Building blog on expired domain?

[wwallace1]

Hi all,

I'm so tired of failing with building sites on new domains so I decided that I will build a site on an expired domain. I found one PA/DA 40+ PR n/a, with a great diversified backlink profile (10 PR4 links, 8 PR3's, 13 PR2's, etc) . But the niche is completely different from the site I want to build. For example, let's say my site is about "dog food" but the expired domain has backlinks relating to 'jewelry'

The main reason I am trying this is because I want my articles to rank very easily in serps. Also I'm asking you guys because this domain is $500+ so I want to hear from some pros if I should try this or not

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[freezeice04]

There's no problem with that, but your site will be gone when Google does a manual review.

 

[wwallace1]

There's no problem with that, but your site will be gone when Google does a manual review.

OUCH! so G will deindex the site? I think I read that somewhere...

But in your experience building a site on a expired domain with good link profile will give me a good boost in serps?

 

[Univa]

Domain Name is like a FACE of website, it that is not related that might affect you.
That is my opinion wait for more Gurus to post their comments..

 

[allaboutdomains]

There are two problems. First, the content you put on your expired domain needs to be loosely related to the original content. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how you can do this with dog food and jewelry. You would not pass a manual review if Google penalized you. The second issue is that while expired domains provide link juice, they are not the best for a money site. The reason is because there is a sandbox period where the domain will not rank high in the serps. Eventually you will get out of the sandbox but you may need to wait for months so you need to be patient. I would instead use the expired domain as part of your pbn rather than as a money site.

 

[wwallace1]

There are two problems. First, the content you put on your expired domain needs to be loosely related to the original content. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how you can do this with dog food and jewelry. You would not pass a manual review if Google penalized you. The second issue is that while expired domains provide link juice, they are not the best for a money site. The reason is because there is a sandbox period where the domain will not rank high in the serps. Eventually you will get out of the sandbox but you may need to wait for months so you need to be patient. I would instead use the expired domain as part of your pbn rather than as a money site.

thank you

what if I rebuilt the old page, kept the 'jewelry' post stickyed to the front but all of the other posts are all about 'dog food' ?

 

[wwallace1]

The second issue is that while expired domains provide link juice, they are not the best for a money site. The reason is because there is a sandbox period where the domain will not rank high in the serps. Eventually you will get out of the sandbox but you may need to wait for months so you need to be patient. I would instead use the expired domain as part of your pbn rather than as a money site.

i thought when buying a expired domain (actually not sure if its expired since the owner will transfer it to me) will not have a sandbox and because of the high DA/PA, moz, etc metrics that my articles will get higher serps than starting on a new domain w/ no backlink profile?

 

[farkasb]

First of all, I don't believe G would penalize your domain just because it was used in the past for a different niche. It is not written in the "law" that you have to check this before you register a new domain, so it could have been that you weren't even aware of that. I think if you build a nice site on it (not some spammy kind crap), they wouldn't penalize it over a manual review, just because of old backlinks.
About the other thing. You need to check the anchors of the links in this case. You will want as much "generic/brand/domain name" kind anchors as possible, and less keywords. It's simple because generic ones will support your new niche better (as they aren't about a specific niche), than the ones with old keywords.

I once registered an expired domain on a local market (ccTLD). I wanted to use it for my PBN, so I built a small niche specific site on it. It wasn't really ranking for the new topic, so I created 1-2 web 2.0 sites and sent some links with new keywords. The web 2.0's were about the new topic obviously, so basically I wanted to tell them that the site is now about the new topic. It worked so well, that the new site ended up ranking #2 position for the main keyword, so eventually I turned it to be a money site. It wasn't a competitive niche though, and the other sites were pretty basic, but still I think this explains that it works. It took about 6 months.

 

[wwallace1]

well the anchors for this are for the niche's name, so ie: The Jewelry Shop so most of the anchors are branded like that or a variation of the brand. Then you have your naked links in there too...

 

[qqqqt]

HOW HIS DOMAIN WILL GET DEINDEXED let me know this too!

 

[thedood]

Google won't penalize him unless he does something stupid to it. There's nothing wrong with building a site on an aged/expired domain, but def not the best route unless it's related to his market.

 

[seocrab]

$500 is way too high for the metrics you quoted. Why not get a new domain and use the money to build quality backlinks? Or better still, get an expired/aged domain with a few good backlinks for <$20 then build niche links.

I like buying domains with good backlinks, but only when a) they are relevant to my niche, or b) they are to be used as part of a link network.

 

[jstover77]

Why not wait for a domain that's in the niche you want to build? Then you can find the old pages in archives (any site that was legit will have one), and rebuild them. If they are irrelevant or don't fit within your construct, 301 them to new pages.

Also, make sure you check the link profiles a bit deeper. Just because they have a couple links with PR, doesn't mean they aren't junk or the link profile as a whole is junk. I see tons of high PR sites with what looks like good link profiles, but when you dig deeper, they turn out to be total shit. Having a PR N/A with a decent DA is usually a good sign that something is goofy with the domain.

As far as link building, relevancy is definitely important for long term success, but authority is just as important. I have a bunch of irrelevant links to my money sites. I will trade authority for relevancy on most days. You just have to set criteria, mostly being that they look somewhat natural (think "our sponsor", "thanks for the donation YOUR BRAND", "check out our partners site" etc..).

 

[Aty]

I recently picked up a dropped domain with solid backlink profile, rebuilt the site, and now it's ranking top20 for pretty competitive keywords (no SEO has been done at my end). So yes, it's best to build the blog on the same niche/topic that was before.

 

[wwallace1]

$500 is way too high for the metrics you quoted. Why not get a new domain and use the money to build quality backlinks? Or better still, get an expired/aged domain with a few good backlinks for <$20 then build niche links.

I like buying domains with good backlinks, but only when a) they are relevant to my niche, or b) they are to be used as part of a link network.

The reason I want to try this is method is because I have built a lot of sites on new domains (emd and nonemd) and have had pretty much no success making money. So I think maybe this method will give me a short cut on getting my articles ranked...

 

[wwallace1]

Why not wait for a domain that's in the niche you want to build? Then you can find the old pages in archives (any site that was legit will have one), and rebuild them. If they are irrelevant or don't fit within your construct, 301 them to new pages.

Also, make sure you check the link profiles a bit deeper. Just because they have a couple links with PR, doesn't mean they aren't junk or the link profile as a whole is junk. I see tons of high PR sites with what looks like good link profiles, but when you dig deeper, they turn out to be total shit. Having a PR N/A with a decent DA is usually a good sign that something is goofy with the domain.

As far as link building, relevancy is definitely important for long term success, but authority is just as important. I have a bunch of irrelevant links to my money sites. I will trade authority for relevancy on most days. You just have to set criteria, mostly being that they look somewhat natural (think "our sponsor", "thanks for the donation YOUR BRAND", "check out our partners site" etc..).

the backlinks on this domain are really good, I checked all the high PR ones and they are from great 'jewelry' niche related sites and blogs... so I was wondering why the PR was n/a as well...?

I recently picked up a dropped domain with solid backlink profile, rebuilt the site, and now it's ranking top20 for pretty competitive keywords (no SEO has been done at my end). So yes, it's best to build the blog on the same niche/topic that was before.

So your backlinks on the dropped domain were in the same niche? like the dropped domain was about 'jewelry' then you built a site about 'jewelry' ?

 

[farkasb]

well the anchors for this are for the niche's name, so ie: The Jewelry Shop so most of the anchors are branded like that or a variation of the brand. Then you have your naked links in there too...

Well, if they are mostly about "jewelry shop", the site will still try to rank for that for quite a while before you can turn it to your new niche. You will need to keep adding new content and build backlinks from niche related sites as long as it will eventually start ranking for the new niche. If it worth 500$ is different question. You can usually check what was the PR of it before it was set to -1 by searching for "xxx.com page rank". There are sites keeping history of PR. That may add some additional information for the decision.

 

[wwallace1]

Well, if they are mostly about "jewelry shop", the site will still try to rank for that for quite a while before you can turn it to your new niche. You will need to keep adding new content and build backlinks from niche related sites as long as it will eventually start ranking for the new niche. If it worth 500$ is different question. You can usually check what was the PR of it before it was set to -1 by searching for "xxx.com page rank". There are sites keeping history of PR. That may add some additional information for the decision.

Thanks! looks like in december of 2013 it was a PR1 and it's a 11yearold domain!

So As I mentioned, I have sites that have failed in the past, alot have deindexed so I will be reusing those articles. They are all in the 'dog food' niche but the sites they were on all had DA/PA of in the low 10's and this domain about 'jewelry' has a DA/PA of the high 40's

 

[jstover77]

the backlinks on this domain are really good, I checked all the high PR ones and they are from great 'jewelry' niche related sites and blogs... so I was wondering why the PR was n/a as well...?

Hmm..if the link profile is high quality, then the only other thing I can think of is, maybe the website went down before the last PR update. Google saw the site was down or there was a parked domain and made it a PR N/A.

 

[Aty]

So your backlinks on the dropped domain were in the same niche? like the dropped domain was about 'jewelry' then you built a site about 'jewelry' ?

Exactly, except I rebuilt the old site, but you can as well build a new site about jewelry.