How to Find Expired Domains [Step-By-Step]

How to Find Expired Domains

Are you interested in knowing how to find expired domains? Don’t worry. In this post, I’m going to tell you all I know so that you can find the best-expired domains and also know whether they deserve to be bought or not.

Also, in this post, I am going to explain to you the SEO tactics you would need to buy expired domains. Although you may be extremely clear about why you want the domain, it only sometimes harms to listen to other viable solutions.

Next, I will discuss how and where to find expiring or expired domains and what tools can aid you in your quest.

Also, in case you don’t have the means to pay for a specialized domain search engine, I will explain to you how you can search and identify expired domains in a manual but easy and economical approach.

For all this, let’s go to business!

See also: How to choose the best domain for your blog.  

How To Find Expired Domains

Before we go any further, the first step is to have a detailed understanding of what an expired domain is.

What Is An Expired Domain?

An expired domain is nothing more than a domain that has not been renewed (For whatever reason) by its owner, and by not paying for its renewal, he has allowed it to expire; hence, the domain has automatically become free and open to anybody that wants to purchase it.

Why do people let the domain expire?

Among the most typical reasons why someone lets a domain expire are:

  • Lack of attention on the part of the prior owner while renewing the domain.
  • Brands that no longer exist and hence their domain no longer makes sense to exist.
  • Lack of funding from the old domain owner.
  • Etc.

Stages Of A Domain Till Its Expiry

When a domain has not been renewed, it passes through numerous steps before it expires (so that it may be freely bought again).

Domain expiry grace period

In this period, the domain may still be renewed by its owner in a straightforward method. It takes roughly 35-45 days for a .com to be fully expired.

Domain expiry redemption period

In this period, the owner may still buy it at a greater cost before the domain is released for the general market, but the procedure is lengthy.

Domain expiry pending deletion

The domain is prohibited. The technique to retrieve it will be more technical. It has not yet been released to the market; other parties cannot yet buy it.

Domain expiry released-expiration

After the preceding stages, the domain will expire and can be bought or renewed by anybody. This is where the attention is on getting intriguing domains.

Important Of Expired Domain For SEO?

If you operate in the field of online positioning, I am confident that you already know that expired domains in SEO are extremely important for the ranking of a website.

Below, I will give you more reasons why you should consider utilizing an expired domain:

In truth, the acquisition of expired SEO domains is utilized to:

  • Create new web pages under that domain that already have excellent backlinks in its link profile.
  • Redirect all the hyperlinks that refer to the expired domain to another and, therefore, receive a solid handful of links to your web project with a low expenditure.
  • Create automated web pages for Amazon affiliates, Adsense, etc.
  • Etc.

It is also worth mentioning that when a domain dies, it still preserves all of its SEO history from when it was still live.

This is the key factor that prompts many Google positioning specialists to wish to purchase an expired domain.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Acquiring An Expired Domain

Like other items, they have their good part and those that are not so good. That is why I have assembled the pros and cons of expired domains so you can keep them in mind while acquiring one:

Advantages of expiring domains

Among the key benefits of utilizing expired domains are:

  • Get domains with a large number of external do-follow links.
  • Obtain domains of a specific age on the Internet that Google loves so much.
  • Avoid the sandbox effect that every new domain experiences on the Internet.
  • Speed up the keyword ranking of a new project created on an expired domain.

Disadvantages of expired domains

Among the biggest downsides of utilizing expired domains are:

  • You might earn a big penalty if Google finds you utilizing these sorts of methods.
  • You may squander your money and your time if you do not choose a decent or expired domain by developing a web page on that domain that Google will already prohibit due to inappropriate usage in the past.
  • Getting a decent expired or expired domain is more complicated every day as more and more individuals are seeking it.
  • Redirects from expired domains to other domains to transfer their authority, and links operate progressively badly.

How To Know When A Domain Expires

To know when a domain expires, the quickest approach is to make use of  WhoIs.com.

WhoIs is a public database on the Internet that will display the personal data (less and less as it is more limited every day owing to data protection) of the domain owner as well as other data such as the date the domain was acquired. And when it expires.

Therefore, if you want to know when a domain expires, go to the domain’s WhoIs. to find out when the domain expires.

How To Find Expiring Or Expired Domains [Step-By-Step]

Below, I explain the method that I take to find expiring or expired domains and consider acquiring them.

You should note that in this field, “Every teacher has his booklet,” there are hundreds of approaches on the Internet to find expired or expired domains. It’s all just as legitimate as mine.

However, here is mine:

Get expired domains using Ahrefs.

My first step when finding an expired domain is to examine famous news sites utilizing the Ahrefs SEO tool.

Once each news site has been examined, I check for those broken links that have produced an error number inside the web page.

To achieve this, I click on the Broken Links Area of Ahrefs and export them to a spreadsheet.

Investigate the origin of the error.

Later, I evaluate all those sites that have provided an error, and I run them via the Screaming Frog tool to see what sort of error they give:

If the problem it sends me comes from DNS, that is, the message “DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN” occurs, it will very probably signify that the domain will have expired.

Check domain availability

Once it is evident that the domain has expired, it will be time to acquire the availability of the domain. To achieve this, I will go to its Who. Is and verify whether the domain is expired and free.

Check domain authority

If the domain is free, I can purchase it, and the next thing I do is examine its domain authority.

To accomplish this, I once again go to Ahrefs to examine its link profile and if it has authoritative links and not bad quality ones (foreign websites, porn, etc.) I will be intrigued.

Examine the organic traffic.

If the website has been “dead” for more than 3-6 months, no matter how excellent a link profile it has, it will not interest me.

Therefore, I prefer websites that have merely expired reasonably recently or that even continue to contain ranking keywords, even if they are few.

For this, the Ahrefs tool will be crucial.

Check the internet history.

It is crucial to know whether the domain has been used for reasons of doubtful legality and to accomplish this, I always utilize the archive.org tool before acquiring an expired domain to discover what sort of web page has been previously put up on that domain.

If its usefulness has been “rare” or “uncommon,” I instantly rule out acquiring the domain.

P.S. At this point, I would advise you that it would also be useful to know whether the website that you are going to build on that domain is relevant to the activity that it carried out earlier. If the answer to this question is YES, then it’s the appropriate expired domain for you.

Register the domain

If the selected domain has passed the preceding procedures with flying colors, it will be time to register your new expired domain on the Internet.

Congratulations!

Where To Buy Expiring Or Expired Domains

If you want to know where to buy expired or expired domains, below I give you the top platforms for acquiring expired or expired domains that will help you avoid stress and, in return, save you a lot of time:

Domain Hunter Gatherer

Domain Hunter Gatherer is a popular tool for finding and buying expired domains, with a database of over 10 million expired domains. I love using this tool for its dependability and how simple it is to identify domains for a given subject.

It incorporates up to 8 markets in the same application, making it excellent for saving time looking for domains. You can search for domains not only by subject but also by keyword.

Domain Hunter Gatherer also looks for expired domains if you provide it a domain or webpage, scanning for links to expired domains.

Domcop

Like Domain Hunter Gatherer, with Domcop, you can not only access unlimited lists of expired domains, but you can also search for them manually.

The primary difference with Domain Hunter Gatherer is that this program integrates extra indications to determine the quality of the domain, such as Semrush or Alexarank.

 In addition, you may view in separate lists the domains that are about to expire, those that have expired, and those that have been erased.

As bad aspects, with Domcop, you will not interact with as many markets as with Domain Hunter Gatherer, and also, the price is higher.

Flippa

Flippa is one of the most obvious and easiest methods to identify expired domains. Its U.I. is clean and easy, and looking for expired domains is considerably simpler owing to the criteria it includes.

In order to identify your favorite domains, in Flippa, you can utilize data such as the kind of website that existed on the domain (blog, e-commerce, SAAS product, etc.), the topic (cars, sports, etc.), expected traffic, price, and many more.

On Flippa, you can also submit a bid and acquire the domain.

RegisterCompass

This is a website where you can find site names that have expired or are set to expire. In order to select and evaluate the websites, you can utilize data such as AlexaRank, pages indexed in Google or Bing, amount of links, and many more.

The program also gives the ability to access multiple versions of the information throughout time. This way, you can ensure that the content on the website matches what you are searching for.

Finally, I note the alert system it provides to remind you at all times of new additions to the index of expired domains.

ExpiredDomains

This is perhaps the marketplace that I enjoy the best because of the factors it allows us to look for domains and its huge database.

Initially, ExpiredDomains gathers together domains that exist in various markets, such as Sedo, GoDaddy, Dynadot, etc. This is its significant benefit, being able to visit the service that sells the name in just one click.

If you don’t have a budget, start with this program that allows you to accomplish a few things for free.

Silk

Silk is another reputable marketplace where you can browse for expired domains and, submit a bid and buy.

 The difference with prior markets is that the data that can be utilized to search is quite restricted. Whether you have found an expired domain, check whether it is accessible here.

Things To Consider While Acquiring Expired Domains

Now for the final section of this post. Let’s check the things we have in mind when we have found our expired domain and want to purchase it.

Never acquire an expired domain simply because it looks attractive. Not all expired domains are the same.

Before acquiring expired domains, conduct some research on them.

Here are things to keep in mind while acquiring expired domains:

Domain age

One of the key reasons to acquire an expired domain is the authority it holds as an existing site. You don’t want to buy a domain that expires after only one year.

Backlink quality

Another important incentive to look at when acquiring an expired domain is the value it has owing to other sites linking to it. Use a link checker to verify the quality of backlinks.

If you observe that all of their backlinks appear spammy and are poor quality, avoid that site.

Site quality

Use the Wayback Machine to view what the website was like. Again, you don’t want to acquire a site that was utilized for spam reasons.

Check Moz Rankings

Moz provides two measures to assess the quality of a site: Domain Authority and Page Authority. These are based on a site’s backlinks and history. Make sure the domain doesn’t have a low P.A. and DA score or a high spam score.   

Traffic

Check monthly traffic. Don’t purchase it if just a handful of people visit it.

To receive excellent referrals, traffic counts a lot. If you intend to keep it available for guest work in the future, then it’s much more crucial. If you have a good amount of visitors each month, you will notice more requests for the guest article.

Check Google Punishment

Make sure the domain is not punished on Google, in which case it will have no use to you. You may accomplish this by searching Google for “Google ban check” and accessing any of the tools you will see.

Conclusion  

From my point of view as an SEO consultant, finding and purchasing expired or expired or whatever you want to name domains is still important when building up initiatives on the Internet.

It is true that redirects operate worse every day and that it is increasingly difficult to identify the appropriate expired domain every day.

However, new domains expire every day on the Internet, and there will always be a possibility to buy a quality recently expired one.

In any event, what I highly suggest is that you examine an expired domain properly before acquiring it so that you do not lose money, which is what normally occurs in this sort of procedure.

Until next time!

FAQ

Can an expired domain be recovered?

An expired domain can be retrieved; this procedure must be carried out immediately in your control panel before another user can register it.

Can you find out whether a domain was used previously?

Yes, you can surely find out if a domain was used previously by utilizing these 2 fully free tools:

  • Archive.org: Shows the history of the domain and enables you to know the history of its activities.
  • Open Link Profiler: This allows you to discover the profile of incoming connections.

Where can you acquire expiring domains?

Through the use of tools such as:

  • RankingBull.com
  • NameCheap.com
  • DomainCoasters.com
  • Domcop.com
  • Namejet.com
  • StuckDomains.com
  • DomainPeel.com