So what are aged domains? I’ve characterized them with these five high level points. So aged domains are essentially aged, which means they’re many years old.
There’s no specific time period. Like, it’s not like it has to be five years old or ten years old. It’s just means it’s at least one year old or older. Also, the domain it has been registered previously. It had an owner in the past that owner use that website, that domain for the business purposes, a blog or whatever, having high quality backlinks from the previous owners.
Now, this is what’s a big differentiator between a fresh domain that you register for $10 and a aged domain with backlinks pointing to your domain. If you have backlinks on your domain that you can buy, let’s say guest posts or initiatives. There’s no point. You can just do that yourself. What we’re looking, what we should be looking for, with these domains is unobtainable backlinks, which is backlinks from, let’s say, CNN, New York Times, Forbes, or very high deal sites where they have such strict content quality requirements that you just can’t go and buy a link.
You have to earn a link. And so you can use domains with those links that are already pointing at that domain from the previous owners to your benefit.
Number three is never dropped, so your domain should have never been dropped. Ideally, I have seen a domains that have dropped that do well, and that’s the difference between an expired domain and an aged domain. So we’ll get to that later for brand.
What are aged domains?
Now, these next two ones, four and five, are optional. However, if I’m going to invest a lot of money into an aged domain with quality backlinks, ideally, I’d like to have a brand. All right. I’m spending money on a domain, so I might as well get one that is short has value in and of itself.
Number five, a valuable TLD. Tld top level domain. So for example, .com, .net, .org. Again, this is very optional. It doesn’t really matter, but it is something to consider that the value of a domain does is tied to what it is.
So these are the five high level characteristics that you can keep in mind when you are evaluating a domain, whether it’s an expired one or not. Now, the next thing is an example, right? Domains are what I call abandoned real estate. And this is something that I have sort of analyzed and found. So an abandoned property.
So let’s say a real estate property in a good neighborhood, a single family home or a multifamily home in a very good neighborhood. Is it called an area? Right. That’s that property is just like the domain on the Internet and an amazing area, a very high value area for property.
It’s the same as the backlinks pointing to that domain. So that has value. Now, if you find a real estate property in a neighborhood where everything else is high value and that property is not, that’s opportunity because that surrounding area gives that property that’s not been renovated.
The perceived value of authority. You can buy that property, improve it, and all of a sudden you have a very high value property because the surrounding properties are high value. So that’s the opportunity. Same with aged domains.
The backlinks provide that perceived value of authority to that domain. You might find a domain at an auction that’s been neglected. However, it has links from CNN, New York Times, Forbes, has links from a lot of niche high authority sites right in that industry and that is that perceived value it’s been neglected the website itself just like that real estate property has been neglected.
But you see that opportunity. You can take that, revamp that website and bring it back to its glory or what it’s supposed to be worth. So think of it domains as abandoned real estate, just a value on the Internet that has been forgotten. And you see that value and you can improve that.
What is the difference between an aged domain and expired domain
So what is the difference between an age domain and expired domain?
Now these are terms that get thrown around and sometimes interchangeably. However, there is some distinction between the two and that distinction does affect the value.
You have aged domains and then you have expired domains. Now domains and expired domains, both have been registered in the past. Somebody owned them. Somebody did something to them, use them or let them sit, whatever. Right. So both registered in the past. Now the job status, that is where the differentiation, it’s an aged domain has never been dropped. An expired domain has been dropped in the past.
And you can kind of say that an aged and this is where the issue lies is some people say that just because a domain has been dropped doesn’t mean that it’s not aged anymore. But that is the real distinction here. And so that’s why a lot of marketplaces say that their expired domains are actually aged domains.
And so you need to be aware of that. Now, backlinks, both have backlinks. Both need to have existing backlinks.
I have seen most aged domains that are truly aged, never dropped, are usually very well branded if you look at different marketplaces but expired domains. They can be branded, but there’s a lot of expired domains out there. There’s thousands that expire on a daily basis that have backlinks, but not necessarily that they’re very well branded.
Now, pricewise, aged domains do get a premium. They can range from a couple of hundred dollars up to tens of thousands of dollars. But expiring domains, you can get them for much cheaper, a couple of hundred dollars on average. So do they work? Do they expire? Domains work. Yes, they work.
Do aged domains work? Yes, they work. But they both have issues. And there’s not always a guarantee that just because you build something on an aged domain versus an expired domain, you’re going to have success. It really matters on the history of that.
What are aged domains? What are the pros and cons of using aged domains now for pros?
Rentable domains. Aged domains are usually sometimes findable, and some of them have a lot of direct traffic. Let’s say that dates a domain of a previous SAS company. Right. That receive a lot of press, has good backlinks, has good social media.
And so once you buy that domain set up Google Analytics, you start to see the direct traffic because maybe people are coming to it from their RSS feed, emails, social media and that direct traffic is valuable, it has value.
It gives you a good signal to Google that this site is back and maybe start ranking it again. So it’s a huge plus to buy a brand of a domain that has direct traffic. Now, it’s hard to measure. You don’t know if it will get direct traffic. It’s usually just luck.
There’s just no way to measure that that’s going to that. This specific domain will get direct traffic. It’s just a bonus. Now, the major pro the reason that people use domains is that you can bypass what’s called the Google Sandbox, which is a temporary time period where new sites, freshly registered domains go through and essentially where Google is vetting whether your site deserves to be ranked within each domain.
Most of the time, not always. It’s quicker to start getting traffic. I have put up content on domains within a month and I start to get traffic. It is it does work out pretty well when it does work out. But on the other hand, you may not always get traffic quickly. I have seen sites that took one year to start to get any traffic.
So it’s not always that it’s the easy way out, right? Now the other thing is existing unobtainable backlinks, and this is something I really, really want people to consider is if your website, if your domain does has a high deal, let’s say on a with the backlinks, if you analyse the individual backlinks, you see that they’re just normal niche sites or through marketplaces.
There’s no benefit to getting that domain. You can recreate that same situation with the same guest post niche as yourself and not have the risk of what the aged domains provide. So unobtainable backlinks only really, really keep that in mind. The other thing is, which I really love is not a lot of people have success with backlinks, getting backlinks, outreaching, building partnerships so with domains you can temporarily delay your back linking because the site already has the domain, already has backlinks.
It gives you that initial authority to get content ranked ideally and then you can build links down the road. So it just temporarily delays it with a freshly registered domain. Yes, you have to you’ve put a lot of content in, but it really helps with the freshly registered domain to have backlinks.
So you have to do some sort of outreach or buy links. Cons really the first major con is not always successful. Know I have a 50% success rate for four domains. I buy two of them do well.
The others they don’t really take off. Right. It’s not like they don’t work. It’s just that they don’t get a lot of traffic where it’s worth the hassle. So it’s not always successful. Just keep that in mind.
Another thing is you might find an aged domain at auction through marketplaces, but it’s really hard to know if that website was penalised in Google, right?
Google, how many penalty or anything of that nature. So that is something that’s risky. Now, there’s trademark issues. It’s a brand of all domains owned by previous businesses. It’s some dude go through the trademarks of previous business owners did do trademark and maybe the trademarks have not expired.
I have found very high quality domains that have excellent backlinks, but they still have active trademarks in the US Trademark Office. And that’s a no no, because if you build a website on that, they can come after you and say that brand, that domain is their trademark.
They used to own it and it’s a big legal battle that you don’t want to go through. Another con is, as domains have taken off the last few years, a lot of people are building sites on them. A lot of people are buying them from auctions. They see the value in each domain domain. Investors are seeing the value in these brand domains with backlinks because they hold more value than a freshly registered domain.
So there’s been large premium increases on a domain recently. So both of those have to kind of work together for you to have a successful project here. But note that aged domains have risks. I just want to make that clear to everybody.
Now let’s talk about the bad uses of aged domain. Essentially the bad use cases. Aged domains. Our use as a shortcut. Unfortunately, a lot of niche website builders are seeing the success that aged domains have received in the recent years and are now taking shortcuts to essentially build very low quality sites on irrelevant aged domains. But that’s really what you should not do.
And so here’s some examples of what I’ve seen and things that you really should not do.
You should not redirect an unrelated aged domain to an existing site just to get an authority boost. That is a huge red flag and something really should avoid. If you’re going to build an authority site on an aged domain, don’t build an unrelated site. Let’s say your aged domain was on the topic of dogs and you start adding content about technology that’s not related. Right.
And it’s just setting you up for a very big penalty. A lot of people are using aged domains now for private blog networks. They see that as the next way to build up a very private network to build links to their authority site. So here’s just three examples of things you really should not do.
Now, what about some good use cases? So let’s talk about that. This is how an aged domain really should be done. You should be redirecting what’s called a topical match domain, a domain that topically matches with your existing site.
So if you find a dog domain, you can redirect to your dog site that makes sense, right? If you find a dog e commerce aged domain that used to sell products and you have an informational dog site about products. Number two is to build a new, a brand new content site around the topic of the original domain.
How do you determine the topic of the domain?
That’s something we’ll cover in the due diligence. However, that this number two is very critical. Make sure the topic matches. Again, if you find a tech website that talked about, let’s see software, write B2B software, don’t start adding content about SEO software or something like that. You get the point. Just keep the topic the same.
Now, can you branch out to other topics? Of course. But initially in, let’s say when you first start adding content, you start doing the redirects, try to keep the topical match the same as it originally was to get the site off the ground.
After a while, you can start adding new categories to your site to branch out into and start getting more traffic. But initially just make sure the topical matches there.
Now, if you have a plan to redirect an aged domain to an existing site or you would like to build a new site on it, think about the variation, which is an aged content site, which is a variation of essentially an aged domain.
Now what is an aged content site?
And each site is essentially indexed or written in Google with the existing content that the previous owners wrote. Ideally, the site is already getting organic traffic or has impressions or used to get organic traffic. You are essentially working directly with the seller to buy that aged site. You don’t have competition in auctions, for example, and GoDaddy auction, where hundreds of people are looking at an aged domain and bidding for it.
You’re working directly one on one with the seller. Now, another thing is that aged sites are usually collected by the original owner, so you can at times get a pretty good deal.
The owner might just be tired of it. They just want to move on and they’re happy to sell it to you. With an aged site, you actually get all the existing assets, you get the website itself with the content, you get the domain with the existing backlinks that are ideally high quality.
But you could also get the social media profiles. You could also get a lot of different other assets with the aged domain. You just get the domain. You don’t have any rights to the social media profiles or anything. You just get the domain. Now, which one is better?
It really, really depends. Right. I like to use aged sites, which is just an offspring of an aged domain because, one, I can get a better deal too. I know it’s indexed. Three, it has content that I can repurpose, revamp, reuse. And really the main reason is that it minimizes a lot of the risks with penalties aged domains. So this is just something for you to consider.
They’re pretty much the same thing. It’s just that whereas the location you find these days, domains, you’re going through auctions and marketplaces with aged sites, you can go into like page five of Google Search and find each site and make an offer on that. Right. It’s just different ways to get the same outcome.
