Comments on: Buying old domains for SEO (Experiment)

By: Web Design Kent

Web Design Kent — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 06:15:49 +0000

The main important thing to remember if you get a domain which is themed and has a PR – ideally with recent pages and an aged domain as we know, is NEVER change the registrar. You will lose all the benefits of the proceedure in SEO value. My SEO contact states that leaving well alone and setting up a 301 .htaccess file will pass everything to the site you want. Also, never go for more than 3 domains on 301 redirects.
I found a 16 year old site on DomainTools but it had pages over the years according to TWBM, now parked and no PR. 41 inbounds but these were from old directories, 2 DMOZ listings and 4 Yahoo directory………£59.
You really have to drill down and get lucky to find the ideal domain. Ideally, a website that is current and offer the owner $$$!

By: SEO Animal

SEO Animal — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:56:36 +0000

Good isolation test. At SMX 2009, all three SE reps said they have grown keen to this tactic, as it was being mis-used. So basically if the registration info changes… you are likely facing a reset. But testing the claim is always a worthy effort. You may be surprised.

By: Kevin Stelfox

Kevin Stelfox — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:50:33 +0000

Great article, I was not aware that changing the hosting, WHOIS, DNS and setting up a 301 all at the same time will “reset” the SEO value of the domain.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:18:06 +0000

Great article. We are starting a new biz (promoting affiliate poker products) and wondered whether to start from scratch…as you say experimentation would be the key.

By: David Carralon

David Carralon — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:22:48 +0000

good stuff, Richard, when i thought that everything had been said on the SEOmoz post + the one from Danny Sullivan in SEL, here’s another great post full illustrated with and interesting example. I am tempted to go and buy some of those expired domains myself and experiment. It is just the fear to invest my time on something unknown what keeps me away from it… but isnt that one of the best ways to learn? : )