Creating a new website can be challenging, particularly if it is a brand-new one. You need to pick the best platform on which to construct, design the website, build the website, write the copy, produce the imagery, develop an SEO strategy, and do a lot more.
But you must first obtain a domain name before you can start.
The domain name, also referred to as a URL, is the address of your website. Anything that comes following the "www." up to and including the suffix or extension at the end, which may be .com, .co.uk, or nearly anything else you choose.
In order to make Internet protocols, or IP addresses, more approachable to humans, domain names were developed. Each computer connected to the internet is given an IP address. They function much like street addresses and let you access various websites.
We use domains because it's far simpler to remember a website by its domain name rather than a string of digits. We can therefore much more easily recall something like mybesttrip.in then 97.24.126.261. A domain name, which is connected to an IP address, is essentially a more friendly address for your website.
An expired domain name is one that was previously registered but hasn't been renewed (sometimes referred to as aged domains). Simply put, because the previous owner hasn't paid to use the domain further, it is now open to new registration. Many things might cause a domain to expire, including a company changing its name, closing, or just no longer using it.
Although the majority of domain names renew automatically, occasionally people neglect to do so! The person who paid £2 for Google.com.ar In 2021, Google's Argentina domain name experienced just this.
The domain registrar made a mistake, therefore Google's very own google.com.ar was up for grabs! Thus, a designer paid merely £2 for Google's Argentina domain!
Naturally, Google finally got it back, but not before the google.com.ar search engine was offline for a few hours and the person who bought it gained some notoriety around the world!
So why would you want to purchase a domain name that has already expired? Why not just purchase a completely unregistered domain name?
The quick response is SEO (search engine optimisation). Most searchers never scroll past the first page of results while looking for a website.
A website that is published online is very unlikely to rank in the top 10 results on its own without any SEO. SEO, in its simplest form, is the art of getting your website to show up higher in search results for terms related to the content of your website.
From SEO, where you optimise your website to be as user- and crawler-friendly as possible, through digital PR and outreach, where you build backlinks to your website.
Backlinks are references to your website on other websites. Getting backlinks from websites that are more well-connected to other websites than you is what Google refers to as a "recommendation."
Your own backlink profile becomes more potent the more powerful the links pointing to your website are. Due to Google's perception of these websites as being more reliable, websites with strong backlink profiles typically perform higher in search results.
For this reason, purchasing an expired domain that already has a solid backlink profile could give your website a leg up.
A website is considered to be more "trusted" the longer it has been up. This is another another metric that may have an impact on a website's ranking.
A fresher website with a stronger backlink profile and better SEO might nevertheless outrank an older website even if Google considers older websites to be more trustworthy.
It takes a long time to establish backlinks and perform SEO. Rarely do websites suddenly start to rank well. SEO is a very long-term strategy that might take months or even years. Fresh material must be uploaded frequently, backlinks must be established, and so on.
An expired domain appears alluring since, if it already has a solid backlink profile, this can save a tonne of effort and offer your new website a head start.
Cost-wise, expired domains are typically far more expensive than newly registered ones. The worth of domain names for start-up companies has been recognised by domain name registrars, who now charge appropriately.
Even some "luxury" domain names only cost a few hundred pounds. You may purchase a brand-new domain name for a few pounds. Expire domain names can cost tens of thousands of pounds, depending on how old they are, how much traffic they have had, and their backlink profiles.
We conducted a fast search and discovered expired domain names with prices ranging from £1,000 to almost £10,000. Of course, this varies greatly, but the fact remains that expired names are expensive.
Purchasing an expired domain name can be just what you need to increase the visibility of your website. Purchasing an expired domain name with a good backlink profile could propel your website to the top of the SERPs because building backlinks can be challenging and time-consuming.
The majority of previously registered and utilised domain names have expired. Hence, compared to a brand-new domain you purchase today, the majority of expired domains will be far older.
Each domain has a different age range, but as age is a benefit for SEO, this information might be useful.
Most expired domains will have a backlink profile unless the former owner of the domain went through every backlink to their website and asked the owner of the website linked to them to stop.
Each website will have a very different backlink profile, but if you do your research, you can find a domain with a lot of powerful links pointing at it.
There are thousands of previously registered domains up for sale, thus expired domain names are not rare.
Additionally, a sizeable number of websites are dedicated to selling solely expired names. We won't say which ones because you might want to think about the drawbacks first.
It makes sense to purchase a domain name that has expired, right? But it's crucial to think about the downsides of purchasing an expired domain name before you invest money on a secondhand website address.
As long as it hasn't previously been registered, practically anything can be purchased when purchasing a new domain name. It is different to purchase an expired domain name because you are constrained by what is already available. Choosing a domain name that fits your business can be challenging, and if your company already has a name, having it hosted on a domain with a completely different name might confuse your users.
You could always change the name of your company, but then clients might mistake it for the one that previously owned the domain. It might be expensive to buy expired domains. As we've already indicated, compared to buying new, expiring domains can fetch quite high prices.Smart domain registrars charge appropriately for expiring domains.
There may occasionally be deals to be acquired from expired domain resellers, but you should be aware that you might be competing with someone who wants the domain more than you do.
A website with 10 backlinks from reputable, trustworthy websites is preferable to one with 10,000 backlinks from weaker or even spammy websites. Hence, even if a domain name that has expired could have a backlink profile, it might not necessarily be favourable.
It's always advisable to double check where the links are coming from, however the majority of sites who sell expired domains will offer you an idea of the domain's strength, typically with Moz's DA (domain authority) score or Ahrefs DR (domain rating score).
