rank with our without backlinks if it's well written and researched.
It would if this was 2012 or if the serp has 10-50 monthly with a kw difficulty of 15(+-5). Backlinks are a must if you need to rank for transactional or commercial kws. Unless you're just relying on informational kws and publishing HUGE amounts of articles for it, it won't be worth it.
 
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