Snapping up an expired domain name can make it easy for you to give your blog a head start over the competition as you will already have backlinks and a decent standing in Google from the get-go. At the same time, you can't simply buy any old domain name and expect immediate results. Following are some tips that can enable you to sift through the possibilities and either find the perfect expired domain name or know if it's time to create your own URL from scratch.

Know What to Look For

There are a few important questions you'll need to ask yourself before you start looking for an expired domain name. These include:

  • What keywords do I want in the domain name?
  • Should I include the name of my city or state in the domain name?
  • What domain name ending is best for my business?

Once you know what you're looking for, you can look through expired domain name websites and domain auction websites to see what your options are.

How to Spot a Good Expired Domain Name

It is important to understand the information given on an expired domain name. Following are some attributes of good expired domain names:

High Quality Links

Websites such as Majestic make it easy for you to find out just about everything you need to know about a particular domain name's inbound links. Ideally, you want to find a website that has top quality links from .gov and/or .edu websites as well as from other authoritative websites. Quality is often more important than quantity when it comes to links, although a large number of links from various decent websites is also a good indication of website quality.

It is also important to check not only the number of links but also the number of domains the links are coming from. A website may have 10,000 links coming from only three or four questionable domains; such sites should be avoided as Google may have designated them as being spammy websites.

Age

It is a known fact that Google pays close attention to the age of a website. The older the domain name is, the more authority it will automatically have.

MozRank

Moz is a private company that has developed a top quality rating system that rates websites from one to one hundred. You can check any domain name for free on the Moz website to see both the domain authority and page authority. The higher the score, the better.

Traffic

You can check a number of websites to see how much traffic the expired domain name had. Doing so is always a good idea as you want to pick a website that had a steady stream of traffic before it was left to expire.

Appearance

Finally, it is important to check the website appearance. You can do this on the Wayback Machine, a free website that allows you to see what any domain name looked like in months or years past. The appearance of the website can tell you a lot about what it had to offer, what type of clientele it appealed to, etc. Ideally, you want to choose a website that offered products and/or services similar to yours.

How to Know if it's Worth It

There is a chance you can find a domain name that has expired some time ago that meets all of the above criteria. If you do, you're pretty lucky as you won't have to pay a high price for the domain name. However, in most instances a good expired or expiring domain name will be put up for auction. In such a case, you will need to be the highest bidder in order to gain ownership of the domain name.

In such an instance, you will need to carefully consider how much you are willing to spend on an expired domain name. Buying an expired URL is always risky to a certain extent, even if you have done careful research to determine the domain name is high quality and still gets plenty of visits. Set a budget and stick to it, bearing in mind that buying an old domain name isn't the only way to generate immediate traffic for your new business website.

In Summary

Buying an expired domain name can be a good way to generate immediate traffic to your website. There are literally tens of thousands of expired and expiring domain names to pick from, making it fairly easy for you to find names that are a good match for your business. However, careful research is always in order to make sure the expired domain name has the traffic, good rank and high quality links you need before you buy it. You will also want to assess just how important the domain name is to you if it goes up for auction and the bidding process gets competitive.

Buying an expired domain name isn't the only way to get the perfect URL for your website. Brandgy offers a plethora of ready-made websites with competitive domain names to suit the needs of just about any company. Get in touch with us at your convenience to discover how we can help you build an authoritative website from scratch.