Do any of you regularly use expired domains?
-
I know there has been discussion on using expired domains in the past. This is not so much a question as to how to do it or whether it works, but rather I would love to see how many of you use this in your backlink strategy.
I have a domain in a low to moderately competitive niche that ranks really well, mostly on the power of a couple of expired domains. I bought the domains, created a quick wordpress site and pointed some anchor texted links to the site. It took some time for the expired domains to regain their PR, but when they did, the benefit was great.
I'm considering whether I want to do this with another domain of mine. On one hand, it's a relatively inexpensive way to get some good quality anchor texted links. But, on the other hand, something in it feels "immoral" or "sneaky" to me.
What do you think?
-
I wouldn't call it unethical unless you made a habit of it with loads of sites, all providing no value. It's never worth focusing on micro-sites, but if there's a couple there, might as well use them
-
Yeah I'm totally with you on that, I wouldn't bother buying a bunch of domains to build sites with, all to link in... Google will know anyway, it'll spot a footprint one way or another. I'm just thinking for the sake of not wasting an already owned domain... would hate to think of it sat there doing nothing when it could be doing something, even if that something is tiny lol.
-
Yeah, sorry too. Ethically, I would say it's gray hat on a small scale, and black hat on larger scale. Of course, that's completely subjective. But I say this because, the main purpose of the secondary site's existence would be, in fact, to 'trick' search engines.
Just my opinion. I also can understand Steve's point of view. -
Thanks Donnie...sorry that this convo is getting confusing (as I replied below as well). My question was more about the ethics of using this tactic rather than how to do it.
-
If the site's are relevant for the niche, I may consider 301 redirecting page by page to the primary niche..... or instead, you could just link them over as you're doing. Would it be possible to contact the inbound linking domains, and ask them to link to your primary site instead?
If the niches are all relevant, I would build pages on the primary site to reflect the secondary site's content. Then redirect page by page. Then contact the linking domains and ask them to update their links.
Does this help Dunamis? -
The PR seems to come back after a couple of months. Some are relevant to my niche and some are not. But, as stated in the question, the question was not so much about whether or not this tactic works, but rather, whether Mozzers are using it. I don't want to do anything immoral or unethical.
-
Are they currently existing?
Did the DNS info reset to your contact info after you bought them? If so, the PR may get reset as well.
Are the sites relevant to the primary site's niche? -
The domains that I bought have existing links and PR. It took some time for the PR to come back, but in the ones I have used so far they seem to be helping.
-
Hey Steve, thanks. I see what you mean, and can't disagree with your thinking... I personally would prefer to spend that hour (or so) trying to get a link to the primary site. But I can understand why others would rather just create one.
We're both assuming that someone would use different hosts, right?
I'm also curious to know, where would you 'draw the line' so-to-speak?
I mean, domain names are only about $10 each, so you could 5, 10, 100. etc. At some point, you would be building an 'unnatural' link profile, and begin to raise flags. And me being a skeptic, I tend to lean towards as natural of link profiles as possible. -
I may not have explained myself completely. These are domains that I bought that have incoming links and PR.
They definitely did help my first site really well.
-
Ah yeah I don't believe in micro/satellite sites, etc... but even with zero incoming links, as long as the domain is indexed it still has some value to pass no matter how small.
It's not about building micro-sites though, it's just plopping something on a domain and getting a link off it, I'm not suggesting link wheels, or putting SEO time and effort into the other domains, just using them as you have them.
Existing domain + template site + 10 mins of writing content and slapping a couple of images on, submit a sitemap and wallah... 20 minutes and you've got a link off a homepage of a relevant content site that admittedly is low value and on the same server but it's half an hour, and you never know... the site could grow naturally into being trusted, etc... by itself, including with age.
With the speed you could knock it up, and at no cost, I just think sure why not... it can't pass zero value unless it's not indexed or the link is nofollow. Value will be tiny but could grow with no work based on just age of domain.
I can't watch the vid yet as I'm at work right now.
-
Thanks Steve, you have great point!
However, I don't think they would pass **any **value, due to a lack of inbound links. And, if they began getting inbound links, I believe the efforts spent would have a larger payoff, if the primary site were getting those new links instead.
I'm also kindof a skeptic in SEO... what I mean is, I try not to ever do anything with the primary goal being to deceive search engines. The time invested in building those micro sites, I think would be better spent engaging in building brand recognition (brand queries, natural links, social, etc.)
What do you think Steve? Thanks. -
If you already own it and it's not costing you anything, why not?! Better than having a domain sitting around and doing nothing. As Donnie said, if it's hosted in the same place then the links won't pass much value, but not much is still "some"... and some is better than none
I'd do it, just for the sake of it, it won't hurt as long as there's nothing spammy about it.
-
I doubt you'r adding much value, as those links would have very low (or non existent) domain/ page authority. Plus, if your hosting them all on the same C Block IP Address, they'd likely be discounted even further.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Domain transfer
Hi Everyone! I work for a company that had a new website built through a digital agency and that website went live 2 months ago. I have only been with the company for 2 months and find myself under the gun, because they are not coming up in organic search results that they used to. The old domain was 301'ed to point to the new domain. There were also 1 to 1 redirects set up to transfer the old page authority to the new, equivalent pages. In everyone's experience, how long does it take for a domain to start populating for search terms that it used to? I know there are mixed reviews on 301 transfers and how much of the old domain authority is preserved when you take this route. What is your experience? Just looking for some answers. Thanks in advance! John
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdvisGroup0 -
No content using Fetch
Wooah, this one makes me feel a bit nervous. The cache version of the site homepage shows all the text, but I understand that is the html code constructed by the browser. So I get that. If I Google some of the content it is there in the index and the cache version is yesterday. If I Fetch and Render in GWT then none of the content is available in the preview - neither Googlebot or visitor view. The whole preview is just the menu, a holding image for a video and a tag line for it. There are no reports of blocked resources apart from a Wistia URL. How can I decipher what is blocking Google if it does not report any problems? The CSS is visible for reference to, for example, <section class="text-within-lines big-text narrow"> class="data"> some content... Ranking is a real issue, in part by a poorly functioning main menu. But i'm really concerned with what is happening with the render.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MickEdwards0 -
No Domain Authority after 6 weeks
Hi, We have just launched a new e-commerce site and 301'd a lot of the products and categories to the new site. I have also added a link or 2 from other domains. We launched it on 10th of June - but still using site explorer, there is no domain authority showing - just a 1. Why is that? Any ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs20100 -
Buying Expired Domains with Decent DA/PA for SEO Purposes
Hey guys, i've seen some stuff about this before but I recently found an opportunity to put it into action and wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting into! I am looking at buying a domain (expired and now only 10 dollars) that has a decent domain authority and has some keywords in it related to my clients practice. I plan on using a 301 redirect to pass "link juice" because this client is looking for a quick bump in rankings. Thoughts? Benefits? Problems with this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley1 -
How to best handle expired content?
Similar to the eBay situation with "expired" content, what is the best way to approach this? Here are a few examples. With an e-commerce site, for a seasonal category of "Christmas" .. what's the best way to handle this category page after it's no longer valid? 404? 301? leave it as-is and date it by year? Another example. If I have an RSS feed of videos from a big provider, say Vevo, what happens when Vevo tells me to "expire" a video that it's no longer available? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JDatSB0 -
Changing Domain
We have an old domain that we have had registered for many years(pinpoint;asersystems.com) and redirected to our regular domain (which is a short version of our name (pinlaser.com). Management wants to switch and use the longer version as the primary domain for branding purposes. I have cautioned against this for many reasons: Need to do 100's of redirects Potential loss of back links Most links will now be 301 redirects and not look natural to search engines. I would appreciate feedback on any and all risks associated with this potential move. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Pinlaser0 -
Local TLD Domain and languages.
Hello all, I have a local tld domain in spanish for .es. Now i want to translate the site content to english and german. What do you advice? 1.1 www.domainname.es/en/ and www.domainname.es/de/ 1.2 en.domainname.es and de.domainname.es Or buy a new .com domain and set it like this: 2.1. www.domainname.com and www.domainname.com/de (english will be main language) 2.2. en.domainname.com and de.domainname.com Or the last option ( the one i think it's better) Local TLDs 3.1 www.domainame.es , www.domainname.co.uk , and domainname.de In this last case , the domain name is KW + Brand , should i also translate the KW? For example: www.heladosolimpia.es , www.icecreamolimpia.co.uk Thanks for your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Barbio0 -
Can I use rel=canonical and then remove it?
Hi all! I run a ticketing site and I am considering using rel=canonical temporary. In Europe, when someone is looking for tickets for a soccer game, they look for them differently if the game is played in one city or in another city. I.e.: "liverpool arsenal tickets" - game played in the 1st leg in 2012 "arsenal liverpool tickets - game played in the 2nd leg in 2013 We have two different events, with two different unique texts but sometimes Google chooses the one in 2013 one before the closest one, especially for queries without dates or years. I don't want to remove the second game from our site - exceptionally some people can broswer our website and buy tickets with months in advance. So I am considering place a rel=canonical in the game played in 2013 poiting to the game played in a few weeks. After that, I would remove it. Would that make any sense? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jorgediaz0