Google has been asking for this. SEO has a new angle and Jim (of Webuilpages) is the pioneer. No longer is domain registration part of smart SEO - it's all about buying an old domain and changing as little whois info as possible - preferrably just getting the login info for the registrar.
Jim's got a post on the buying of old sites and, in typical brilliant business fashion, offers his services to find old sites in your niche for a paltry $500 here. Guess what I'm doing next time we have a new client...
sorry rand - forward / back buttons caused duplicate posts... my bad
Don't feel bad toddieg, Rand probably already got this annoying bug on the to-do list.
Swaye the whole idea is to get the complete site with content before it expires, and to gradually transform the site. When you think of the high cost of building links, paying a few hundred dollars for a site with a already established set of back links are a true bargain. Expired domains are a bit tricky since you need to e-mail Google and inform them that the site has essentially has remained the same (and such a claim would not be true unless you own the rights to use the original content)
Buying domains is the very best way to get to the top fast. Make sure you keep the site on topic and change very little on the registration. There is a small risk that competitors will find this out and turn you in. You can get some nice ones for as low as $300. I have spent as much as $10k for domains. The whitehat way to do it is to buy a company. It is not spam if you buy the company. There are lots of companies that are just one person and a website so all you have to do is buy the website and the content. You can improve the website but don't make drastic chnages like selling something very different.
I just finished reading their whole patent - as well as the update in March. Seems that domain age is only a part of it - the other part has to do with the amount of changes to content on that domain and pages and average amount of changes over time. Sooooo... unless you can guess what your customer will use the site FOR (in a year? two years?) and keep the site updated, get inbound links, etc. etc., there is no real incremental value to buying an "old" domain.
However, if you DO want to buy an expired domain - this could give you the added benefit of existing inbound links, too.
Looks like Swayne has completely missed the whole point of the exercise. If this becomes a craze it will make the work we do much more valuable. MMM,,, i see a lot of possibilitys here. A while ago we we saying on seochat about building and ranking sites just to sell in the future. It was decided it wasnt viable. Looks like it maybe the time to start planting those seeds.
I'm back... And YES you got me... I missed the point ;o)
Thanks Sorvoja & Mick for setting me straight ;-)
no 'real' value in an old domain? please....
expired domains (even if they have old/established backlinks) are filtered and won't help you one bit. in fact, in my experiences, you'll be FAR worse off than if you just start with a new domain.
old domains are where it's at... try doing a whois lookup of the top 10 players for any competitive keyword... pay close attention to those registration dates. :)
$500 is a steal ...
What is he mad??? PLEASE!!! Why pay $500 when you can simply visit Just Dropped.com and Do It Yourself in less than 5 minutes, for less than $10. "Is There Anyone Here Willing To Pay $500???" Add Your Comment Below!!