Purchasing soon-to-expire domains

when exactly?

[Algebrator]

Since expired domains lose all the links and PR, I am thinking about contacting webmasters of soon-to-expire domains, to see if they are willing to sell them. True, in lots of cases this will simply remind the owner to renew the domain, but my assumption is that there will be a fair number of those that lost interest in the particular web site and wouldn't mind selling them.

I have a practical question regarding the timing - Which domain status would you concentrate on (pending delete, redemption or registrar hold)?

Closer to the date of expiration - higher the chances (at least I think). However, getting too close is risky - the process takes a little while (during which you obviously don't want the domain to go on the auction block).

Intuitively, I think I would try doing this with Redemption Period domains - any comments / suggestions would be appreciated

[Webwork]

Registrar hold and no further. Pending deletes are too far gone. Redemption is complicated by increased fees, etc.

[leadegroot]

but (for Google at least) the site loses all rank when the owner and the pages change, or so the recent gossip goes.
This probably starts to make this a bit pointless! :(

[1milehgh80210]

AFAIK, website PR and rankings continue when a hosted site changes hands.
Otherwise, A lot of people are getting ripped off on all those website auction/sales sites. :)

[Algebrator]

>leadegroot
>the site loses all rank when the owner and the pages change,

>1milehgh80210
>AFAIK, website PR and rankings continue when a hosted site changes hands.

In my experience (somewhat dated) 1milehgh is right. It would be very troublesome if leadegroot was right - anybody else has any recent experiences?

[leadegroot]

I haven't experienced this myself, but is supposed to be a recent product of Google's becoming a domain name registrar.
I hope it isn't true! :)

[Algebrator]

It really, really wouldn't make any sense. However, wierder things happen ...