Tech and Trends:- Finding expired domains is a little like treasure hunting. There are gems to be found – but you have to watch out for traps as well. These traps include domains with artificially inflated PR numbers, a poor or deleted backlink portfolio, frequent or recent “drops” in domain registration and more.
So before you purchase a domain you need to carefully evaluate it to make sure that the PR it shows should stay after you purchase it. In most cases, after doing your due diligence, the PR will be the same.
However, in my experience, about 10-20% of the domains will suffer a drop in PR either immediately after purchase or during the next official PR update. This is a risk you need to be aware of, although by doing your due diligence you may be able to lower this percentage quite considerably. In a few cases the PR will also go up a notch or two as well!
For those new to domain purchases, I suggest you start out conservatively by picking up one or two PR 2 domains. These can easily be purchased for under $20, so if you make a mistake your losses won’t be too bad and you will also learn more about whether this is a project you truly want to undertake.
In fact, you can easily build an effective network only relying on PR 1- 3 domains. If you used BuildMyRank, then you should already know that in their network these were the most common PR domains they used as well.
Take a look at the screen shot from my BMR account above (before they closed). You will see a sample of the page rank of the blogs that I posted to while using their service. By and large, the network consisted of PR1-3 blogs. There were a few higher (and lower) PR blogs in the network, but 86% of the postings were to PR 1-3 blogs (712 out of 826 postings shown above).
Where To Find Expired Domains: Popular Sources & Services
There are two main ways to find domains – either through manually checking domain registrars that offer expired domains for sale (such as GoDaddy auctions), or through using a service like DropDay, RegisterCompass or FreshDrop. These services compile the data across multiple domain registrars so that you can easily see what is available. They will generally allow you to quickly sort domains by PR, age, the number of links and more, saving you literally hours of time when compared to checking all these factors manually. (www.caprinow.edu)
Regardless of whether you do this manually or through a service, you will need an account with the domain registrar you purchase the expired domain through (for example, if you purchase an expired domain through GoDaddy’s auctions, you will need an account with GoDaddy that they can transfer the domain once the transaction has completed).
Of the services I am acquainted with, I have personally used DropDay the most since it is the cheapest (around $19 a month). However, RegisterCompass may actually be a bit more reliable in terms of service for just a little more ($37/month), while Fresh Drop is a bit more comprehensive in terms of their search features and you being able to find the best deals with them – but it’s also a lot more expensive at $99/month.
There are also services like SnapNames and NameJet that allow you to prebid on domains about to expire. But the minimum bid for these services is high (often around $60) – which is much more than what I would want to pay for a PR2 or PR3 blog. However, if you are looking for PR4’s or higher, you may want to consider these services as well.
Finally, for those who are looking to spend as little money as possible, you can also go directly to the domain registrar and sort through the auctions manually. This can be a bit time consuming, but by looking at auctions which already have bids on them and then running your due diligence checks, you can still find some good deals.
