Do you have a website and want more traffic? If that’s the case, link building is an important part of your SEO (search engine optimization). In this article, we will discuss how you can build links with expired domain names, and we will give you tips and tricks to get started. Sound interesting? Then you should definitely read on.
A good link from another website to yours gives you two important benefits:
• Quality links create a direct connection from another website to yours and thus generate more traffic.
• Quality links ensure a better position within search engines and thus build more traffic.
There are several ways to get quality links to your website. One of these is by means of expired domain names. In the rest of this article, we will call your own website the "primary website".
In the past, many companies have been successful in buying and using domain names that have been canceled. Such a domain name already has content, inbound links, history, and authority, which gives you a good base to build upon and saves you a lot of valuable time.
Note that in recent years, Google has become increasingly critical of link building, making it more difficult than before. However, it may still be a very useful tactic in your SEO strategy if you know what you’re doing and what you need to pay attention to.
Where do you find or buy expired domain names with authority?
At catchtiger.com, in the domain name auction listing, you will find a list of all domain names of various ccTLDs that expire in the future. To make it easy, relevant data is collected for each domain name. This helps you judge whether a domain name is suitable for link building. If you’ve found a domain name, you can place a bid.
After the auction expires, CatchTiger will attempt to register the domain name (this process is also called Drop Catching). But how do you know which domain name is suitable for link building and which ones aren’t?
Select the right domain name for link building and traffic
Choosing the right domain name is very important. You’ll eventually want a return on your investment and don’t want to receive a penalty from the top search engines. Below are some points to keep in mind when buying a domain name with authority for more traffic and a better position in the search engines.
1. Search for a domain name that is relevant to your primary website. You can do this by going to Catchtiger.com and using the search function where you’ll enter a keyword. You’ll immediately receive a list of released domain names containing the keyword of your choice. If the correct keyword is not in the list, you can always add a free alert on this keyword. If you do this, you’ll automatically receive an email when a domain name with this keyword is added to the list of auctioned domain names.
2. Once you've found the correct domain name, see how much Domain Authority the site has. You can easily view this in the CatchTiger Expert Overview. The higher the authority, the greater the chance of traffic.
3. Other evaluations that are often used to check for domain name authority, and that also check if this authority is "quality", are the Majestic Trust flow and the Majestic Citation flow. You can find both evaluations in CatchTiger’s Expert Overview. Trust flow / Citation flow is known as the Trust Ratio. When a website has many inbound links (High Citation Flow) from unreliable sources (Low Trust Flow), the Trust Ratio is very low. A high Trust Ratio means more quality inbound links.
4. If the authority and trust ratio is good, you can look at the number of backlinks. You can easily find this in CatchTiger’s Expert Overview. The more backlinks, the greater the chance of traffic and authority.
5. Do you want to know how long a website has been active in the domain name? Then look at the archive.org score. The higher the archive score, the more often the website is indexed on the domain by archive.org, and the longer it has been active. In addition, on the website of archive.org, you’ll be able to see how the website looked and whether it was a "real" company.
Do you want to research the domain name beyond the evaluations you can find on CatchTiger before buying them for traffic or link building? Then take a look at the following points:
1. Once you've found a proper domain name, make sure it's indexed by Google by searching Google for "site: www.examplesite.com". In addition, you can also search for "www.examplesite.com" to see how often Google finds this domain name on other websites.
2. Verify if the domain name has a "spam" score. You can check this with the free tool opensiteexplorer.org. The higher the spam score, the greater the chance of inbound links from spam websites.
3. Check on Google if there was any negative publicity concerning the brand.
If all of the above points are positive, you can participate in the domain name auction. Auctions start at €25. When the highest bidder is known, CatchTiger will try to register the domain name for you. If this is accomplished, then it’s time for the next step.
How do you use the domain name for more traffic and a better position in search engines?
You can use a domain name in two ways. The first and simplest way is a 301 redirect to your own primary website or an underlying secondary website (within a network).
A major disadvantage of this is that the link value decreases over time. And thus, the value of your domain also decreases. This may generate a boost in the short term but is not suitable for the long term, which is why we don’t recommend this.
In addition, it’s very important that the domain name you link directly to your primary website is of good quality. This prevents your primary site from getting contaminated links.
A better way to use your purchased domain name is to create relevant content. Please note that search engines are not a fan of link networks, so to achieve the maximum result you need to be more creative.
Create a secondary or tertiary website with your purchased domain names. This way you build a pyramid of websites aimed at boosting the primary site in search engines and generating more traffic. Below are some steps to set up your own network:
1. Use the best and cleanest domain names (which meet the previously discussed points) to create a secondary website with unique content relevant to your primary website.
2. In addition to the fact that your domain name has received a proper boost because it already has authority, it’s wise to keep this authority intact and improve it as much as possible. Good ways include writing guest blogs, logging in to quality directories, forums, etc. If you’re interested in a good overview of SEO link building strategies, then read the blog Linkbuilding Strategy 2017 from Creative ICT.
3. If you have a number of quality secondary websites that link to your primary website, it's time to build your tertiary network. Again, you’ll use released domain names that already have value. For your tertiary network, you can use domain names with a lower authority, of which more are available. Please note, it’s important that these are "clean" domain names that meet the points discussed earlier.
4. On your tertiary websites, you create mini-sites or blogs with relevant content for your primary website. Then link this tertiary website to your secondary websites.
If you want to go beyond this, then it’s also possible to build a quaternary network. Below are some of the key issues when setting up your own network:
1. Begin making a blueprint of your network, which helps you choose the right domain names and gives you an overview.
2. Make sure you always have control over the links between the different networks. Should one of your websites receive a Google penalty, you can easily remove this link.
3. Try to host different websites in different places, so that they don’t get connected through a shared hosting IP address. Another option is to use SEO hosting. This is a service where each website is hosted on a unique IP address, which means that they aren’t associated with each other. Do you want more information about this? Then look at http://www.privateproxies.nl.
Conclusion
Using expired domain names is an excellent way to boost your primary site and is a great addition to your overall SEO strategy.
In addition, building your own website network may also be relevant to third parties. You can place link requests on secondary or tertiary sites in exchange for others' links.
However, keep in mind that building your own website network is a time-consuming task. You need a good plan to acquire the right domain names, create good content and rank on suitable keywords.
Do you have any questions about purchasing SEO domain names? Contact us today and we’ll help you.
