Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Why does expired domains still work for SEO?
-
Hi everyone
I’ve been doing an experiment during more than 1 year to try to see if its possible to buy expired domains.
I know its considered black hat, but like I said, I wanted to experiment, that is what SEO is about.
What I did was to buy domains that just expired, immediately added content on a WP setup, filled it with relevant content to the expired domain and then started building links to other relevant sites from these domains.( Here is a pretty good post on how to do, and I did it in a similar way. http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2297718/How-to-Build-Links-Using-Expired-Domains )
This is nothing new and SEO:s has been doing it for along time.
There is a lot of rumors around the SEO world that the domains becomes worthless after they expire. But after trying it out during more than 1 year and with about 50 different expired domains I can conclude that it DOES work, 100% of the time.
Some of the domains are of course better than others, but I cannot see any signs of the expired domains or the sites i link to has been punished by Google. The sites im liking to ranks great ONLY with those links
So to the question:
WHY does Google allow this? They should be able to see that a domain has been expired right? And if its expired, why dont they just “delete” all the links to that domain after the expiry date? Google is well aware of this problem so what is stopping them?
Is there any one here that know how this works technically?
-
Greetings, I am going to weigh in here, not because I am any kind of Yoda at all, but purely from a common sense point of view. I hope that's okay.
I would deduce that if anyone was able to know when a domain was released and how soon it sold thereafter it would have to be the domain registrar. So, let's say, hypothetically, that some domain registrar decides they are going to start publishing a list of domains that were released for sale and then sold immediately. Then let's say Google gets a feed of that list and just automatically, via the algorithm, discounts every single one of those domains down to PR 0, and strips them of all potential link authority value...
I'm sure you can see dozens of problems with that scenario. Here are just a few:
1. No one can really evaluate the new owner's identity or purpose without knowing who the new owner is. If registrars disclosed that information, I can't even imagine the number of privacy issues that would arise.
2. The assumption would be being made that the new owner is not the same, related to the old company. I'm sure there are plenty of cases where this happens.
3. Google would be making the assumption that the selling of the domain to a new domain owner was to end the business. Again, there are probably many many instances when this is not the case.
It seems to me that Google, nor any other search engine, can reasonably deduce the motives of a new domain owner. I mean, there are some smart folks at Google, but I don't think clairvoyance has entered the algorithm yet. Consequently, it probably seems more reasonable to let expired domains retain some of their value with the belief that most business owners are only going to buy domains relevant to their business and that end users will cast their "votes" for how well these new owners use the real estate by exhibiting either engagement or bouncing and viewing another site. Eventually, the algorithm will more or less accurately sift through the results and serve up results that visitors find engaging.
Sure, maybe it works for a year, two years, hell, even three years. So maybe this approach is viable, for now for a website or a page that just seeks short term benefits. But, if what you are building is a business that you want to last, a brand that you want to matter to people 20, 50, 100 years from now? Then I think there are far better uses of your time, effort and resources.
-
Please use that sarcastic tone some where else Keri. And I'm not asking for the algorithm.
I guess its me that has asked the question in a wrong way, I apologize for that. Let's take Google out of the picture completely for the most important question.
Is there ANYONE in the whole wide world that in some way can see if a domain has been expired and then been bought again just seconds later? If yes, HOW?
The next question would then be why Google doesn't just put the PR back to 0 and "block" all the linkvalue that the domain name had before it expired. Because its not very likely that its the same owner that buys the domain after it has expired (the domain doesn't just expire immediately, its sits in a quarantine for a few months). But as I said, don't ask yourself that yet, answer the first question.
Is there any technical yoda in here?
-
The only people who would know exactly how it works technically would be the people at Google who work on that section of the algorithm. They don't tend to hang out in forums and give away the inner-workings of how things rank, and likely are under many NDAs so they couldn't say even if they wanted to.
-
Thanks for the answers but I'm afraid that doesn't answer the question. How does it work technically?
-
With questions like this, I tend to look at it not from Google's point of view but from a person's point of view. The spiders are getting smarter after all and Google always says to write content and create websites for people not the Spiders.
So to answer your questions, you might want to ask yourself these questions:
- How am I supposed to know that the links on my website are broken, because a site I was linking to is now down?
- How do I know that the domain I am now visiting was down for a month or even a year?
- How do I know said blog is being used for black hat purposes? It it has relevant content and helps me, that's all that matters.
-
One reason it's difficult is that a domain may have expired because the owner forgot to renew it. Once it's expired, the owner quickly renews it. Should they begin from square one? Probably not--so that's why it isn't deleted (and may be the answer your looking for). If a domain has expired and no site goes up, it will eventually just gradually "disappear" (although may not fully).
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
-
Should I Report A SEO Agency to Google
Our competitor has employed the services of a spammy SEO agency that sends spammy links to our site. Though our rankings were affected we have taken the necessary steps. It is possible to send evidence to Google so that they can take down the site. I want to take this action so that other sites will not be affected by them again.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Halmblogmusic0 -
Client Wants To Use A .io Domain Name - How Bad For Organic?
Hi, I have a U.S. client who is stuck on a name that he wants to get as a .io (British Indian Ocean) domain name for a new site. Aside from the user confusion/weirdness, how much harder do you think this makes this sites organic in the U.S. in the future with a .io domain name? FYI, the other part of the domain name he wants to use is short, meaningless and implies nothing in and of itself. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 945012 -
How to make second site in same niche and do white hat SEO
Hello, As much as we would like, there's a possibility that our site will never recover from it's Google penalties. Our team has decided to launch a new site in the same niche. What do we need to do so that Google will not mind us having 2 sites in the same niche? (Menu differences, coding differences, content differences, etc.) We won't have duplicate content, but it's hard to make the sites not similar. Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Best URL structure for SEO for Malaysian/Singapore site on .com.au domain
Hi there I know ideally i need a .my or .sg domain, however i dont have time to do this in the interim so what would be the best way to host Malaysian content on a www.domainname.com.au website? www.domainname.com.au/en-MY
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | IsaCleanse
www.domainname.com.au/MY
domainname.com.au/malaysia
malaysia.domainname.com.au
my.domainname.com.au Im assuming this cant make the .com.au site look spammy but thought I'd ask just to be safe? Thanks in advance! 🙂0 -
Bad for SEO to have two very similar websites on the same server?
Is it bad for SEO to have two very similar sites on the same server? What's the best way to set this up?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Asynchronous loading of product prices bad for SEO?
We are currently looking into improving our TTFB on our ecommerce site. A huge improvement would be to asynchronously load the product prices on the product list pages. The product detail page – on which the product is ordered- will be left untouched. The idea is that all content like product data, images and other static content is sent to the browser first(first byte). The product prices depend on a set of user variables like delivery location, vat inclusive/exclusive,… etc. So they would requested via an ajax call to reduce the TTFB. My question is whether google considers this as black hat SEO or not?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jef22200 -
Off-page SEO and link building
Hi everyone! I work for a marketing company; for one of our clients' sites, we are working with an independent SEO consultant for on-page help (it's a large site) as well as off-page SEO. Following a meeting with the consultant, I had a few red flags with his off-page practices – however, I'm not sure if I'm just inexperienced and this is just "how it works" or if we should shy away from these methods. He plans to: guest blog do press release marketing comment on blogs He does not plan to consult with us in advance regarding the content that is produced, or where it is posted. In addition, he doesn't plan on producing a report of what was posted where. When I asked about these things, he told me they haven't encountered any problems before. I'm not saying it was spam-my, but I'm more not sure if these methods are leaning in the direction of "growing out of date," or the direction of "black-hat, run away, dude." Any thoughts on this would be crazy appreciated! Thanks, Casey
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CaseyDaline0 -
Why would links that were deleted by me 3 months ago still show up in reports?
I inadvertently created a mini link farm some time back by linking all of my parked domains (2000 plus) to some of my live websites (I was green and didn't think linking between the same owner sites / domains was an issue). These websites were doing well until Penguin and although I did not get any 'bad link' advices from Google I figure I was hit by Penguin. So about 3 or 4 months ago I painstakingly deleted ALL links from all of those domains that I still own (only 500 or so - the others were allowed to lapse). None of those domains have any links linking out at all but old links from those domains are still showing up in WMT and in SEOmoz and every other link tracking report I have run. So why would these links still be reported? How long do old links stay in the internet archives? This may sound like a strange question but do links 'remain with a domain for a given period of time regardless'? Are links archived before being 'thrown out' of the web. I know Google keeps archives of data that has expired, been deleted, website closed etc, etc for about 3 years or so (?). In an effort to correct a situation I have spent countless hours manually deleting thousands of links but they won't go away. Looking for some insight here please. cheers, Mike
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | shags380