Case Study - Expired Domains 301 Experiment

seoz87

seoz87

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For a client's site, I recently implemented the 301 redirect...following are the results and details of experiment..enjoy.

Site Niche = Academic Site

Approach or Logic behind the 301 Redirect:
A single link from top domains like bbc.com worth thousands of dollars. If we can find an
expired domain with a link form sites like bbc.com and then redirect it to our website, we are
getting a high priced and quality link for cheap price.

Also a single link from such domain can increase site authority and rankings in Google.

Steps Taken:
1. Find expired domains that are either relevant or have strong backlink profile. Even 2 or 3 strong backlinks will work.
2. Directly 301 them to our target site from domain panel. Not hosting. No content addition. nothing.

Domains Finalized:
http://domain-1.com = political site, dofoll0w Link from top news site / Total DF Links = 3

http://domain-2.com = lawyer site, dofoll0w link from an edu & justia.com, a high authority law site / Total DF Links = 5

http://domain-3.com = relevant site dealing in same industry, dofoll0w link from an edu plus a couple of highly relevant links from education related websites / Total DF Links = 14

Cost
$36

Experiment Timeline:
Domains were redirected on single page https://www.mywebsite.co.uk/my-page.php

Domains were redirected on Aug 1
Indexed by Google on Aug 10

Rankings Update:
All are commercial intent kws and are highly competitive

LvokTSD


Conclusions:

  • 301 redirect is still working
  • You don't have to buy domains with hundreds of links.
  • Finding an expired domain with 2 or 3 high authority link is relatively easy..(i found hundreds of expired domain with a link from a top UK university)
 
Last edited:
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After buy a expired domain, how long you start 301 to your site? How do you know the old domain not banned or sandbox before?

Sorry my english is not good
 
Thanks !

i have been told that, if you can get some cheap hosting and restore the same pages which were there and then redirect, its more powerful as compare to direct 301 !
 
slowboy said:
After buy a expired domain, how long you start 301 to your site? How do you know the old domain not banned or sandbox before?
Click to expand...

almost instantly. afteri bought them..
i checked via ahref and other seo tools as much as i can...Its a risk but thats what SEO is all about :)
Plus if your rankings went down..simply remove the 301

bhushan3339 said:
Thanks !

i have been told that, if you can get some cheap hosting and restore the same pages which were there and then redirect, its more powerful as compare to direct 301 !
Click to expand...

its a waste of time to be honest. I was reluctant with 301 because i have read here people saying post 2000 word article on domain, make some links, get it rank naturally then add your link, etc etc. If i have to do all that then i would be better off doing it on my main site rather then wasting time and efforts on a new website built in expired domain...

the best you can do is 301 all pages to home so that you dont miss any link juice.

So the best option, in my humble opinion, is to directly 301 and check the rankings on daily basis, If you see it going down, simply remove the redirect.
 
Interesting.

Did you bought the domains or found them yourself?
 
How long does undoing a 301 take for ranking to come back if you remove.
 
Any traffic from those redirect domains? Thx for sharing.
 
I heard before it ranks for short time then the ranks goes back to normal

Following
 
Thanks for this research!

Quick about the links, the BBC site has links that point to the expired domain right ?

Thanks.
 
seoz87 said:
For a client's site, I recently implemented the 301 redirect...following are the results and details of experiment..enjoy.

Site Niche = Academic Site

Approach or Logic behind the 301 Redirect:
A single link from top domains like bbc.com worth thousands of dollars. If we can find an
expired domain with a link form sites like bbc.com and then redirect it to our website, we are
getting a high priced and quality link for cheap price.

Also a single link from such domain can increase site authority and rankings in Google.

Steps Taken:
1. Find expired domains that are either relevant or have strong backlink profile. Even 2 or 3 strong backlinks will work.
2. Directly 301 them to our target site from domain panel. Not hosting. No content addition. nothing.

Domains Finalized:
http://domain-1.com = political site, dofoll0w Link from top news site / Total DF Links = 3

http://domain-2.com = lawyer site, dofoll0w link from an edu & justia.com, a high authority law site / Total DF Links = 5

http://domain-3.com = relevant site dealing in same industry, dofoll0w link from an edu plus a couple of highly relevant links from education related websites / Total DF Links = 14

Cost
$36

Experiment Timeline:
Domains were redirected on single page https://www.mywebsite.co.uk/my-page.php

Domains were redirected on Aug 1
Indexed by Google on Aug 10

Rankings Update:
All are commercial intent kws and are highly competitive

LvokTSD


Conclusions:

  • 301 redirect is still working
  • You don't have to buy domains with hundreds of links.
  • Finding an expired domain with 2 or 3 high authority link is relatively easy..(i found hundreds of expired domain with a link from a top UK university)
Click to expand...

How long did the domain expired? Just expired or few years before?
 
will you remove the 301? are you planning to add more?
Thanks for the info :)
 
seoz87 said:
found them myself..that's why costed $12 per domain :D
Click to expand...
How did you find the domains?

I'm a newbie in this field and I wanna learn. So, can you point me
towards any guides, posts, etc that can teach me the process of
finding these domains?
 
seoz87 said:
2. Directly 301 them to our target site from domain panel. Not hosting. No content addition. nothing.
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing.
1. What does "not hosting" mean?
2. What does it mean to do it "from domain panel"?
 
affbull said:
Thanks for sharing.
1. What does "not hosting" mean?
2. What does it mean to do it "from domain panel"?
Click to expand...

With 301, you can do it from the place where you buy your domain such as name cheap.

So you don't need hosting
 
Would love to see what happens if you just setup a site for each domain and used it as a PBN.
 
mikey29 said:
With 301, you can do it from the place where you buy your domain such as name cheap.

So you don't need hosting
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response. Can you explain how to do this via namecheap? I asked chat support and they added in a code to the PHP on my site (that will be redirected) so there still has to be hosting?
 
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