Using Expired Domains for SEO - Cheap high PR links for life

Wanted to point out that flat-out buying an old, non-deleted/non-dropped may be a even better option.
Right before last Google update I snagged 2 deleted PR domains-both lost rank right after update.

Now buying a non-deleted domain may be slightly more expensive, but there are still plenty of great deals in the auctions.
Also you if you register with domain privacy the SEs need not know the domain ever changed hands.

All the good advice about about checking out the links, etc. still applies though.
And I think it good idea to check out the main incoming link-juice domain with whois.
Some out there may point link juice to a domain just to up the PR to sell it. Then remove the links after it's sold.

 

If you do the correct research then you shouldn't lose PR, although all those now expiring with PR have actually survived the update. I agree with some of the other posts, it is now better to start looking at trust flow, moz rank etc.

 

Looking at PR by itself is misleading and is a) guaranteed to make you overpay, and completely relying on it will b) risk you buying a bad domain that will actually hurt your SERP position.

When buying domains for my network, I have to be extremely careful because I'm also renting them to paying customers. This is what I look at, in order of importance.

1. Clean backlink profiles. At least 60% of anchors as Brand or URL
2. Is the site still indexed (search for site:domain name) and is the site slapped? Search for the domain name in Google. If it doesn't rank #1 for its own domain, then its slapped.
3. The sites linking to the domain are also clean and not spammy
4. TF > CF (good indication that tiered link building was not used)
5. Zero trace of SEO being used on them before. No EMD domains.
6. The Stats
   1. PA > 35, DA > 25, TF > 15, PR depends on the price
   2. Edu and Gov links

Friends, always consider items 1-5 before you start drooling over the stats.

I don't proclaim anything that I don't actually test myself. I keep 10 tester sites that I use to try out different beneficial and harmful linking techniques on, so I can be sure of what I'm doing. Many people just say whatever's they believe or they heard, without actually ever seeing it themselves.

Below is a tester site that had three excellent metric (PR/PA/DA) sites pointing at it, but poor backlink profiles themselves. I removed one link on Jan 16, another on Jan 26, and another on Feb 2. Improvement every time. And its not back up to page 1, where it was before I ever added these links.



Hope this helps steer people in the right direction.

Diggity

 

I agree, you shouldn't just use PR as a guaranteed metric, however that does not mean it is pointless. It is very effective in giving a loose idea into what domains to investigate further. It saves countless hours going through hundreds of domains a day.

 

1. How you will recover content of expired domain?
2. Is not rank will go down to 0 within few days?
3. This method really help to improve keyword ranking?

 

Sorry for the late reply,

1. You can use the internet archive wayback machine archive.org to see the content
2. It depends on what content you put up, the backlinks should still be there.
3. Yes.

 

Adimond, I think this is great advice. I been doing this since 2011. The only difference I do as of last year is I don't purchase the domains from expired domain websites anymore. I have two reasons for this:

1. It is getting more expensive trying to find quality domains this way.
2. If you find a quality domain for a good price usually its value will start deteriorating over time as it loses some backlinks. (You can actually see this in a graph if you happen to use Ahrefs). This is why a lot of people see their domains drop in pagerank.

I know have been focusing on purchasing domains that have already expired for several years now. It is great because the domains just cost $10 to register. And most of the backlinks they've had is already indexed in google and won't be lost. The only problem people might have is these domains have no toolbar pagerank until the next update so you will have to analysis the domain's backlinks more thoroughly using Majestic or Ahrefs. Using this method I was able to pick up two domains that ended up getting a pagerank 7 in Google's toolbar update last December. The best part I only paid the $10 registration fee for them. I've also found several pagerank 6 domains and hundreds of pagerank 3-5 domains.

Do you also look for high citation flow as well? I usually don't go below 25 trustflow and 15 citation flow.

Also you didn't really mention hosting. I am curious to know what kind of hosting you recommend. Personally I stay away from seo hosting companies not because there ineffective, but because I just had so much trouble with them. With one hosting company I was getting 403 errors every time I setup a new domain. This isn't bad if you only have a couple of domains. But when you have 100+ domains it is very frustrating sending support tickets every time you setup a website. Currently I host using several shared hosting accounts. Do you have any recommendations for any hosting companies?

 

look at these
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=4
http://lowendbox.com/

 

I don't really rate SEO hosting much, I would just use a variety of cheap shared hosting packages, it is a lot more work but definitely worth it. We are actually working on some software to make this a lot easier.

I would always go for a higher citation flow/trust flow. If it has a high page rank and low flow, I would avoid it.

 

It could be good hard work, first to get those domains with positive PR, high-back-links, then you check their quality. But when are checking the expired domains list, we have to think in back of our mind, that the domain would come to us in approx. next 2 months, not right now. If you want the domain, then you need to contact the domain owner and check out with him, if he don't wish to run the domain, whether he is interested in selling it or not. But a big question is again being raised, how much he will quote? Or, if he has just forgotten to renew it, he might get it renewed, or seeing your interest, he might wait for more people like you to come.
List of domains can be extracted from here too:
http://www.sitegeek.com/analysis/ExpiredDomain.jsp
In your article you talked about trust flow, when we use Majestic SEO, but do you agree that this is for the overall links. I do suppose, here, one must look into Google for quality links of the site, as bad quality links can be discarded, by requesting to Google in webmaster tools.

 

I am not quite sure what you are asking, I see using Majestic over google links as better.

 

I like this step, I can find more high pr domain but I don't know to do with it.

 

Have you tried them? The budget one at £1.50 only allows 96 mb of ram which would make unusable for a WP site, however some of their more advanced plans look ok. If based in the uk or Europe you will have to budget for vat on top which adds 20% to the price. I would consider them if some users on the forum could vouch for them.

 

I have used them, with a relatively popular site. It has had some downtime but not for a while.

 

Hello guys, I'm a newbie here and I need your advice regarding the use of this technique:
I just bought a PR2 domain name a couple of weeks ago. It is at about 13 years old and after checking it in Majestic SEO, I noticed it had a positive Trust Flow Ratio (around 20/6 or so) and a very clean backlink profile.

The situation is this: I'm a freelance web designer and right now I have a website which I built using a brand new domain (one that includes my first and last name). After 6 months, I found out it was extremely tough to compete in my local area using keywords such as "web design in [city-name]" and such, especially with a brand new domain (for obvious reasons).

Now that I have this PR2 domain, I'm not sure what should I do next. The options, as I see them, are these:

1) Create a new genuine website using this new PR2 domain, which is also very brandable and hence I would have not inconvenient to use it as the name of my new business.

2) Use the new PR2 domain to build a look-a-like of the website it used to belong and include a link to my current website (using a different hosting IP, of course)

3) Just use a 301 redirect on the new PR2 domain so that the link-juice is passed to my current website.

Which option would you recommend me?

Thank you in advance for the answer

 

I'd go with #1.

Take that PR2 and repurpose it to be your money site, which in your case is a freelance web design page showcasing your work. If that PR2 truly is clean and has authoritative links coming in, it has much more chance to rank internal pages, than to rank a page on another site. Especially if the other site is brand new.

Then start acquiring more domains and execute plan #2 repeatedly until you're ranked #1. Keep re-purposing expired domains, cloak them well, and point them to your money site. *Except you don't need to make them look-a-likes. That's an unnecessary step.

 

I couldn't find any pr domain from domainsnoop altough I'm bronze premium user. 90 percent of domains are not avaible and the rest isn't good domains which has no info results.

Am I wrong ? the domains may be good without having info's ?

 

I’m very interested in learning how to do this.

Looking for a coach and will pay handsomely for one.

Please contact via PM

 

Here is a viable alternative with important metrics other than PR, check them out here: DomainPeel.com
Best,

 

One thing to remember is that it isn't all in the PR....There are lots of good quality domains dropping each day which are even PR N/A and have metrics that look better than some of the PR domains dropping each day!