Here are 12 ways to buy expired domains
This guide will show you how to filter expired domains prior to buying them. It’s actually quite long, at more than 2000 words. But it is really useful information – I swear. This article can be ignored if you are already familiar with the key metrics I’m going below.
Customers often ask us the first question: How can I choose which domain to purchase? There are many domains that promise high page ranks but then people end up finding out that they were worthless. This led to the creation of this series of articles that help to know what to consider before buying a domain.
The following questions will be answered in this article:
- These metrics are important to me.
- How can I assess an expired domain? What price should you pay?
- How can I tell if an expired domain is a fraud?
- How can I be sure that my domain’s page rank or any other metric will not drop after I buy it?
- What metrics should I focus on?
A website that expires domains can import 300,000.00 new domains each day for sale. This is a huge number of domains to search through for website sales domain estates. To filter through this vast list of domains and find the most valuable, you will need metrics. Filtering through the huge daily list is the first step in finding expired domains with traffic to purchase.
Page Rank is the most popular filtering tool. Others use Domain Authority Tool while others use Seo Trust Flow. One thing you should know is that any metric can be modified. While manipulating some metrics is easier than others (DA), manipulating others is more difficult (TF). Relying solely on one metric is a mistake.
Below is a list of metrics that you should be looking at. If any of these domain metrics seem unusual, it is best to either throw the domain away or dig deeper into the backlink profile and do further research.
1. Domain Age (Age is more than a number)
Because older domains are more trusted, search engines prefer them. It is possible that the domain may still be relevant to search engines if it hasn’t been deleted.
You must display three “ages”.
- From the WhoIs details, you can find out the domain age. This is the date that the domain was registered. This number is usually reset if a domain goes down.
- Wayback Archive provides the domain age. This is the date the Wayback Archive first crawled the site. This age may be lower than the WhoIs age if a domain didn’t have a website.
- Wayback Archive shows the website age. This is the age of the domain’s last website. This number is extremely useful to determine if the domain was used regularly.
Tip#1 – Look for domains that are at least a decade old, as it takes time to build enough authority. But don’t worry if the domain isn’t decades old.
2. Page Ranking (PR) (Time to get rid PR?)
The default metric that most people use when assessing the domain’s value is Page Rank. Google claims that the Toolbar Page Rank won’t be updated for several years. However, this is false. We still like it. However, this number will eventually become meaningless.
Most people don’t know that the PR displayed on the toolbar does not reflect the PR Google uses internally. The page rank internally is continuously being calculated and used for web ranking search results. Google does not push this data to its toolbar every year, and may not do so in the future. This data is often outdated and therefore not useful for making decisions. It is also possible to fake the PR by forwarding domains to websites with high PR. Dropl ensures that the PR is authentic.
Tip#2 – Be cautious of expired domains that have a PR higher than 6. These domains are most likely fake. We wish that the industry would just discard Page Rank and instead use Majestic Trust Flow.
3. Domain Authority
Domain Authority (DA), a metric that ranges from 0 to 100, predicts how well a website will perform on SERPs. DA can be used for comparing domains. Page Authority (PA), a metric that indicates the likelihood of a page ranking in the SERPs, is used to compare domains. Similar to the Domain Authority (DA), this metric is for the homepage of the website. These two values should be identical in an ideal scenario.
DA/PA are a popular way to measure the domain’s value. They are also very easy to manipulate. The other metrics, such as Web Rank or Trust Rank, which are equally valuable, have not been popularized by domainers.
Tip#3 – Look for domains that have a DA of 30 or more. Domains with good domains have at least this much.
4. SEO Metrics
Over the past few years, Citation Flow and Trust Flow have grown in popularity. Citation Flow, which is a measure similar to Page Rank, is easy to manipulate. Trust Flow is a more difficult metric to manipulate. Trust Flow has become the default metric.
An even more difficult metric to manipulate is the relationship between Trust Flow and Citation Flow . Real domains will have a TF/CF ratio of slightly less than 1. Scammy domains, however, have a much lower ratio. This is the number Webandrank looks at first, followed by Trust Flow.
SeO Metric also offers the Topical Trust Flow category, which is a great metric. This provides information about the niche from which the back links to the domain came. Real domains are more likely to have backlinks from one niche, while scammy domains may have links from multiple niches.
Tip#4 – It is almost impossible to manipulate the combination TF/CF ratios, Topical Categories, and Trust Flow. These three numbers will allow you to filter out fake domains.
5. SEM Measurements (These are very useful)
SEM Metric offers domain SERP data. This information tells you whether the domain ranks for any keywords. It also gives you an estimate of how much traffic it can generate. These data include the keyword cpc, volume, and cost of monthly organic traffic.
Tip#5 – Traffic is a great way to justify the domain’s value. To verify that the SEM data is correct, you can run some keyword queries on Google.
6. SimilarWebMetrics
SimilarWeb offers metrics on domain traffic and rank in comparison to other domains around the world and within its niche. Although the traffic numbers may be slightly off, they are a great way of comparing two domains.
Tip#6 – Webandrank prefers SimilarWeb Rank over Alexa Rank when comparing domains.
7. Compete Metrics Only for the US
Compete gives an estimate of the number of U.S. users visiting the top one million websites. This data is directly derived from ISPs or application service providers.
Tip#7 – If you’re looking for traffic from the US, Compete traffic data might be worth a look.
8. Alexa Metrics
Alexa keeps ranking data for all websites around the globe. The algorithm calculates the ranking based on the traffic to each website over the past three months. They use data from a representative population to build the rankings.
Because the sampling population is biased, the rankings may not be accurate. Data is taken mainly from users who have the toolbar installed. They can also be easily modified by increasing the number visits to a particular domain after installing the toolbar. They are popular because Alexa rankings have been around for a while.
Tip#8 – Don’t take traffic and ranking too seriously. While ranking is nice to have, it’s not enough to base your purchase price. Instead, you should use your experience.
9. Back link data (This includes everything)
The page rank of a domain’s domain is determined by its back links. Therefore, it is important to check the back links to any domain in order for you to determine its true value. But back link count alone is not enough. Many domains will have many back links that will vanish soon after they are purchased. It is important to determine which back links will remain once the domain is purchased.
Webandrank can show you the back links. Google is our first choice. Big G doesn’t provide very precise data about back links. Sometimes, it might not show any links at all. You should give more importance to links found through the Google link operator.
The following information will help you determine the worth of a back link:
Is the link actually there? To verify, you need to visit the website that links to the domain to view the html source code. (Right click -> ViewSource/View Page Source). You can search for the link within the html code. If the html link is not found or it is a JavaScript URL, you can ignore the link and all the other steps.
Follow v/s – It is important to verify that the link allows page rank juice to flow through to the domain. The domain’s page rank will not be affected if the link contains a rel=”nofollow” attribute. While it is good to have the URL, this should not be taken into account in the page rank calculation.
Contextual link – Does the link have text or many links? It is possible that the entire link set was created to increase page rank of various domains. The link should be surrounded with text and part of an article. This will indicate that the link is authentic. It is likely that the link will still be valid six months after purchase.
Outbound Links (OBL) Check the total OBL number on the page. If the OBL is very high, the PR juice that would flow would only be a fraction of the domain PR. Search engines also categorize pages that have 100 OBL or more as back link farms.
Website Category Check if the website appears to belong in the same category as your domain. This link might not be worth much if the domain looks like it is a blog about computers, and the link is from an article about golf.
Tip#9 – This is the most difficult step. This step should be done after you have filtered your list using other metrics.
10. Google Penalties – Beware of the Animals!
It is important to check if Google has indexed pages on the domain. Some domains, such as those listed in GoDaddy auctions, will have one page indexed. However you should be cautious of domains with zero pages indexed. This could be because of a penalty (algorithmic or manual) placed on the domain for black hat SEO tactics. It is also possible that the domain has expired long ago and the site was completely removed from Google.
Tip#10 If a domain has been de-indexed and there aren’t any clear indications that it is black hat SEO, you can register it and create a one page website. You can wait for it to get indexed over a few weeks. Do not put any effort into it if it does not index within a few days.
11. Domain industry/sector
Many people purchase expired domains that are not relevant to their industry or sector. Before you buy a domain, it is important to find out what type of websites were on the domain. You might find a website that is not in the industry or category you are looking for. This can be easily analysed by going to WayBack to see all versions of the domain that have been available since its first appearance online. Check the Topical Categories to see if the links to domains are in the same niche that shown on the Wayback machine.
Tip#11 Google gives contextual links greater weightage. You should consider buying an old domain to link to your money site.
12. Social Statistics (Sharing Is Caring?)
Social sharing has a significant impact on SEO and domain rankings. We don’t know the exact percentage, but it is estimated to be around 3%. It is possible that a domain has been shared on multiple social networks, which could indicate legitimacy to search engines. However, it is important not to be swayed by domains with high social counts. These are easy to fake.
Tip#12 – Not all social media networks are created equally. Pinterest shares are great if your website is heavy on images. LinkedIn, however, would work well if you’re business-oriented.