Finding expired domains that have quality backlinks
Picking a domain is one of the most important things to do when you begin a blog. It is difficult to find the right domain, and many people regret making that wrong choice later.
This post will show you how I picked expired domains to host my blogs.
To get started on building a website, there are three options.
1. Create a new domain for your blog. This is what most people do. This is how you start from scratch.
2. Purchase an existing domain. This is another option — it can be profitable, especially if it has a website attached, but it could also be very costly.
3. Register an old/deleted domain This is the one I use and it has worked well for me. It is inexpensive and gives you an SEO advantage. Once your domain is a few months old, Google will pick up the backlinks from the previous owner, giving you a head start and better rankings.
What is an expired domain name?
If the domain owner fails to pay for the domain registration, the domain becomes expired. The domain host makes it inactive, making such domains dropped or deleted. Website owners are usually notified that their domain names will soon expire. The domain owner can renew the domain during a redemption grace period. The domain name is then available for stakes in auctions that sell domains. The domain name is deleted if there is no interest.
Use SEO SpyGlass for domain selection
In January 2021, I had the idea of starting a blog on sales funnels. Although the search term is popular with over 8,000 searches per month, anyone who wants to sell products must have a sales funnel.
I visited ExpiredDomains.net. This website is free to use and does not charge anything. It earns when users register domains through affiliate links. Entering the keyword “funnel” I set the filter to “Deleted Domains” and then sorted the results using “DP”, which stands for domain pop. This is the number domains linking to the domain. You can also sort the results using “BL”, which represents the number of Majestic backlinks.
Although these numbers are often incorrect, they can be a good starting point.
This is how you get a screen.
Tip: You can adjust the Column Manager settings in order to add or delete the metrics that you are interested. You can hover your mouse over stats to see tooltips. These will provide explanations and links to the major marketplaces that sell domain name. It is possible to find the domain age and status, as well as whether a domain is currently available for a particular domain name extension.
These are the key metrics that you should use to verify the domain.
LE: Domain name length in characters
BL: The number of backlinks.
Domain pop.
ABY: The date that domain was first mentioned in Archives.org.
CF/TF – Majestic metrics Citation Flow, and Trust flow (similar to Domain Authority or Page Authority both from Moz).
Notification
SEOs typically search for domains that have been expired and have a lot of referring sites. However, just because a domain is old doesn’t mean that it will rank highly on Google right away, Be aware of spammy backlinks. Also, make sure that the domain isn’t being used to create a PBN. In this instance, be on the lookout for 301 links giving link juice to another website. To see what content has been published on the domain, check the web archive. To monetize prospects, check if the domain hasn’t been blocked from Google Adsense. Your new website may not rank on the domain if it has been subject to penalties in the past.
These best practices are important when choosing a domain name to host your website.
- It’s easy to type.
- Make sure to keep the domain name brief.
- Avoid numbers and hyphens
- Choose memorable names that are associated with your brand.
- It is important to choose the correct domain name extension, especially if you are targeting a specific region.
The keyword will determine the availability of an expired domain. You will find expired domains that have great backlinks on Google for certain keywords, but not domains that have spam links. It doesn’t matter what, you will almost certainly find a domain with a great name and strong backlinks.
You can now take the domain and use SEO SpyGlass to verify it.
The message will say that SEO SpyGlass can’t find this web page. This is because the domain you are referring to has expired. A site search on Google would return zero results. To continue, click on “Yes”.
This is what I found when I first did the research:
FunnelXpert.com – Brandable domain, 304 backlinks to 74 referring sites. This seems like a great choice.
Next, I did some manual work to check the web archive using the Wayback Machine. The website search history dates back to 2012 and looked like this: An internet marketing company in Australia and India.
The domain was $8.99, and I built a nice blog from it. For it, I wrote detailed posts like this one about how to build an online course from your WordPress blog.
This is what I have gotten out of it so far, and it was totally worth the investment.
Recently, I launched an online course about it.
Another example is to pick an expired domain
Let’s take a look at another example in real-time. “Paleo diet” is the keyword.
The first domain I chose was “PaleoDiet411.com”. It has 150 backlinks from 26 domains.
Next, I check the domain using SEO SpyGlass. The Linking Domains tab is next:
It looks good, and even has a.edu backlink.
Spam would indicate links to domains in Chinese or Arabic.
Now, I’m going to the Linked pages tab.
It’s clear that links point to multiple pages. This is a good thing. If I wanted to use this domain, I would have to re-create the pages on the new blog. This way, the link juice is not lost.
Domains that contain off-topic pages such as iPhone or other brand stuff will be disqualified.
Archive.org is another thing you should check:
Verify that the domain is not being redirected or used for spamming.
It is also a good idea to check the InLink Rank of any potential domain (SEO PowerSuite’s alternative to Google’s PageRank).
Here are some more tips to help you buy an expired domain.
If you are looking to purchase an auction website, you can also follow this procedure. It is likely that you will be disappointed by the purchase of such a domain. Although it has many backlinks, most of them come from spam websites using Chinese anchor text.
Avoid expired domains with hundreds or more links pointing to the homepage only. These domains will be penalized unless your plan is to build massive links to individual pages.
We’ll send you one SEO guide per week if you want to learn more about SEO.
This method has also been used to find domains that have expired in foreign languages. It is also very useful for creating backlinks. Two Hungarian domains were found. The first would translate into seduction.net and the second to giftisland.com.
These domains in foreign languages require fewer backlinks to rank highly. You can even get away without link directory links. They will still rank well and receive traffic. This is due to the lower competition in foreign languages.
Great backlinks can be forged from domains that have expired
SEO SpyGlass has a second useful use that is very similar to the broken linking method.
- You can enter a domain that has expired in your niche, or one that is still being offered.
- Take a look at the backlinks that point to this domain.
- Analyze backlinks to see if you can “steal “…”.
- You can contact the domain owner that links to the expired domain. Tell them that they are linking to an expired site and ask them to instead link to your resource.
Jason Acidre has shared a free template for outreach that you can modify to help with your link building.
Subject: We found a broken link at [Site Name]
Hey, [First Name],
This link to [Site Name] with 404 page doesn’t work anymore
[insert URL for broken link]
This was found through the useful links section of [topic] on their resource page:
[insert URL to their resources page]
I also thought this content from [Your Site] would perfectly fit your resource list [another comment on why your content should be on their list]. This should be useful to your visitors:
[insert URL for your page]
If you need any assistance, let me know.
While you will have to go through some junk to find valuable backlinks, this is a proven method to start link building.
Have you ever bought domains that are no longer in use?
This is how you can find expired domains, and which ones to use for your next SEO project. These recommendations should help you in your search for backlinks.
Do you remember buying expired domains in order to take advantage of their high traffic or backlinks? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below.