Can buying expired domains improve SEO?
What is expired domains?
A domain becomes expired when its owner does not renew it. The domain has an active period after its purchase, which is usually one year.
Therefore, you should renew the domain every year.
If you do not renew the domain, it will become an expired domain and will be available for registration by others.
It is more commonly known as the life cycle of a domain.
Where expired domains used
There are several ways to use expired domains. They’re often used to:
- attract web traffic
- improve SEO and rankings with backlinks
- boost Domain Rating (DR)
- invest in domains
Expired domains can sometimes have web traffic
Imagine you decided to start a personal blog about cooking. You’ve been running it for some time, writing articles, making videos, commenting on social media, and leaving links to your blog in comments or on other websites.
Over time, you will attract some visitors to your blog.
At some point, you might get tired of it and stop updating your blog. Eventually, your domain will expire because you didn't renew it. Your blog will be removed from hosting, but the external links to your domain will still exist. Users will continue to click on those links, but they will see an error message like this.
When your domain expires, someone else can buy it.
For example, if they also have a cooking blog, they can purchase your expired domain and set up a 301 redirect to their blog. This means all visitors from your expired domain will be redirected to their site.
This is a great way to get targeted users for just a few dollars.
However, it can be difficult to find these expired domains because there is strong competition from others.
Expired domain can improve SEO and search rankings
Keep in mind that expired domains can have backlinks. If you buy an expired domain with trusted backlinks and set up a 301 redirect to a related page on your website, this can boost that page's ranking in Google search results.
When other authoritative websites link to your content, Google sees it as a sign that your content is valuable. This can significantly boost your SEO.
However, the most important thing is that the expired domain should be related to your website's topic. In other words, they should belong to the same niche.
Expired domain can boost Domain Rating
Domain Rating (DR) is a metric used to measure the strength of a website's backlink profile on a scale from 1 to 100, with higher values indicating a stronger profile.
It is often used in the context of SEO to assess the potential ranking power of a website in search engine results.
Find expired domains with a high Domain Rating (DR), buy them, and set up a 301 redirect to your main site to boost its Domain Rating.
Opinions vary on how much Domain Rating affects ranking, but I believe it influences a site's position in search results. If you look at websites in Google’s top 10 results, you’ll notice that they all have high Domain Ratings. So, I wouldn’t ignore this metric.
Avoid buying expired domains with a low Domain Rating. I recommend only buying expired domains with a DR of at least 10.
Expired domain for investment
So, if some expired domains have the benefits that described above there are a lot of people who want to buy them and then resale them to someones. Expired domains are the part of investment market.
How to find quality expired domain
Go to the expired domains list on Gone.Domains and type in a keyword that matches your niche. Pick a domain that's as closely related to your main domain niche as possible.
Next, go to a domain rating checker and enter your chosen domain name. This tool will show you the Domain Rating, number of backlinks, and linking websites.
Check the backlinks to make sure they come from sites in the same niche as your main domain and that they’re from reputable, trustworthy websites.
The best criteria for buying an expired domain are:
- High Domain Rating
- Plenty of backlinks — the more, the better, but remember that quality matters too
- Many linking websites, especially those in your niche
If you’ve decided to buy a domain name, just go to any registrar, like GoDaddy or NameCheap, and purchase it. After you buy it, set up a 301 redirect to point it to your main domain.
That's it – simple as that!
Important Tips
- Don't buy too many expired domains at once. Start by purchasing 2-3 expired domains each week. This will make your strategy look more natural.
- Choose expired domains in the same niche as your main domain. This helps create relevant connections.
- Set up 301 redirects not just to your main page, but also to internal pages. Try to link the information from the expired domains’ backlinks to relevant pages on your main site.
- Create original links. Write and publish articles that include links to your main domain. Engage on social media by leaving comments and sharing links to your posts and other articles.
- Look for domains with affordable extensions like .xyz, .info, .com, .co, and others that cost no more than $15.