A 101 Guide to Expired Domain Investing
One man's trash is another man's treasure. In the case of expired domain names, other registrants losing their domain names can be a major win for you.
Whether you're a business owner or just someone looking to expand their portfolio and collect more domain names, your options are almost endless with domain investing.
Virtual properties are a reliable and low-risk way to bring in additional income.
For the uninitiated, domain names are the core of a website's online identity.
While most people who manage these sites refer to themselves as "domain owners," they are actually only leasing the domain name to build their website around it.
The actual owner, or registrar, is a host site such as NameJet, NameCheap, or GoDaddy.
The leasing period for a domain varies by the registrar, but in most cases, the expiration date is one year after purchase.
Every day, millions of domains pass their expiration date and re-enter the public market as expired domains after a grace period.
When this happens, an expired domain name goes up on the market again. In fact you can get expired domains from Dynadot aftermarket site which packs a lot of high quality domains.
Purchasing some of these recently expired domains can be a big deal for internet marketing businesses, authority websites, or just about anyone hoping to increase search volume on their main landing page.
It's also a big deal for investors, or "domainers," who want to bring their virtual properties to another level.
What Do Domain Investors Do?
The demand for expired domains is what drives the domainer to do what they do. There are multiple ways to make money buying expired domain names.
In many ways, domain names have the same status as real estate in that you can sell, rent, and build on them.
Ultimately, they gain value through their location in a (virtual) space.
For a business thinking of investing in a supply of domain names, the goal is collecting the highest-traffic domains at the lowest possible price and reselling them when demand is higher.
You want to catch a domain right after it expires and then advertise it to potential buyers.
With a valuable domain name, you can:
- sell at a set price
- put your domain up at a public or private auction
- contact potential owners directly
The Expired Domain Market
Expired domains typically have a 3-4 day window between their "final expiration"- the end of the registrar's grace period - and the time when registrars can lease it to the public again.
During this time, the old owner can no longer renew their website, so the risk of losing out despite all your research is much lower.
Hundreds of thousands of domains expire every day, while even more sit around waiting for the right people to claim them.
While this means you have plenty of expired domains to choose from, only a few have the qualities you need to make a substantial profit - and the demand for these domain names is high.
What Makes a Great Domain Name?
Investing is often about predicting what will be popular.
Luckily, with domain name sales, you have the advantage of getting a great deal on names that already have high demand.
All you need to know is which of those names are worth the most money.
A domain name should be short
In fact, there's almost no minimum recommendation for one.
One-word domain names are some of the most highly sought-after domains globally since they give customers the most precise possible impression of what a website does.
If you can get stocks.com, books.com, art.com, or domain names like them, you absolutely should.
A domain name should include multiple extensions
In effect, this means that an attentive domainer should be looking for the same domain with numerous TLDs.
An example of this might be freemarketing.com, freemarketing.biz, and freemarketing.co.uk, among other possibilities.
A domain name should use SEO keywords
It never hurts to have an extensive vocabulary.
Keywords help Google and other search engines recognize your website and, as such, raise its listing organically.
A higher Google listing, of course, means increased traffic.
A domain name should be memorable
Like advertising, the best domains stick around in a visitor's head after they hear it.
A unique, catchy domain is one of the best ways to attract attention. At the same time, though, you should avoid domains that are too "out there" or difficult to brand.
A domain name should have high search traffic
The history, metrics, and other things behind your potential name are easy to find with the right domain tools, like SpamZilla.
Some domain registration services (addressed below) have extensive information about how many visitors click on your site in a month and how likely that trend is to continue.
A domain name should have a high volume of backlinks
A backlink is a hyperlink to your domain from other websites.
The more backlinks you have from a variety of different sources, the more clicks you receive.
Backlinks are another metric that registration services can track and record.
Lastly, avoid domains that:
- have a poor Google search engine ranking
- were dropped due to trademark or other legal disputes
- have unattractive qualities for visitors, such as hyphens
The Best Way to Buy Expired Domains
Looking for domains to resell is the hardest part of an investor's job.
Luckily, SpamZilla can be your secret weapon with our advanced search filters and extensive SEO tool list.
We'll tell you everything you need to know about every domain name you request, saving you time and expense.
Your registration fee gives your business account access to millions of expired domain names, as well as information such as visits over time, expiration dates, upcoming sales, email and contact information, and more.
How Do I Sell a Domain?
Congratulations! You've successfully purchased a slew of expired domains!
Now, how do you turn those acquisitions into money?
You sell your domains back to people, companies, and other entities who want them.
In the world of domain investing, anything outside of a 40-50% profit area may not be worth it.
Considering the expense you took to acquire these domain names - not to mention the cost to lease them from their registrars and all the money that goes into setting up a sale - you'll want to make sure you find interested buyers as quickly as possible.
How do you do that?
Know what your domain is worth
If you overprice a domain name, don't be surprised when no one bites.
Domains with the qualities listed above will naturally make for better deals than ones that lack them.
In addition, common TLDs like .com tend to carry a higher price on their own.
Do some research to determine standard pricing for the sort of domains you've acquired.
Pick the right platform to host you
While your company has likely bought from several different registrars, investors will want to transfer hosting for all of their domains to a single, easy-to-manage platform.
We recommend either GoDaddy or NameCheap because of how easy it is to switch lots of domains to or from those platforms.
Ensure that your WHOIS info is public
A WHOIS database lists contact information and other data for the business or individual who owns a particular domain.
Someone may want to contact you directly to arrange a private sale.
Make it easy for others to find you!
Let your buyers see what you have
Many domainers list a URL on the seller's site and call it a day.
If you want to take a more proactive approach, listing your assets is never a bad idea. How many websites backlink to your domain?
Do companies advertise there regularly?
Put it up for auction
Domain auctions, either set up independently or run through an intermediary like GoDaddy Auctions, are an excellent way to sell.
Competition between buyers drives up the auction price and allows you to make a significant return on investment.
Public sales, in particular, can lead to higher profit, but you shouldn't rule out a private auction between highly motivated buyers.
Reach out to interested buyers
In addition to preparing an auction, domain investors should let would-be domain owners know that their desired domain name is available.
Put up FOR SALE banners on your domains and research the companies that want the expired domain name that you're offering.
Someone is always interested in receiving an email from you, the domain investor with desirable expired domains that meet their needs.
Looking for the Perfect Domain Name?
At SpamZilla, our services make domain investing fast, easy, and risk-free.
Our domain names collection reaches into the millions, and we add more than 350,000 newly expired domains every day.
Best of all, our customizable domain search tools give serious domain buyers everything you need to become a virtual real estate tycoon. Start hunting for your next investment at SpamZilla.io.
