The concepts “expired domain” or “dropped domain” are very common in the context of online marketing and refer to those addresses of web pages registered in the name of an individual or a company that were not renewed or were canceled after the expiration of the contract. With this, the domain is released again for registration. In most cases, to protect their domains, webmasters don’t settle for the one-year minimum term, but remain registered with a hosting provider for a longer period of time.
There are many reasons why someone deletes or cancels a domain. If, for example, a company dissolves or a project comes to an end, their entire domain portfolio is likely to be deleted, which is why many providers buy such expired domains and reuse them.
Why are expired domains so attractive?
Expired domains are particularly attractive due to the potential benefits they represent for the search engine optimization of a web page. This is due to the fact that it is possible to adopt, use and take advantage of the already existing link structure . In this way, the webmaster saves a lot of work that, otherwise, would have to be done manually and continuously with each of the incoming links. As a general rule, the value of a website increases organically over the years, and in the same way, the value of the domain also increases with search engine ranking and backlinks. When it comes to reducing effort, the acquisition of an “ expired domain ” represents a great opportunity for web operators.
However, it should also be noted that there are some risks when using expired domains. The sum invested in the acquisition of a domain is only worthwhile if the website really attracts traffic and enjoys a good reputation. In the worst case , the dark side of said disused domain is also “inherited” (problems with bots, spam attacks or Google penalties).
The case of Cameron Harris: fast money with fake news on an expired domain
The New York Times broke a story about Cameron Harris, a recent political science graduate student at Davidson College in North Carolina, who managed to monetize the purchase of an expired domain. This renowned American newspaper called it “a masterpiece of fake news.” After finishing his studies, the 23-year-old was looking for a lucrative business model and came up with the idea of carrying out a “sociological experiment”, as he himself called it.
Initially, Harris published a few articles online that got few clicks and a moderate response from the public. However, his stories only started to gain public attention after he accused Hillary Clinton of having condemned the death of the gorilla Harambe as a racist act. From then on, realizing that he could get a lot of clicks, Harris focused on political issues. Some of the examples include stories accusing Bill Clinton of being involved in an underage sex scandal, as well as an attempted divorce from his wife.
How did Harris manage to make money on these “expired domains”?
Harris explained that he found the expired domain name “ChristianTimesNewspaper.com” through the provider ExpiredDomains.net and bought it for just $5. In his opinion, only the name of the URL was enough to provide the credibility of the source. Thus, focusing on the US election campaign between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Harris began publishing a few articles on his newly acquired domain.
With her landmark story, Harris announced something conspiracy theorists had long suspected: “tens of thousands” of Clinton votes were found at a camp in Ohio, something Harris said police had already figured out. To increase the level of veracity of the “news” about him, he added a file image in which one of the warehouse workers was recognized. In the photo, the worker was moving large boxes with the supposedly modified ballots in favor of Hillary Clinton. In addition to the image, Harris reported on an alleged plot to manipulate the election results, claiming that on Election Day the ballots were going to be leaked to be part of the vote count and thus legitimize Clinton’s victory.
To spread her story, Harris created fake Facebook profiles and shared the article from her newly acquired website. His “experiment” had an effect: the story about the alleged electoral fraud spread virally on a large scale. From this article alone, and because many people accepted the information as truth by clicking on the article and sharing it, Harris earned $5,000 through Google AdSense.
Interestingly, the article got 6 million clicks and even Donald Trump shared the story on his networks. The winner of the United States presidential elections had already used fake news to attack political opponents, question the legitimacy of the Obama administration and denigrate the media and this practice made him go from being a well-known reality TV star to become the highest-ranking official in the United States.
What motivated Harris to use expired domains and spread fake news?
Harris denied any political motivation behind her false stories. According to his statements, the only interest he pursued was to obtain the greatest benefit by taking advantage of the media potential of political issues. When asked if he felt any guilt for having smeared a presidential candidate, Harris replied that since politics generally consists of exaggerations and half-truths, and this was an established practice in these circles, his contribution had not been so serious.
Harris also confirmed that he would have been prepared to take on Trump and promote Hillary Clinton’s candidacy had he become more lucrative. Of course, Trump supporters were much more impulsive than Clinton supporters, with supporters of the Republican nominee being the most willingly sharers.
The young political scientist reaffirmed his republican spirit but, ultimately and according to his statements, his only motivation was the $20,000 he generated through Google Ads (ads) on his website. However, Google quickly removed the advertisement from his page after discovering his malicious strategy.
Harris made the mistake of waiting. Shortly after the election, Google announced that it would not place any ads on sites that posted fake news, and a few days later all the ads had disappeared from Harris’s domains. After extensive checking, he was informed that his domains were essentially worthless.
However, all was not lost. Harris implemented a popup on the reactivated expired domain that encouraged visitors to join the (fictional) “Stop the Steal” team. By joining, users would find out how Clinton rigged the election and how to stop her. In this way, Harris collected some 24,000 email addresses, whose use, he says, is still unclear.