[Guide] How to use Expired Domains effectively

[CryptoCapitalista]

Hello @fasttrak,

I really enjoyed reading your guide! Thanks for sharing all those wonderful tips!

If I buy an expiring domain on GoDaddy Auctions that has no drops and is still indexed (+ spamcheck on domain done) and I restore the previous website on it again, how long will it take for the previous keywords to start ranking again? And from the moment they do start ranking, is it allowed to place a complete new article on the domain just to see if it starts ranking as well?

Thanks so much for your advice and help!

Keep up the good work!

 

[CryptoCapitalista]

Fasttrak fell asleep

 

[fasttrak]

This is exactly what im looking for, thank for sharing

Nice share. Will give it a try.

Fantastic share too !

Thank you. It is nice to see that this is still helping today.

Thank you very much for your exciting guide.
I am interested in your opinion on the following case, perhaps you already have some experience:
I bought an Expired in the technology sector and set it up again (i.e. I didn't take over the old structure and content, but stayed in the niche). Neither the seller nor I knew how strong this domain actually was/is. It got a lot of news & discover traffic after a short time. Unfortunately, after just a few weeks, it flattened out again and is now almost at 0.
It also has hardly any organic rankings.
Do you think it might help to follow your method on this site and also restore the old content? Or do you think its dead?

Or basically: Does an expired page still have a chance if it was set up and indexed with new content in the meantime? Or must there really not have been any other content on it?

Many thanks in advance

What you describe sounds a lot like the sandbox effect, i.e. Google is treating it like a new site and not an old site, which is one of the reasons you would use the expired domain method in the first place. If it was my site, I would build back some of the old content that used to rank and give it a few months to bed in. Build some links and social signals to the old content to get Google to recrawl it and think it is getting some attention to help it along.

Hello @fasttrak,

I really enjoyed reading your guide! Thanks for sharing all those wonderful tips!

If I buy an expiring domain on GoDaddy Auctions that has no drops and is still indexed (+ spamcheck on domain done) and I restore the previous website on it again, how long will it take for the previous keywords to start ranking again? And from the moment they do start ranking, is it allowed to place a complete new article on the domain just to see if it starts ranking as well?

Thanks so much for your advice and help!

Keep up the good work!

I find it usually takes up to 3 months for the old content to start to rank again but with a non dropped domain that could be very quick, weeks, not months. As soon as you start to see rankings come back you can create a new article, just make sure it matches the niche of the site and create some links from the old content that is ranking to the new content.

Let us know how it goes.

 

[mirrorer]

@fasttrak

Thank you for this guide. With this guide and some trial & errors, I was able to 10x the traffic in 1y, on a niche website and survive the last major updates

Quick question.

I bought and restored (same niche) a powerful domain in 2023.

New content ranks well. Overall ranking & traffic is at historic high for this domain.

However, that's from the new content only. The old one doesn't rank well, even 1y later.



Any idea why?
Has this ever happened to you?

More details:

• Site was run by a non seo person with passion for the niche.
• Had huge social followings where it was getting most of it traffic.
• Author was covering many topics in a single post and using rich schema for multiple items on the same post.
• No seo optimized content nor focusing on a single topic for most of the blog posts.
• Judging from SemRush no SEO penalty from the past (the fact that ranks well and fast for the new content further supports this)
• A lot of posts were shared on social aggregators. As I said the author was well known on socials. When the site went offline, a lot of this content was still online.

With another exp domain that I tried a similar approach, the old content ranked in 2-3 months as you mentioned.

 

[fasttrak]

@fasttrak

Thank you for this guide. With this guide and some trial & errors, I was able to 10x the traffic in 1y, on a niche website and survive the last major updates

Quick question.

I bought and restored (same niche) a powerful domain in 2023.

New content ranks well. Overall ranking & traffic is at historic high for this domain.

However, that's from the new content only. The old one doesn't rank well, even 1y later.

View attachment 354450

Any idea why?
Has this ever happened to you?

More details:

• Site was run by a non seo person with passion for the niche.
• Had huge social followings where it was getting most of it traffic.
• Author was covering many topics in a single post and using rich schema for multiple items on the same post.
• No seo optimized content nor focusing on a single topic for most of the blog posts.
• Judging from SemRush no SEO penalty from the past (the fact that ranks well and fast for the new content further supports this)
• A lot of posts were shared on social aggregators. As I said the author was well known on socials. When the site went offline, a lot of this content was still online.

With another exp domain that I tried a similar approach, the old content ranked in 2-3 months as you mentioned.

Have you checked the old content vs what is currently ranking? My guess is given what you have said, the content just does not cut it 5 years later, compared to modern content and what Google is now looking for and rewarding.

Congratulations on your successes with this method . It is great to see others doing well from it and as long as you keep it niche consistent, Google's March update misses this little loophole and ranking is fairly consistent.

 

[drakan91]

amazing guide thank you for sharing it

 

[Agnus Castus]

Great guide, looking forward to see more such tips from you.

Just one quick question if I had already done the website into a new pages with different copy, would it rank at some point? Or would you suggest i retreive the old pages, redo them and then possibly switch to the new content once it has got some traction?

 

[mirrorer]

Have you checked the old content vs what is currently ranking? My guess is given what you have said, the content just does not cut it 5 years later, compared to modern content and what Google is now looking for and rewarding.

My guess is that + multiple topics in one post.

I am always experimenting. Right now I am re-writing all posts with HQ links focusing on the topic that has the most links.

Will see in 2-3 months if that helps.

Congratulations on your successes with this method . It is great to see others doing well from it and as long as you keep it niche consistent, Google's March update misses this little loophole and ranking is fairly consistent.

Yup- Same niche. In March this site gained 40%. On may 4th lost ~20% but since then its stable.


Cheers.

 

[Marco69]

I must ask you guys, I found an expired domain on expiredomains.net witg 105 backlinks domain birth year: 2013, in the row List it shows Deleted, what does that means?

I can buy it on namecheap for $6.95 yes you read that right.
A domain form 2013 with 105 backlinks I get so cheap like a new domain where is the catch here, I not understand it.

I see expired domains no matter if they are listed with 100k or 300k backlinks listed on namecheap or godaddy for $15-25, but the expired domain listed at sedo they cost $450, this looks fraudy-fishy, do namecheap and godaddy take all the backlinks away or why these 300k backlinks domains are so cheap ?

Then I see it on seokicks.de that this domain with 300k backlinks for $25 has zero backlinks, where the hell are all these 300k backlinks?

Thanks for tips
Marco

 

[fasttrak]

amazing guide thank you for sharing it

Thank you and you are welcome.

Great guide, looking forward to see more such tips from you.

Just one quick question if I had already done the website into a new pages with different copy, would it rank at some point? Or would you suggest i retreive the old pages, redo them and then possibly switch to the new content once it has got some traction?

The reason I bring back the old content that was ranking previously is that you have to give Google something for the existing powerful links to link to (which is why you bought it in the first place). A bit like dot to dot drawing, Google has to follow a path for this to work. Once it sees the content, which can be new if it is exactly on topic of the old page, follows the dots (links), you are then rewarded with the boost to that page and your site. If you simply add new content to an expired domain, Google sees the powerful old links as orphaned and discounts them as it thinks the expired domain is now just a new domain, so it starts you from scratch.

I would rebuild the old content that had links to it and ranked, either exactly as it was or new copy which is on topic for that page, ping the old links, build some social and other signals to the new/old page and wait for Google to pick it up. I then link from that page to other new content on the site to strengthen the new content and rank it.

I must ask you guys, I found an expired domain on expiredomains.net witg 105 backlinks domain birth year: 2013, in the row List it shows Deleted, what does that means?

I can buy it on namecheap for $6.95 yes you read that right.
A domain form 2013 with 105 backlinks I get so cheap like a new domain where is the catch here, I not understand it.

I see expired domains no matter if they are listed with 100k or 300k backlinks listed on namecheap or godaddy for $15-25, but the expired domain listed at sedo they cost $450, this looks fraudy-fishy, do namecheap and godaddy take all the backlinks away or why these 300k backlinks domains are so cheap ?

Then I see it on seokicks.de that this domain with 300k backlinks for $25 has zero backlinks, where the hell are all these 300k backlinks?

Thanks for tips
Marco

Personally I would not use sites like expiredomains.net to find an expired domain for a project, there is rarely anything of value and you would be better off just starting a new domain.

Not all expired domains are equal. You have to check their history and the quality of the old links before deciding which one to buy. If the domain has been spammed in the past, you need to avoid, if the 1000+ links are all rubbish, it will not help you, most likely stop you from ranking.

An expired domain is just a domain which has not been renewed by the previous owner. If it is available to register again, anyone can register it. Many of us find decent expired domains which have a good amount of powerful backlinks and that are clean, we then re-register them and use them for our projects/sites, as per my guide.

Other services like Sedo, Godaddy, Namecheap etc allow existing domain owners to sell their old domains, hence the price, or they buy some themselves and sell them on. Nothing shady. Personally I just find my own.

 

[GreenGrass2019]

What do you think of sites with foreign language? Should we still get the posts back upand eventually add english content later on?

 

[fasttrak]

What do you think of sites with foreign language? Should we still get the posts back upand eventually add english content later on?

That is actually really interesting. I have never tried to change language on an expired domain before, but I would guess that if you can restore the content/old links, there is no reason why you could not change the site language.

If you give it a go, please let us know how it works out, it will help everyone.

 

[CodingBlondie]

@fasttrak: Such a great guide! Where can I find more guides, tips and tricks like this from you ?

 

[OutlookWire]

It's a really gold Information for me.

 

[Maverick1111]

OH that means I cant do 301 redirect for the juice, I have to wakeup every expired links!! ?

 

[GreenGrass2019]

I restored my pages and some of them start showing in GSC (9 pages).

Do I delete my HTML pages now and reinstall a brand new wordpress site? I don't think you can keep both HTML and Wordpress if your going for a wordpress site. From what I know you need to create a subdomain called /wp so it would become yourdomain.com/wp/post-name instead of yourdomain.com/post-name.

 

[azureshian]

That is actually really interesting. I have never tried to change language on an expired domain before, but I would guess that if you can restore the content/old links, there is no reason why you could not change the site language.

If you give it a go, please let us know how it works out, it will help everyone.

Hello,

I have relevant experience. The original language of the website was [English]. When it started to get traffic, I added [Chinese] or [Japanese] languages.

However, I did not rush to 301 redirect the [original articles] to the Chinese or Japanese versions. Instead, I let them coexist. After about 4 months, the new articles were able to rank effectively.

 

[indrakorg]

I restored my pages and some of them start showing in GSC (9 pages).

Do I delete my HTML pages now and reinstall a brand new wordpress site? I don't think you can keep both HTML and Wordpress if your going for a wordpress site. From what I know you need to create a subdomain called /wp so it would become yourdomain.com/wp/post-name instead of yourdomain.com/post-name.

same question

 

[Nargil]

same question

Create a new, nice URL and redirect the old one there. Do this with every single page manually.

 

[indrakorg]

Create a new, nice URL and redirect the old one there. Do this with every single page manually.

should i redirect old url to homepage?