3 recent successful niche/authority site case studies have all had one “SEO secret” or “SEO tactic” in common. What is it? Well its pretty simple and I will show you below how to use it… Its using expired domains to improve search engine ranking for your main niche site.
This article will go into detail covering…
- 3 Case Studies That Have Used Expired Domains
- 3 Common Ways to Use Expired Domains
- The Easiest & FREE Way to Find Relevant Expired Domains Free to Register with Backlinks in 10 Minutes (video instructions included)
- This won’t cover the best way to find high PR expired domains…
- For that visit – DomainSpoon (aff link) or the podcasts at Niche Pursuits – here
- I plan to have a post showing how I have used this great tool developed by Brad
Note – You will need to use a few paid services to use this strategy, all the ones I link to in this post I use and recommend – some of the links below are affiliate links but don’t feel like you need to use them.
- Domain Registrar I Use with Cheap Domain Registry Privacy Protection – Here
- Web Host I Use With 15 Class C IP Addresses for $7.95/month – Here
3 Case Studies That Have Used Expired Domains
Within the last few months there has been 3 successful public case studies that all have one SEO tactic in common, they are…
#1 – Tung Tran from CloudLivingJourney.com has his niche site bestadjustabledumbbells.com ranking # 1after only 38 days and on track to be making $500/month. He talks about his impressive results and all the strategies he used. One item that a lot of people would miss is the expired domain he picked up to generate a high PR backlink for his site.
See the image below showing where he describes how he used his expired domain…
#2 Spencer Haws from NichePursuits.com has his website http://www.sharpsurvival.
#3 – Myself for my case study Site (Link to Website Removed) is generating over $1000/month from search engine traffic and has been promoted using expired domains. I have wrote about how I use these only a little bit twice…
http://authoritywebsiteincome.com/300-visitors-per-day-and-450-per-month/
http://authoritywebsiteincome.com/website-is-profitable/
Pat Flynn in Niche Site Duel #2 research has had people who talk about using expired domains…
- (Research) What’s Working in SEO Right Now with Alex Becker (4/30/13)
- Talks about expired domains a lot at Source Wave
- (Research) SEO and Keyword Research with Spencer Haws (5/8/13)
- Uses expired domains (as shown below)
- (Research) Neil Patel on How to Rank a Website Today (5/10/13)
- Uses broken link building techniques which are similar
The 3 Common Ways to Use Expired Domains To Get More Traffic
There are 3 main ways I use expired domains…
Strategy 1 – Direct 301 Redirect
What is it?
A direct 301 redirect is telling Google that the old site no longer exists and the new site is at the URL you have specified. In an ideal world all the back links should then be counted at your site. However there is some discussion as to whether or not Google utilizes this.
Does It Work?
I found a URL that was highly relevant to teacher grants at my website and 301 redirected it to my main teacher grant page and I started ranking for the keyword “Teacher”.
I expected the traffic to drop off due to having no business ranking for the high level keyword “teacher” however search terms that have “teacher” in it have continued to generate a lot of traffic due to this one expired domain redirection.
How Do I Do It?
- Find Relevant Domain – (THE KEY IS A HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY RELEVANT DOMAIN!!)
- I purchase the domain at NameCheap
- Direct the nameservers to my favourite inexpensive SEO Host (multiple Class C IPs for $7.95/month!)
- Install WordPress w Redirection Plugin
- Find all old pages searching archive.org (alternative) and majesticseo.com and redirect them to an appropriate page on my main site
- Set up a reminder to check back in 1 month and 3 months to see if there are any 404 errors and redirect those to an appropriate page
Strategy 2 – Feeder Site
What Is It?
Building a feeder site is like building any other micro-niche site. It typically has 1-5 pages and only links out to a few sites and primarily links to your main site 1-3 times on the homepage.
Does It Work?
This is the strategy that Tung used with his high PR site that he picked up at auction that drove his site to rank #1 in Google in 38 days!
How Do I Do It?
- Find Relevant Domain – (THE KEY IS A HIGHLY HIGHLY(only 2 this time) RELEVANT DOMAIN!!)
- I purchase the domain at NameCheap
- Direct the nameservers to my favourite inexpensive SEO Host
- Install WordPress & Build Website
- Find all old pages searching archive.org and majesticseo.com and redirect them to an appropriate page on my new feeder site
- Set up a reminder to check back in 1 month and 3 months to see if there are any 404 errors and redirect those to an appropriate page on my feeder site
Strategy 3 – General Blog Network Site
What Is It?
Building a website which is reasonably relevant but does not have to be directly related to your niche and then build backlinks from it to multiple websites. Or use the high PR site to do a 3 way link trade with a fellow website owner.
OR…
Does It Work?
This is the tactic that I use to build out a small 5-10 site private blog network for my larger authority sites. This is also the tactic that Spencer used above to get a high PR link to his Case Study Site.
Finally this is the tactic that Becker talks about in his interview with Pat Flynn here.
How Do I Do It?
- Find High Authority(high PR) and Somewhat Relevant Domains
- I purchase the domain at NameCheap
- Direct the nameservers to your hosting account (recommended account I use)
- Install WordPress & Build Website (making each website very different from one another)
- Upload content on an ongoing basis 1/month linking to my main sites and other sites I work out link exchanges with
The Easiest Way to Find Expired Domains That Are Free to Register with Relevance and Authority in 10 Minutes
- Go to ExpiredDomains.net
- Set up a FREE account
- Set up your search like the following
- Search Term – Your Keyword
- Common Filter – min Backlinks = 1 & min Site Results = 1
- Additional Filter – TLDs = .com, .net, .org, .ca & Select “only free domains”
- Pick The Domain(s)
- PR > 0
- Backlinks > 10
- Majestic Trust Flow > 15
- Majestic Link Flow > 15
- Keyword Spam – Based on majestic SEO link profile does the link profile appear natural, 3 questions to test
- i. Is porn/poker/pharmaceuticals mentioned in the anchor text?
- ii. Is the anchor text all English?
- iii. Is the exact match keyword density below 15%?
- Check Relevance – Put the site into archive.org and ask yourself these questions…
- If the person visiting this website ended up at my site instead would they be happy since their question/problem was answered?
- If the person was selling this site and the price was right would it make sense for my website to buy this site?
- Bonus Alexa < 10M
- Register Domain with Privacy Protected at NameCheap.com
- Set up website at a different host than your main site
- Best Host For These Purposes I Use – Click Here
- IMPORTANT – Make sure you use a different host than you main site
- Pick a Strategy
- Direct 301 redirect
- Build feeder site
- Build a private blog network site and use for 3-way link trades with other sites in your niche
- Execute Your Chosen Strategy
Mohammed Basheer says
Honestly, I prefer to invest the same money – unless even less money, actually – in publishing high quality articles/advertorials on high quality related websites – paid guest posting. This way I get not only links on a high quality website, but also some nice targeted refferal traffic. When you are a customer, you can decide where to put the link in the text etc. pretty much the same way you would have done with a website you own.
Andrew Egoroff says
This is a great summary of the best ways to use expired domains.
I’ve been using method 3 a lot lately, as I’m paranoid about having too many feeder sites linking directly to my main money site. I’m getting pretty good results by having that extra buffer of a highly relevant PR site used to funneling through links from other less relevant sites.
Based on what you’ve covered here, I’m going to try a few 301 redirects using some expired domains I bought recently.