White Hat SEO with Expired Domains?

[TheMoneyHat]

Quick question - I'm doing some PBN's for myself (just learning) and I was wondering is there any application to white hat SEO with expired domains?

I do SEO for small businesses and I keep a very clean line between "white hat" and "grey hat". Only white hat for clients.

In doing research for my PBN I have found some excellent domains that would be perfect in the niches of some of my clients.

Just wondering if there's some opportunity I could offer to my clients that would be "white hat".

 

[roki4ka]

No

 

[Unreliable Witness]

No there isn't. If you're trying to get your clients better rankings using expired domains that have existing backlinks to them, you're breaking Google's terms.

 

[soa0611]

What kind of white hat seo are you doing for them?

 

[kontentdruid]

yes - sorta

you can buy an expired domain, and either restore it or create new content that it similar to what used to be on it
treat it like a money site
and link once or twice to your client

its not pure white hat but it aint black hat either

 

[stalin88]

There is, if you treat it like the money site. Convince you client to use an expired domain to drive traffic to your money site. It will be transparent. And you treat it like a money site, put alot of content. .

 

[MisterF]

Depends on how highly you value your clients, because you can bet another seo company will approach them, offer them a free audit then in the report out you for doing grey/black hat stuff.

But I'd suggest there could be reasonable argument for you to build up authority sites using the expired domains and then link back to the clients main site as a reference source, that type of thing.

 

[TheMoneyHat]

What kind of white hat seo are you doing for them?

Content creation, on site and on page SEO, link building (outreach), some social media, local where possible. We monitor the effective pages and modify the lesser performing pages. We are always looking for ways to improve on conversion rate on the site.
Suggestions?

 

[TheMoneyHat]

Depends on how highly you value your clients, because you can bet another seo company will approach them, offer them a free audit then in the report out you for doing grey/black hat stuff.

But I'd suggest there could be reasonable argument for you to build up authority sites using the expired domains and then link back to the clients main site as a reference source, that type of thing.

You're right about being transparent - I'll propose it with pros and cons - see what the client thinks -

 

[Stufferizer]

@TheMoneyHat only approach your client with black hat if you are certain they are ready for it.

Conversations like these may turn out cumbersome - they may see you as kind of "hacker" they don't want to spend money on.
Always look with the eyes of the client!

 

[darulez]

bro. honestly. dont do it..

at least research for some clean niche related blogs, and try to get some blog posts on them...

guess what will happen if the client recommends you to someone else ?"that dude just set up some blog on some strange named domain to rank me and it worked"....

 

[GoGudget]

No just don't

 

[TheMoneyHat]

@TheMoneyHat only approach your client with black hat if you are certain they are ready for it.

Conversations like these may turn out cumbersome - they may see you as kind of "hacker" they don't want to spend money on.
Always look with the eyes of the client!

This is what I see as the problem. Clients might question my skills if I suggest anything less than white hat - gonna's put this idea to bed … thanks for the input everyone!

 

[darulez]

This is what I see as the problem. Clients might question my skills if I suggest anything less than white hat - gonna's put this idea to bed … thanks for the input everyone!

It's not about questioning your skills. Even thinking about offering them that way, shows you got some skill and some ROI in mind..

However, it will definetly back fire on you cause they dont really get the value behind it.

Else, you would also have to build them "PBN" way, block crawlers and all shabang..


If know how it feels... I can get expired domains for 50$, that are in all stats stronger then some of the most cared projects I own and build in the past .. for "free" (my own time), I can research some, which sligthly lower stats, that are even nich related... but I would not point them at any client at all.

 

[Sristy]

Whitehat for google is when you put high quality content and get natural backlinks and this for fu*k knows never happens. So what you are left with is only blackhat. Take your pick.

 

[darulez]

Whitehat for google is when you put high quality content and get natural backlinks and this for fu*k knows never happens. So what you are left with is only blackhat. Take your pick.

I own 2 dozens sites. some 10 years old. I can honestly say, that from all domains (!) / not links/ perhaps less than 1% occured naturally. and this does NOT include any social media share.

so, thats +1 for that usual google fluff bullshit of "high quality content that gets shared" bullshit...

 

[shakthipriya]

An expired domain is filtered based on its metrics. Most people use Page Rank. Some use Moz Domain Authority, while others use Majestic Seo Trust Flow. However, one thing that you need to know is that every single metric can be manipulated. It is easier to manipulate some (DA) and tougher to manipulate others (TF), but relying on a single metric is a fallacy.

 

[CenterCB]

Utilizing an expired domain is a shortcut and very effective way to gain better ranking in short time
it is safe method and works good, so why cares about the color of its hat

 

[davids355]

Really it depends on how you define whitehat. So op how do you define whitehat?

 

[darulez]

An expired domain is filtered based on its metrics. Most people use Page Rank. Some use Moz Domain Authority, while others use Majestic Seo Trust Flow. However, one thing that you need to know is that every single metric can be manipulated. It is easier to manipulate some (DA) and tougher to manipulate others (TF), but relying on a single metric is a fallacy.

+1. agree.