Expired Domain Link Building

In the world of SEO, the power of high-quality and relevant backlinks is of great importance.

However, link building is not something that comes easy. This is why more and more SEO experts try to find alternative methods to build backlinks.

What if we could offer you an inside look into one of these methods to build backlinks to your website? In this article, we will introduce you to link building by using expired domains.

With some luck, you can use this technique to increase the authority of your website, and therefore rank higher on Google. How exactly? Keep on reading!

What is link building?

In the most simplistic terms, link building is the process of acquiring backlinks from other websites to your own. As many studies confirmed, along with the content, quality backlinks are one of the most important Google ranking factors. We have to emphasize the word quality because backlinks from non-relevant and bad sites won’t get your website much higher in SERP.

Here are the most common methods used to acquire links from other websites:

Manually adding the links

This is probably the easiest way of earning backlinks. However, these backlinks won’t give much juice to your site, as they’re usually located in places like business directories, blog comments sections, forums, and communities such as Reddit or Quora. That means anyone can come and build this type of backlinks.

Asking for backlinks (Outreach method)

If your site has unique and high-quality content, then you have a good foundation to contact other websites and ask them for a backlink. Without the content, it is much harder to get a backlink, because other website admins don’t have a proper reason to link back to you.

Guest posting, broken link building, and link exchanging are some of the most common ways of getting backlinks by outreaching other website owners.

Paying for backlinks

This method is in direct conflict with Google’s guidelines and is considered a high-risk method of link building. If Google discovers that you are getting a lot of backlinks by paying for them, the trustworthiness of your website could plummet. However, paid backlinks could still be an effective strategy if used in a smaller quantity and combined with natural backlinks.

Wait, then what are expired domains?

Expired domains are domains registered by companies or individuals but are currently expired. They are either not renewed on time, or have been purposely terminated.

Every domain owner gets multiple notifications if their domain is about to expire. Depending on a domain name marketplace, the grace period to renew a domain could be anywhere between a few weeks or a full year.

In any case, these domains are available for new registration by new owners and can be used in an interesting way to boost the SEO strength of another website.

So, what is expired domain link building then?

Expired domain link building is a method of generating backlinks by using the page strength of an expired domain. The idea is to purchase the high-quality expired domain, and then use the 301 redirect to send the backlinks to your website. Google has stated that all link power from a domain is reset once the domain expires:

“ One resulting improvement with this index is better handling of expired domains–the authority for a domain will be reset when a domain expires, even though dangling links to the expired domain are still out on the web. “

However, as you can see in our 301 link-building examples, this is not entirely true. There are still businesses that thrived by using the expired domain link building. If done properly, this could be a powerful way to get more backlinks.

The real question here is: Is Google trying to hide something from us? No, it’s just not in their interest for everyone to know about this. They prefer their users to spend money on paid advertising instead of manipulating the algorithm.

FAQ

Is using expired domains a legitimate way of getting backlinks?

Yes, despite the Google statements, you can still use expired domains as a legitimate link building method.

Do expired domains still have their backlink profile?

Yes, even though the domain has expired, its backlinks are still active. Therefore, the domain can be redirected to another website and the backlinks will follow.

Where can I find expired domains?

Expired domains can be purchased at several domain markets, such as Spamzilla or Domcop.

Where to check the domain ranking of an expired domain?

Ahrefs is a quality tool that can be used to determine the strength of an expired domain. Before buying an expired domain, it’s recommended to use the Site Audit, and see if it pays out to buy it in the first place.