With over 40 million expired domains in our database and hundreds of thousands expiring each day, it can be daunting to see the wood through the trees. Which are truly valuable domains that you could resell or flip for a profit? Which domains will provide long term SEO benefits and which domains are just pure duds that you are best advised to stay clear of…..

Secondhand better than new?

With so many new GTLDs fresh to the market you may be asking yourself why even buy an expired domain, it would be so much easier to register one of the hundreds of thousands new domains out there all shiny new, and yes this certainly may be the case for the small business owner where web traffic or SEO is not a main priority. Domains are much like wine, find a good grape, an awesome vineyard which treats the fruit with respect and the good wines will only get better with age. Think of the domain as it develops in its lifecycle, being enriched with great back links, and relevant content as that vintage wine being saved up for a special occasion.

Semi Valuable Domain checklist in a flash..

With the wine analogy in mind here’s the quickest guide I could put together to summarize finding what I call semi valuable domains ( semi valuable because you probably aren’t going to get lucky enough to find an expired domain and flip it for a million plus, but these domains will have SEO and resale value) It’s not important that you have EVERY metric covered, but say at least 3 out of 4 of those should at least meet the criteria 1 to 4 below.

1. Page authority>20
2. Domain authority>15
3. Trust Flow>15
4. Citation Flow>15

Spam Check

It’s all very well having great metrics, but if the domain has been spammed in the past, be very very careful.

Unlike with some of the other metrics, this area is more difficult to measure, and this is only becoming more so as spamming becomes more sophisticated.

Watch out for..

• Chinese or foreign language backlinks
• Extremely high percentage of “same match” anchor texts
• Tons of low quality links (PR N/A, free platforms, software generated etc etc

Do your homework on the backlinks – quantity does not mean quality.

There are loads of back link checkers out there but none of them are 100% reliable, so I would recommend sticking to the moz.com or majesticseo.com, they are two of the largest, offer a limited subscription service but general pricing is pretty decent. Being the largest they have a reputation of data integrity and reliability they need to uphold.

Anchor Text %

Generally speaking, when I personally build links for 1 target keyword, I keep the percentage of exact match anchor text around 20% or less to avoid an Over-Optimization Penalty. The remaining 80% being closely related keywords or generic keywords such as click here, visit this site etc etc.

When checking the back link profile of a domain you’re interested in, make sure the anchor text of the target keyword(s) found are 20% or below.

Registrar History

You should make sure the domain hasn’t been dropped too many times. The more times it’s been dropped, the more likely it’s been abused and should be avoided. An aged domain usually does have history so some sound judgment is needed here.

What went before

When buying an expired domain you should always take a peep at what the previous content was over the years. Though the popularity of exact match domains has declined somewhat over the years, it would be prudent to stay away from a domain whose website content has swung away from the original meaning of the domain and has no relevancy at all. Another warning sign would be if the website subject matter has switched many times over the years.

So ok I said it would be a checklist in a flash, which it was…As you all know there are many other factors to also consider, but buying expired domains is really no different to many aspects of life, sometimes you can over complicate and over analyze something into inaction. As much as we have tried to add metrics and measurement tools to this industry buying domains is not a science. Judgment and good old fashioned gut feeling is just as important as some of the metrics listed above…

Before you go don’t forget to hop across and check out our awesome expired domains database, I know I said it before but I will again, we have millions of domains but best of all we have a state of the art user interface which will enable you to find the expired domains quicker than on some of the other sites – AND we are completely free – no subscription!!! Expired Domains