[Guide] How to use Expired Domains effectively

[jandiederik]

thanks for the guide. the tip about the uploading to google console really didnt occur to me untill i read it.
I have a few more questions if you dont mind when it comes to picking domains.

I understand its a mix of all but what is the true important stat?
TF - CF
-DR , most of the domains i find have a DR of below 5 but the TF -CF is 20 - 8 , would it matter then if the DR is low?
-Anchors
-Quality of backlinks
-Wayback data , such as has the last 2 years the domain only been a redirect ? Does it matter if it has been in redirect mode for the last 2 years when reviving old content of maybe a year before that?
Do you still get indexed and retain the seo juice of 4 years ago. if a domain had no data on the site for the last 2 years?

 

[Gregory Hopkins]

Old but gold. Thanks for the info. Great job

 

[wanderer101]

Thank you OP - This was a great share

 

[Spacecop]

Exactly what ive been looking for thanks!

 

[albimorkal]

How long until a domain is available after it expires?

 

[jesna]

Wow really helpful and thanks for the share !!

 

[Warta bola]

Great guide as usual. Love your guides.

 

[wizeman]

It is a different method to what I use, however I did do exactly this for a while, I just found it was not as successful in ranking my money sites. That does not mean that your method is wrong, if you are getting good results stick with it. You might want to try the page redirect method and see if you get improved results like me.

Also, thinking as I type this - I find that Google is more lenient with redirecting multiple domains to a money site if I use the page to page method. This has allowed me to safely point non niche exact matches to money site silos and reap the rewards.

HTH

Are you saying if we dont rebuild site structure then we will lose juice from subpages? otherwise homepage juice will be fine with all new site?

 

[bcsirt]

Thank you for your share.
I'll try it soon

 

[NLHES]

thanks for the guide. the tip about the uploading to google console really didnt occur to me untill i read it.
I have a few more questions if you dont mind when it comes to picking domains.

I understand its a mix of all but what is the true important stat?
TF - CF
-DR , most of the domains i find have a DR of below 5 but the TF -CF is 20 - 8 , would it matter then if the DR is low?
-Anchors
-Quality of backlinks
-Wayback data , such as has the last 2 years the domain only been a redirect ? Does it matter if it has been in redirect mode for the last 2 years when reviving old content of maybe a year before that?
Do you still get indexed and retain the seo juice of 4 years ago. if a domain had no data on the site for the last 2 years?

Would love to know this too!

 

[fasttrak]

The article is superb.
I will surely try it out

Thank you. I hope it works out well for you too.

Would it be a bad idea to add it to GWC straight away to check for penalties as that's my main worry with buying this domain

If this is your main concern, you can always do that.

I have only ever found that a domain is penalised after I have built it out and then added it to GWC. I was then able to successfully appeal the penalty. I had no idea the domain was penalised prior to submitting it.

If you are sure it has a penalty, it is not a bad idea to submit it, wait and see, if it comes back with a penalty, you can appeal saying that it is a new domain that you have recently purchased. Once it is cleared, you can then build out the pages to restore the authority and link juice.

HTH

I found a high DR domain that was previously a web design agency. All their authority comes from footer links on sites they have designed. Do you think there's any value on these or is Ahrefs misleading on cases like this?

I have had issues with footer links in some of the recent Google updates. I would stay as far away from them as you can. So, if it was me, I would move on to the next domain.

Excellent guide. Thanks for sharing.

Your welcome.

thanks for the guide. the tip about the uploading to google console really didnt occur to me untill i read it.
I have a few more questions if you dont mind when it comes to picking domains.

I understand its a mix of all but what is the true important stat?
TF - CF
-DR , most of the domains i find have a DR of below 5 but the TF -CF is 20 - 8 , would it matter then if the DR is low?
-Anchors
-Quality of backlinks
-Wayback data , such as has the last 2 years the domain only been a redirect ? Does it matter if it has been in redirect mode for the last 2 years when reviving old content of maybe a year before that?
Do you still get indexed and retain the seo juice of 4 years ago. if a domain had no data on the site for the last 2 years?

Would love to know this too!

1) TF/CF/DR/DA are not that important on expired domains, as the old links have been dropped for a while, so the metrics are bound to be lower than when it was live.

That leaves you with the quality of the backlinks and the anchors. These are the 2 most important factors left in your list.

2) The age of the expired domain does not matter, nor does how long it has been expired. As long as it is clean, you can restore links, juice and authority.

HTH

Old but gold. Thanks for the info. Great job

Cheers.

Thanks for this sharing this great post.

Appreciate your time and efforts.

Your welcome. These guides do take a lot to put together and maintain (answer the questions), but it is worth it to me if I know they are helping people.

Thank you OP - This was a great share

Your welcome.

Exactly what ive been looking for thanks!

Great news, its always nice when that happens.

How long until a domain is available after it expires?

That depends on the TLD in question. But it is anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months. I have marked domains I want in my calendar and wait for the reminders to pop up before buying them.

Wow really helpful and thanks for the share !!

No problem, glad it helped you.

Great guide as usual. Love your guides.

Thanks. Always nice to hear.

Are you saying if we dont rebuild site structure then we will lose juice from subpages? otherwise homepage juice will be fine with all new site?

Yes, that is what I have found. It is pretty unnatural to have 1 domain simply point at the root of another, it is much more natural to have pages of the old domain specifically point at pages of the new domain and everything else redirected to the root. From my tests, Google feels the same.

You might get a boost from 301 redirect to root, but you get more by targeting pages.

Thank you for your share.
I'll try it soon

Hope it works out for you.

 

[javadth]

do you care about moz spam score ?

 

[Sunil aryan]

Can you please tell us more details on how to choose the right domain.

If the domain is in Chinese language, do I need to rebuild in Chinese language or can I rebuild it in English language.

Do you backorder the domain or wait till the domain is expired.

Thanks again for sharing this with us.

 

[hatworld3388]

Hi Fasttrak,

Firstly，really appreciated your work.

And Here I have some questions awaiting your help and attach one screenshoot here.

I have reviewed a few articles here but still a little confused for how to use the expired domain properly

ESPECIALLY FOR THE FIRST STAGE: RECOVER THE OLD CONTENT

Some of them written that we should restore the content and URL which as 100% the same as before by archive.org, And some of them told me you should use archive.org to check the old content, and copy it and rewrite.

But now for me, I have over 5400 pages having the backlinks，so should I restore all of the contents the same as before, and especially for the URL & Title which also should be 100% same or not.
If yes，I thought I need at least 2 months to restore all of the content.
If no, What strategy should I do for the recover, IF I Need TO REWRITE, OMG, I have such a huge work to do.

TIPS: BEFORE RECOVERING THE CONTENT, I NEED TO CHECK THE CONTENT ON COPYSCORE WHICH IS UNIQUE OR NOT.


So for the Next stage, WAITING, to check how Google to treat these links.

The last is REPURPOSE, after the previous URL and content which are good on index，now I should repurpose my new site with the keywords which I want to rank，so I should do like this or not：

1、Add new Url & new title according to my selected Keyword
2、Use on-page SEO to write the content covering the keyword which I want to rank
3、Keep the previous URL & Title always alive and do some good internal links.

And For Doing the Above strategy, Here is one detail want to confirm with you:

1. Doing the recover, I should use rebot.txt to ban google crawl, after recovering the 5000 pages then allow the spider permit and submit the domain to Google website console?

 

[fasttrak]

do you care about moz spam score ?

Yes and no. Basically it is not accurate and has no real bearing on the quality of the domain. However, if it is more than 20, I do examine it more closely to see if it has anything I should be worried about. It is an indicator, but not something you would want to base a decision on alone. If it is higher than you like, have a closer look.

Can you please tell us more details on how to choose the right domain.

If the domain is in Chinese language, do I need to rebuild in Chinese language or can I rebuild it in English language.

Do you backorder the domain or wait till the domain is expired.

Thanks again for sharing this with us.

You can build the site out in any language you want. Have a look at some of my earlier replies as I covered this previously. BUT, I personally stay clear of anything in Chinese, Korean etc. They are usually spammed to death.

Hi Fasttrak,

Firstly，really appreciated your work.

And Here I have some questions awaiting your help and attach one screenshoot here.

I have reviewed a few articles here but still a little confused for how to use the expired domain properly

ESPECIALLY FOR THE FIRST STAGE: RECOVER THE OLD CONTENT

Some of them written that we should restore the content and URL which as 100% the same as before by archive.org, And some of them told me you should use archive.org to check the old content, and copy it and rewrite.

But now for me, I have over 5400 pages having the backlinks，so should I restore all of the contents the same as before, and especially for the URL & Title which also should be 100% same or not.
If yes，I thought I need at least 2 months to restore all of the content.
If no, What strategy should I do for the recover, IF I Need TO REWRITE, OMG, I have such a huge work to do.

TIPS: BEFORE RECOVERING THE CONTENT, I NEED TO CHECK THE CONTENT ON COPYSCORE WHICH IS UNIQUE OR NOT.


So for the Next stage, WAITING, to check how Google to treat these links.

The last is REPURPOSE, after the previous URL and content which are good on index，now I should repurpose my new site with the keywords which I want to rank，so I should do like this or not：

1、Add new Url & new title according to my selected Keyword
2、Use on-page SEO to write the content covering the keyword which I want to rank
3、Keep the previous URL & Title always alive and do some good internal links.

And For Doing the Above strategy, Here is one detail want to confirm with you:

1. Doing the recover, I should use rebot.txt to ban google crawl, after recovering the 5000 pages then allow the spider permit and submit the domain to Google website console?

Going to try to break the questions up so they are easy to read.

>>But now for me, I have over 5400 pages having the backlinks，so should I restore all of the contents the same as before

The answer is, it depends. If the 5400 pages all have quality backlinks, yes, I would restore all old pages. If most of the quality links are to a lesser number of pages, I would restore those pages and 404 the rest to the domain root. It really depends on the quality of the links pointing to specific pages.

>>so should I restore all of the contents the same as before, and especially for the URL & Title which also should be 100% same or not.

Personally I prefer to use the old content. For a site this size and assuming it has quality links to old ALL pages, I would use one of the methods I mentioned in earlier replies to quickly and cheaply restore the entire site. With smaller sites, I like to copyscape the content to make sure it is unique. If it is not, I will find some other expired content on the same subject and just use that instead.

>>The last is REPURPOSE, after the previous URL and content which are good on index，now I should repurpose my new site with the keywords which I want to rank，so I should do like this or not：

Covered this previously. Take a look at some of my earlier replies in this thread, as the answers are there.

>>1. Doing the recover, I should use rebot.txt to ban google crawl, after recovering the 5000 pages then allow the spider permit and submit the domain to Google website console?

Not sure where you got this from. I build the site out, let it sit for a while, then submit to GWC. I never ban google from crawling the site. Maybe you are getting confused with 301 redirecting pages in .htaccess? I do that.

HTH

 

[CFT]

Yes and no. Basically it is not accurate and has no real bearing on the quality of the domain. However, if it is more than 20, I do examine it more closely to see if it has anything I should be worried about. It is an indicator, but not something you would want to base a decision on alone. If it is higher than you like, have a closer look.

I checked a domain in Moz only the free account and it didn't give a score
but has this
1-30%
60.5%
31-60%
20.0%
61-100%
19.5%

Is this Ok?

 

[mandroid999]

Thanks for this wonderful guide. Is there any other way to earn money using expired domains?

 

[Mr. EliteSeo]

A great guide on using Expired domains. This is really helpful. Thanks alot!!

 

[Ma_ku]

Hi Fasttrak, first thank you very much for this detailed guide!

Let's say I resuscitate the website "letsrock.com" (fictitious example) that used to be a music band's website. I waited a few weeks, now it's ranking again in Google for its previous KWs.

Now, I want to make a new website on the domain "letsrock.com", but I want to turn it into a niche site about banking / recommending credit cards.

Obviously, the 2 sites are on 2 different topics. So what do I do ?

• Do I delete all old articles that are not related to my new niche and make 301 redicrections towards the home page? (and start building the new site from there)
  
• Do I first rank with a few articles about my new niche while still keeping the old unrelated articles (and then after a while I delete them?)

Thanks!

 

[Juala jun]

Great guide to reindex and use an expired domain, but do you know where can i find good expired domains ?