How To Use Expired Domains For 301 Redirect And Gain SEO Boost?

How To Use Expired Domains For 301 Redirect And Gain SEO Boost
How To Use Expired Domains For 301 Redirect And Gain SEO Boost?

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Using expired domains for 301 redirect SEO advantages goes long way. When I started doing SEO back in 2014 I found out that redirecting powerful domains to new to clients domains that needs to rank higher on Google works. Since that day at ClickDo we have been using the authority redirections to supercharge SEO and rank fast.

You have heard a lot about traditional SEO practices, I am sure.

SEO experts have told you about backlinks and domain juice and so forth. They have improved the technical SEO of your site and improved on-page SEO. So on and so forth.

I am here to talk about a brand new way to get an SEO boost. It is known as a 301 redirect.

Before I can explain how to use 301 redirect for your benefit you need to understand what it is in the first place.

What is a 301 redirect?

Think of it like moving houses. When you left behind your old apartment you made sure that any mail that was delivered there got forwarded to your new address.

The same happens with URLs. When you move your site from one URL to another there is a redirect. The search engine is told that instead of here www.oldsite.com has moved to a new address.

If a visitor types in www.oldsite.com they get redirected to www.newsite.com.

301 is an HTTP status code.

Other codes include 404 – Page Not Found, 500 – Server Error, and so on.

How to implement a 301 redirect varies depending on the CMS. You can do it from the server or use a plugin if you are using WordPress.

How does backlinking help?

A million-dollar question and the holy grail of SEO.

Before I do that, you must know what is a backlink.

Backlinks are links from other websites to your site. Usually, you get backlinks from by-lines (your name), or when someone has quoted content from your site.

Another significant source of backlinks is infographics.

Backlinks make your site appear more reliable to Google.

Google or any other search engine has no way of knowing how good or bad a site is.

They depend on backlinks. If a lot of people are quoting your site, the content must be good quality and dependable.

It takes years to earn backlinks.

Again, all backlinks are not the same. There is something known as the Domain Authority.

A backlink from Facebook is worth nearly nothing. You could have asked your niece to write a post about your business. Maybe you went to Quora and promoted your site.

Such backlinks have little value.

But a backlink from a major site such as the New York Times or Wikipedia has immense value.

expired domains 301 for seo boostExpired Domains—how do they work?

An expired domain has not been renewed.

There may be many reasons why an owner did not renew.

They may have lost interest, the owner may be deceased, the business might have closed, etc.

And here is the clincher—they may have thousands of backlinks!

You can buy expired domains for almost zero cost. All that you have to pay is the registration fee (same as you would for any site ).

Note that you are buying the URL and not the content of the old site.

How does that boost SEO?

When you buy a freshly de-registered site, Google has not yet had time to know that the site no longer functions.

After all, Google does not crawl the entire world wide web daily.

If in the meantime you buy the site and set up a redirect to your site, anyone clicking on old backlinks would find their way to your site.

But there is one small but a rather significant point.

The expired domain must be in the same industry.

If you own a dentist’s practice and the expired domain is about travel and leisure there is a mismatch.

This should not deter you.

You are not going to do this too often. Wait till a domain you like comes on to the expired domains market.

It’s like any second-hand purchase. No need to make a commitment on the first day.

Benefits of expired domains and 301

1.      Grow organic traffic

All those backlinks mean someone is going to click on them. When they do, a 301 means they would land on your site.

You have two options. One is to set up a landing page for such visitors. The other is to redirect them to the page on your site that closely approximates the original content he was looking for.

In any case, a new visitor means there is an opportunity for lead conversion.

2.      Link equity

Link juice or link equity is the good reputation that passes from one site to another. If Wikipedia links to yoursite.com then a part of Wikipedia’s reputation is reflected as well.

This is known as link juice.

Imagine being able to buy an expired domain in the same industry with a thousand valid backlinks. All of that link equity can be tapped by an SEO expert and would now work for you.

3.      Swift action

SEO takes a lot of time. But buying an expired domain and using it for a 301 redirect takes less than a week.

You spend a few dollars and set up a redirect and that is all there is to it. Quick, affordable, and effective. What more can you want?

What to consider before you buy an expired domain

There are thousands of expired domains available. Google and you would find several large broker sites that auction these.

But any of them won’t do.

What to look for? Let me explain in detail.

Was it a spam site?

Quite possible.

Spam sites are sites that pop up and seem to have no purpose. They sell products or carry huge banner advertisements.

Any site that is not a bona fide personal or business site could have been used for spamming.

To find if it was a spam site recover archived versions of the pages. Using Wayback Machine or alternatives is a good idea.

Spam sites have some characteristics:

  • Content that has too many keywords
  • Sites with obscene material
  • Sites that sell some type of financial scam
  • Sites that seem to be off in some way

Inspect the backlinks

Plug the site URL into Ahrefs and go over the backlinks.

Copy-paste the backlinks into browser tabs and find what those pages are about.

Is the hyperlinking done naturally or was it a part of a link farm (shady scheme to generate backlinks)?

The backlinks must be from solid and respectable sites and not unreliable ones.

Check if it appears in a Google search

You have to know if the site has been blacklisted by Google.

In that case, it would not show up in search results.

Use Google Rank Checker from Semrush. If the site is blacklisted it won’t rank at all.

Last words …

SEO is a long process. No one has the patience to see their site creep up a place every month.

That is why SEO strategy needs brainstorming and coming up with ideas that matter.

I have more than a decade’s experience in this domain. Not only do I have my own digital marketing agency based out of London, ClickDo, but also own and operate a hosting service SeekaHost.

From SEO to servers, I know everything that needs to be known.

That is why I highly recommend that you try out 301 redirects from expired domains.

I have seen it work and have seen my clients happy. I want the same for anyone who reads this blog.

Reach out and let’s make it happen.

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James Flarakos
Website designer, content writer and video editing/production.
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