Link Building with Expired Domains

September 8, 2008 by Collin LaHay
Filed under: Link Building 

A very powerful link building technique that few people talk about is buying existing websites/domains and then redirecting them to your own website. There is a thing called a “301 redirect” which tells the search engines that your website has moved domains permanently, and it forwards all of your ranking and backlinks to the new domain. A perfect example of this is the 301 redirect I setup to send mixedmarketarts.com to CollinLaHay.com.

All of my rankings will eventually transfer over to the new domain, and mixedmarketarts.com will rank no more.

Well, if you want to get a little shady and take some shortcuts, you can buy expired domains (or existing websites from the Sitepoint.com marketplace), and redirect them to your website. Every single ranking that those sites had will transfer to your new domain.

I am going to leave the creativity up to you, as im sure you can imagine the possibilities if you can do this on a large scale, but keep it under the radar. I can tell you that in the past, I have purchased expired domains that have had over 75 .gov and .edu backlinks to them and gained a PR4+ when the next update came around, so the potential is huge if you know where to look.

One place to start is FreshDrop.net. Good luck! Just know that there have been people who have purchased thousands of domains to super-rank their website, and have bragged about it, and had their entire domains banned. So if this is something you are considering doing, don’t let people know about it. :-)

Comments

22 Comments on Link Building with Expired Domains

  1. Jernej on Mon, 8th Sep 2008 2:00 pm

    2. Very good, but … when someone let domain expire and this happen, Google drop all ranks for that domain. So there is big diference between expired domains and domains you buy on sp, dp, etc …

  2. Jernej on Mon, 8th Sep 2008 2:01 pm

    3. oh, i forgot to subscribe …

  3. IamJustinM on Mon, 8th Sep 2008 5:01 pm

    4. Is there a certain tool you use to find expired domains with backlinks or do you do this manually (with xenu for example)

    I’ve been thinking about subscribing to use shoemoney’s new tool. $99/mo though.

  4. Julie on Tue, 9th Sep 2008 1:33 am

    5. What an interesting theme of the post. You provided us with comprehensive and informative review on buying pre-used domains. It is really useful

  5. NDN on Tue, 9th Sep 2008 9:35 am

    6. I have two questions from a newbie- 1). Do all domain registrars have the expired domain purchase option? I use primarily GoDaddy and they seem to only have backorder for $18.95 plus the cost of the domain. Doesn’t make purchasing expired domains every cost effective from them. 2). Is there a term for when someone buys an expired domain them puts up a slew of keywords and search options? Does the often come out net positive?

  6. Desmond - DesmondBlog.com on Tue, 9th Sep 2008 9:57 am

    7. Hey i can also make my new domain name worth more right after the transfer?

  7. Qutting The Day Job on Tue, 9th Sep 2008 10:31 am

    8. well this explains a lot. I’ve been following some links basically aand have been surprised by them being dead ends. Most likely the original owner sold the site (high PR, etc) and the new owner uses it to point to his etc.
    Thanks for the info.

  8. Quitting The Day Job on Tue, 9th Sep 2008 8:07 pm

    9. I was thinking about doing this for a few of my affiliate sites. Buy some old domains and domains with PR and backlinks.

    I think I might do this, and report on my blog the benefits, if any.

  9. Melvin on Wed, 10th Sep 2008 2:11 am

    10. Hmmm… I have been thinking of it for a long time but is this something that search engine would frown about?

  10. onewayseo on Wed, 10th Sep 2008 3:06 am

    11. have always wondered whether this tip works! im sure search engines will clamp down on it soon. thanks for the info

  11. Paula from Affiliate Blog Online on Wed, 10th Sep 2008 6:25 am

    12. Well you learn something every day but I have to agree with Melvin…this seems like somthing the search engines wouldn’t like too much.

  12. Quitting The Day Job on Wed, 10th Sep 2008 1:31 pm

    13. I don’t think so. Aaron Wall mentioned it in his SEO Book, conveniently named SEOBook. He was talking about redirecting older domains to new ones to show Google that your new domain is trustworthy.

    I personally don’t think you will get into too much trouble with Google, as long as the domain names are relevant. Redirecting DogToys.com to an SEO site may get you in trouble …

  13. Claudia on Wed, 10th Sep 2008 11:58 pm

    14. I’ve heard about selling and buying domain business…Now I know another benefit we could gain from expired domain. I think this is very interesting tip to increase traffic.

  14. Barry Wheeler on Thu, 11th Sep 2008 8:06 pm

    15. Any PR from the expired domain will eventually drop off from those domains though. The old domain loses its juice from the redirect.

    If a 301-Redirect is not done correctly, it could result in the sites being banned from the google index as well.

  15. Mikel on Fri, 12th Sep 2008 7:00 am

    16. Will it be good thing ??

    Pr lost domains will nt be considered my search engines am i right??

  16. Melvin on Sat, 13th Sep 2008 10:03 am

    17. i actually have a copy of SEObook but have never read it thoroughly.. Thanks

  17. paulette on Sun, 14th Sep 2008 2:45 am

    18. That’s a very clever technique:)

  18. Sacramento Weddings on Sat, 20th Sep 2008 9:18 am

    19. Isn’t this what Inline SEO is doing with Link Building Bible?

  19. Collin LaHay on Sun, 21st Sep 2008 1:55 am

    20. Pretty much, yeah. They acquired LBB for its content + ranking/link benefits.

  20. Claudia on Mon, 29th Sep 2008 5:01 pm

    21. can we have just names without the summary of the comments similar to the LastHalo?

  21. Freelance Content Writing Jobs on Thu, 2nd Oct 2008 1:30 am

    22. I have bagged few expired domains with traffic. I am on way to build more traffic. Thanks.

  22. Simon from Otooo on Thu, 2nd Oct 2008 6:06 am

    23. This is a very insightful idea – I love hearing about all the new shady techniques
    I assume the rankings would be short lived though, as all importance would be lost at the next update

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