If you’re looking for expired domain names, you can check any of the popular sites or marketplaces. There are millions of domains to buy every month, and you just need to search for some minutes to find a great deal.
The problem is the reality of that website before that it went offline. Some sites are good, but, the majority are spam, and even, a source of malware and similar things that no one wants to have. In other words, you need to pick a good deal, but, without being scammed by fake numbers and statistics. So, I’ll tell you how to avoid these bad things.
Check if the domain was banned by Google
This is the first and most important step to follow. If a website got banned by Google, that’s the end in most cases, and recovering, or even, sending a request is not successful all the time. These websites use automated tools to build links and other ways to boost their ranking. Of course, they violate Google guidelines, if the result is a ban, then forget that domain.
Please forget all the other factors if the domain is not indexed by Google. Scammers can use a fake PageRank and other things, So, be careful and always follow this first checking method. It’s the only one that can save you lots of money and time.
If you’re willing to add Adsense to your website in the future, then, you should look for an AdSense ban. Just search for ”Adsense ban” on Google and you will find lots of tools to use for free.
The website history
I can’t imagine finding great domain names without the web archive. It’s a huge database of websites, videos, songs, and everything that you can find online. They store data since the last century and that’s what makes them a trusted source to use, by marketers and governmental investigators. But also, anyone else can access the archive, and find what the website looked like in the past.
You can browse these sites in the last years or whenever you want. Sometimes, you will find broken pages, but, make sure to modify the archive data, So, you can find better quality and read what the website was talking about.
To start an archive search, enter the domain name, and you will get circles that represent the snapshots. Click on any one of them, and you will be able to browse the website in the past. Read the details, and especially, the “about us” page.
The domain email investigation
My advice is to never skip this step if you really want to build a business using that domain. You should look professional, but, you can be surprised later when you find that an email related to your site’s domain is reported as a scam in the past.
Do you see it? It can destroy a business if you select the wrong way. The good news is that you can use the above step with the web archive to find any email used in the past as contact details. Search, as you can, and collect emails that you can find on their old contact page. Then, paste every email and add words like “scam”, “spam”, “fraud” and search.
Generally, Google can give you a good idea if it finds related pages. If you can’t find a result, that seems good, but, going further is a better choice. Use any tool like this scam search site and enter that email or name, and see if you get something.
The domain authority
The domain authority is not a necessary thing to verify, but, when it comes to old domains, they should have a medium authority, at least. The domain trust should be built during years, and if you find no trust at all, for domains that are aged 10 years or so, that means a red signal.
I recommend using Ahrefs as a domain authority checker, it’s easy to use, but you only have a few searches as a guest. Just add your domain and find what’s the result.
Please note that Google is not updating its PageRank status, and it will no longer work. So, the best alternative is the domain authority that gives a similar indication of trust.
Total backlinks from different domains
Backlinks can give a wrong idea, however, you can verify the good result by comparing the total number of backlinks by the referring domain, and the different IP addresses for those sites.
Hundreds of backlinks from hundreds of sites with hundreds of IP addresses means a good signal of trust. That means that these backlinks come from different sites that are hosted on different servers.
On the other side, if you find lots of links from the same domain, and from the same IP, then, stay away. That could be a network of sites that can hurt your site in the future. Just follow the guidelines of search engines and you will be fine.
Examples:
- Domain ABC has 1000 backlinks but from 3 sites: Bad.
- Domain EFG has 100 links from 88 different domains: Good
- Domain XYZ has 100 links from 90 different domains but from the same IP address (or even a few IPs): Bad
This way, you can find the trust of the domain, even, without wasting your time with lots of tools that can give wrong results. The third site in the above example is a website that has a network of sites and the owner just links to himself. That violates all the search engine guidelines and buying such a domain is a high risk.
I hope that you understand how to verify the trust, and the authority of any domain before using it. Expired domains can be a good way to build sites that rank well and faster with Google. But, if you pick the wrong one, you will destroy your site and lose your efforts, and hard-earned money.
Please focus on quality and not quantity, you can find domains with thousands of links. But, if you make a simple search or lookup, you will find that all their links come from low-quality directories or spam links.
So, think twice before purchasing a new domain, and try your best to verify its trust. At the same time, never use tools that calculate the site value or something like that. There is no such thing as called ”value calculator” for domains. They just make money by attracting newbies who don’t have any idea about the market.
