Those domains registered by individuals, companies or organizations that are not renewed after the expiration of the contract or whose resignation is carried out intentionally receive, in the field of SEO, the name of expired domains (in Spanish, expired domains) and are available to re-register. The reasons for giving up a domain are varied, but in general, the reasons are due to failed web projects or the dissolution of the portfolio to which the domain referred in the framework of an insolvency process. Likewise, sanctions due to infringements of trademark law can also lead to the release of domains. The new registration can, in this case, lead to legal consequences.
In this guide we explain why expired domains are so popular, what are the advantages they offer to users and why it is recommended to be careful when registering them.
The value of an expired domain
Expired domains are interesting primarily due to SEO factors , which are primarily related to an existing external link profile . If you are considering acquiring a free web address, you have to assess the quality of the domain based on the incoming links. The evaluation of an expired domain also takes into account the relevant keywords in the second level domain, as well as those related to products, brands or services.
external links
When talking about the profile of backlinks or external links of a released address, reference is made to the incoming links that were created for a domain in previous cycles of use and, especially, expired domains with a long history do not go unnoticed on the Internet. While the content is not usually transferred to the new owner, links from other pages that redirect to the domain remain intact as long as the new owner does not actively remove or cancel them.
The backlink profile of a released domain is, however, a double-edged sword. While some old owners laboriously maintain their expired domains and have quality inbound links from representative web pages, other domains display suspicious external links. In the worst case, the released domains may be abused, within the framework of a network of satellite domains, as a mere link farm to strengthen an important project and, therefore, be sanctioned by the most popular search engines. relevant.
Both the quantity and quality of incoming links on a domain have a great influence on search engine ranking. In this regard, SEO experts differentiate between three characteristics:
- Link popularity : Link popularity is a characteristic that is taken into account to quantitatively evaluate the incoming links of a web page. The measure is established by the totality of the references in a domain according to the principle of “the more incoming links there are, the more important the web page will be”. Link popularity is generally determined by the PageRank algorithm, which, however, plays a secondary role in the search engine’s evaluation of quality.
- Domain Popularity – When evaluating the backlink profile of an expired domain , so-called domain popularity is more important than link popularity. Incoming references to a web page are evaluated only once in this index. This prevents tampering attempts whereby one domain repeatedly refers to another.
- IP Address Popularity – Determining IP address popularity means going one step further. Here incoming links are evaluated only when they come from different servers and from different networks. SEO experts assume that Google takes into consideration the popularity of IP addresses as a factor influencing search engine ranking to expose link networks.
When it comes to assessing the quality of an expired domain , both the popularity of domains and IP addresses play an important role. If you come across expired domains with high link popularity, i.e. with a large number of backlinks but with negative values when it comes to both IP and domain popularity, it can be assumed that these references are constructed in an artificial way. Such a domain is, in the case of major search engines, interpreted negatively. This is possibly the reason why the domain has been relinquished, so users who want to start a serious online project should avoid such expired domains.
In addition to the number of incoming links, it is also worth evaluating the quality of the external link profile . In this regard certain important questions arise, such as what is the origin of the link? o What kind of reference do you offer? A high-quality backlink profile generally shows a natural mix of different types of links, such as footer and sidebar links, references in comments, forum threads, and network comments. social, as well as content links that come from other representative web pages. It is also advisable to consider whether these references are qualified as “dofollow” and “nofollow”.
To unmask spammy links it is recommended to take a close look at the anchor texts, that is, the linked text fragments. If these are mostly optimized for transactional keywords, this indicates that the link has not been carried out naturally. The past of a released domain can lead to negative consequences for later projects.
Determining whether an existing backlink profile can be used for a new web project under a released domain is related to whether the destination links of inbound referrals can be rebuilt. To analyze content provided in the past by a domain, you can use the Internet Archive . If the backlinks or external links from the subpages of the domain do not lead anywhere, they are worthless and may have a negative impact. If necessary, these could be diverted via the 301 status code to similar subpages or to the main page, but much of the link power is lost.
keywords in domain names
For a long time it was considered that the presence of a keyword in a domain name was a very important factor for ranking in search engines, something that has been relativized over the years. However, domains containing keywords are very popular in the domain market.
One of the reasons lies in the fact that users consider domains containing keywords to be more serious and important . Those addresses with domain names that have keywords with a high volume of searches are observed by interested parties for years, so deciding to buy expired domains would only make sense if the domain name matches the content, products or services that the address website will provide later.
Likewise, we must not forget that the large number of domains that exist conflicts with the registration of trademarks . Before buying expired domains, it is advisable to carry out a thorough investigation in the main registries of organizations such as the SPTO , WIPO , EUIPO or make use of tools such as TMview .
Find expired domains
Internet users trying to find and recover expired domains will quickly realize that this is a process that cannot be done manually. Professional domain merchants are more familiar with registrar deletion processes and rely on sophisticated algorithms to pinpoint when domains are released. As a result, so-called elimination lists are created. Numerous data records with domains that are free or will be released in the near future can be found on the Internet, although they can often only be examined for a certain amount of money.
The problem arises when making a new record. The reason lies in the so-called domain backorder providers, who pay to monitor those domains that are going to expire in a certain period of time to register them with the help of automated processes as soon as they are free. In general, expired domains that have potential are no longer available before an Internet user manually proceeds to the registration options.
The role of expired domains in search engine optimization
In the past, expired domains were used in the field of black hat SEO to generate sources of backlinks quickly and without much effort, a practice that is still in use today on some occasions despite the fact that they are not entirely well regarded. . In addition, the most important search engines currently work with very complex ranking algorithms that can no longer be fooled by link networks of this nature.
Due to the fact that such search engines see inbound links as a recommendation, these referrals have a decisive influence on your ranking. The procedure by which a backlink profile of a web project is used after making the new domain registration to give impetus to a new project is, with total security, not a dish of good taste for search engines. Using an expired domain becomes a risky game that, in the worst case, leads to penalties or removal from the search index.