Before you go through the grueling process of creating new content to breathe life into your expired domain, make sure that you’re familiar with the practice of link building.
Learning about domain extensions, authority links, and what to do with a backlink profile can help you find expired domains that will drive more traffic from search engines.
Why Buy Expired Domain Names with Backlinks?
Over the years, the intersection of online culture and commerce has made buying expired domains a billion-dollar industry, but that doesn’t mean you have to pay top-dollar for expired domain names relevant to your business or blog.
Owners have to pay a monthly fee to keep their expiring domains from going up for sale. Some marketing companies register choice options from expired domain lists, optimize them, and then sell them to other people for a profit.
Whether you’re looking to sell domain names or keep one forever, learning about link building can save you a lot of money and hassle in monetizing a specific domain.
Backlinks are mentions of an expired domain on other websites, and if they are relevant to your content, they can boost your website’s traffic.
For example, if you want to buy expired domains to build a sports website, look for one with backlinks from sites like these:
- ESPN
- Bleacher Report
- Fox Sports
- Deadspin
- LiveScore
If you’re trying to find expired domains to create a research database, you will get high traffic with outbound links from:
- Wikipedia
- Science.gov
- ReasearchGate
- And similar websites
What Does Page Authority Mean?
When marketers say that a website has high page authority, they mean it’s a resource where people get accurate and reliable information.
These authoritative pages will keep referring domains with harder-to-read research information in superscript numbers, letters, and anchor text to keep their data up-to-date.
Some news journals like TMZ and the Huffington Post might build links to other articles and media within their network.
New domains with a high number of backlinks to trustworthy sites will rank higher on Google pages, which is the ultimate aim of SEO.
High trust flow from a good backlink profile is one of the most important metrics when searching for a new domain name.
It’s not easy to find domains like these as SEO companies can use robots and crawlers to buy them within seconds of going on sale.
Finding the Perfect Domain with Backlinks
If you want to buy expired domains, there are a litany of factors you need to consider before arriving at the registration phase.
You have to think about the cost-efficiency of registering an expired domain name versus purchasing a new website. You have to spot relevant terms, sort through historical data, and investigate site links that can be detrimental to traffic.
Here are a few things you need to look for in a free expired domain before registration or in a new one before purchase:
Can Domain Age Improve Page Traffic?
An expired domain name that previously demonstrated the ability to rank high on the Google index is guaranteed to have higher traffic.
If you find an old website with a keyword-rich domain that’s relevant to your business or blog, you’ve found a hidden gem. Now you might be thinking “my domain expired and I want it back”, because you’ve just lost a hidden gem (don’t worry you can usually get them back).
Google thinks websites with high domain age (more than one-year-old) are more credible as previous owners spent more time, funds, and energy to keep them.
Most domains with a few years on them can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars in closeout sales and auctions.
If you find a free one, you can make a few tweaks and improvements and then sell it for a profit.
Does Your Domain Have Keywords that Create Stickiness?
In SEO language, a sticky site will encourage users to delve deeper into associated pages. For online marketplaces, website stickiness can help shoppers come to a purchase decision.
It’s essential to choose expired domains with keywords appropriate for your target market as it is the first thing that they’ll see when they look up your blog topic, product, or service offering on Google.
Purchasing expired domains that already cater to a market like yours may attract website traffic that may take years to build. Building website interest and traffic from scratch can involve thousands of dollars and even more time and energy.
Does Your Domain Contain Backlinks to Authoritative Sites?
Expired domains with an impressive backlink profile are rare. Building up a site with links to the Internet’s favorite resources is a time-consuming and expensive challenge, even for SEO specialists.
You have to create guest posts for business and research pages that Google pegs as authorities in your industry with links that redirect traffic to your main website.
You need to make blog articles, videos, and other contributions with backlinks for domains related to your niche. You need to request domain name registrars like Domain.com and GoDaddy to add your site, which entails monthly expenses.
If you don’t want to spend several years link building, renting a free expired domain might not be a wise move. Use a service with the Wayback Machine exporter to find out what markets an expired domain previously targeted.
If you want to build a site or page with authority over a particular subject on the web from scratch, you may be able to sell it for hundreds of thousands of dollars, but it will take you several years.
How to Know if Expired or Deleted Domains are SEO-Friendly
Buying expired domains for SEO purposes is a business strategy that’s been creating millionaires.
As people become more literate Internet dwellers, improving traffic to a page will take more than googling terms like “expired domains SEO” and following a few simple instructions.
What Does SEO Mean?
SEO stands for search engine optimization, and you need it to increase the rank of your site, page, or blog on search pages on the web.
The first five websites on a Google search page account for over 60% of all clicks. You need to target these top five spots to get noticed on the web.
How to Find a Domain with Excellent SEO Rankings
Finding an SEO-friendly domain is all about putting words in the right places. For example, if you’re launching a website that reviews cooking appliances, you need to find a domain with the word “review” and “cooking.”
What’s in a Name?
A domain should always carry your primary keyword until brand recognition becomes ubiquitous.
For example, Ryan Reynold’s liquor brand Aviation has the domain aviationgin.com.
Their marketing team needs to include “Aviation” and “gin” in their website despite numerous endorsements from one of the world’s most recognizable movie stars.
This naming scheme helps them rank higher in search results when people look up both terms.
Optimize Your Domain with Domain Extensions
If you’re running a local business, a top-level domain specific to your country might drive more visitors to your website. A top-level domain is the final two or three letters after a website name, such as .gov, .com, and .io.
In the early days of the Internet, people used them to refer to different services that a website can provide, but now you can use them for anything. A domain with a “.com” usually costs more than one with a “.io” or “.mx.”
A dot-com domain used to refer to a commercial website during the Dotcom Bubble of the 90s.
Some extensions also have owners who will require you to follow regulations, such as the Societe Internationale de Telecommunications Aeronautique, which requires you to be an airline operator before using the “.aero” extension.
Cost-effective Dot-com Alternatives
Most people find it easier to remember a domain with a “.com” extension than any other extension. Most smartphone keyboards even feature a “.com” button.
They are generally more expensive than location-specific extensions for crowded industries.
Use a .realtor domain extension to sell properties or a .net if someone already owns the .com extension with the keywords you need.
Search engines treat extensions the same but use the SERP checker tool to compare their performance in different markets.
Get Out There and Find Your Domain
Every day, thousands of people hunt for expired domains with attractive backlinks, which help them boost domain authority, organic traffic, and other desirable SEO metrics. The expired domains marketplace is a fast-moving and agile place that can help website builders, resellers, bloggers earn thousands of dollars if they have a discerning eye.
Buying expired domains is a widespread practice in an age where hundreds of businesses start and end every day.
If you want to buy an expired domain that can generate significant traffic, it helps to be aware of the factors that can kill a new website or make it thrive.
Expired domains with domain authority and well-optimized backlinks are highly sought after at online auctions. However, here are a few things you should watch out for in a free domain past its expiration date:
- A domain name that includes symbols, numbers, and hyphens
- Ones that backlink to dead or spam pages
- Backlinks that funnel people into spam pages
- Ones that are part of a private blog network, which are a series of unrelated sites that link back to one hub
Don’t pay more for a domain name than it’s worth. If you follow all these tips, you’ll be sure to find expired domains that will remain profitable for years.
