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07.29.09
Are Expired Domains Worth Acquiring For Your Business?
 By
Bill Hartzer
A friend recently asked me about a domain name he was thinking of buying. He mentioned that one of the websites he owns and has developed is the name of a city: and he noticed that there is a ‘related' domain name that is for sale. It used to be on the same topic of the website that he owns, and he wanted to know if he should purchase it and redirect it to his current website.
If you're fortunate enough to find another domain name or what I call an "expired domain name" that is up for sale somewhere (such as Godaddy's domain name auctions, Namejet, or another domain auction), then you really need to do your homework before you buy the domain name or even think of bidding on it. Domain names can be very pricey nowadays, well into the thousands of dollars, or even more than that. Here is how to evaluate an expired domain name for "SEO Value". Search Engine Optimization Value of a domain name is different than what you might actually pay for a domain name. SEO Value includes the links and anything else that might help that domain name rank better in the search engines.
Once you have found an expired domain that you're considering, there are several things you can do that will give you an indication of whether or not you should purchase it or not:
- Search at yahoo.com for linkdomain:domain.com -site:domain.com. This search shows you all of the links going to the domain name, including subdomains and all pages on the website. Many people make a mistake and only look at the links to the home page of a domain name-oftentimes there are more links to the domain's other pages.
- Look at the links. You have to manually go look to see if links are still there. Oftentimes it might show that a link is there but when you actually go look then the link may have been removed or even worse: the link is to another domain name. If the link is not on the page (and you think it probably should be), examine all the links on the page to see if the domain was possibly redirected to another domain name at some point. Sometimes someone will own two domain names (domain1 and domain2). Domain1.com is their main website and they bought Domain2.com and redirected it to Domain1.com. If you go look at Domain2.com, it might look like the domain has links: but it really doesn't, it's just is showing the links to Domain1.com. You can use a tool link OptiLink to look at the links, OptiLink will check to see if the link is still actually there.
- Look at the links to see if they're all from one domain. If a domain name has 30,000 links from one message board (a footer link?), then that's not as good as 30,000 links from 1000 different domain names. Look at the links to determine if they're all from a few sites or if they're from lots of different websites. Determine if those links will go away at some point or if they're likely to stick around for a while. If you end up buying the domain name will other site owners linking to that domain name remove the links to you?
Continue reading this article.
About the Author:
Bill Hartzer manages the Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Marketing team at Vizion Interactive, a leading search engine marketing, social media marketing, and web design firm based in the Dallas, Texas area. Hartzer recently joined Vizion Interactive, where his vast experience in the both search engine marketing and social media marketing bolster’s Vizion Interactive’s already robust search engine marketing and social media marketing offerings.
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