Expired Domains

Where to go for expired domains listed on google?

[Hefner]

Where can I go to find an expired domain list, by keyword search preferably, with high PR?

I've seen a few pay services, but keen on finding out where they do their searches. Call me a cheapskate, but I don't like to pay for things that can be found for free.

[WindSun]

I don't know of any specifically - I think those domain poachers get info from several places.

I do know however, that at last count there were something like 20,000 expiring per day, as of last December.

[GoogleGuy]

Hefner, you may want to buy an expired domain because the name is cool, but I wouldn't recommend buying it for the PageRank.

[Hefner]

googleguy,

Why not? I was always under the impression that domains already ranked and expired was a good thing to have. Perhaps I've been fed the wrong information.

[keeper]

Agreed, especially if the expired domain content isn't in the theme of the content you want to replace it with.

This means the links that have generated the PR, will not be relevant and therefore will not give you strong SERP's moving forward for your intended keyword targets.

I base this on my suspicion that the theme of a page/site linking to you effects the PR weighting in respect to search term relevancy.

Just an theory.

[rfgdxm1]

This probably isn't the greatest of ideas unless it just so happens that the topic of the site you plan to put up is pretty much the same as the site that used to be at that domain name. Otherwise, the sites that are linking to that domain giving it a high PR are likely to soon drop those links. And, if you are doing this *just* to try and get PR benefit, the Google gods may see this as abuse. This could be a Bad Thing.

[rfgdxm1]

>I base this on my suspicion that the theme of a page/site linking to you effects the PR weighting in respect to search term relevancy.

I've seen no evidence Google does this at all. However, if most of the links to the domain have "widgets" in the anchor text, and your site is about purple penguins, obviously this is nowhere as good as if you could find an expired domain many sites link to with "purple penguins" anchor text.

[stuntdubl]

>Hefner, you may want to buy an expired domain because the name is cool, but I wouldn't recommend buying it for the PageRank.

I have a client whose domain expired, but we renewed it. Will this have any effect on our site? It has a placeholder page up right now, and is should be back up soon. It is unfortunately not up during this crawl though.
How negative will this be?

[rmjvol]

Hi stuntdubl,

You'll be out of the index for a month or 2 but should fully recover. GG's comments on expired domains are related to the potential that the previous owner had a penalty on the domain. Your situation sounds no different than if your server was down during a crawl.

See GG post#4 [webmasterworld.com]
See GG post #4, another thread [webmasterworld.com]

rmjvol

[mack]

I woudl be cautious as to why PR domain would be dropped in the first place. There was a thread on here before (I cant locate it) that refered to someone buying a domain with a history. The new owner had bought a domain that had a google penalty atatched to it. so proceed with caution.

[GoogleGuy]

Everyone here has touched on important points with their posts. Hefner, some people believe that expired domains are a source of extra PageRank. But if there's anything you learn from watching the search engine optimization field change, it's that no SEO should rely on any set of assumptions too heavily, because the field of search engine optimization is constantly changing.

If you compare SEO today to how it was three years ago, it's pretty different. And I believe it will be different again in another three years. In just a short time, I'm amazed at how much of "typical" SEO has moved from a certain set of specialized skills (e.g. building doorway pages) to a broader range of full-service offerings such as PPC bid management or consulting on site architecture. And I think it's a good thing to see that transition taking place.

[Hefner]

Thank you all for your posts, I'm a big fan of diverse opinions. The domains I am after are in fact related to my content, so that's all I really wanted to know. I dont think I'd use a domain targeted at "blue dolls" when I use content that has to do with "digital cameras". But if I were in the Blue Doll business, would it be unethical to use one of those domains? I guess it's more of a yahoo question than a google one. Thanks again for your help.