For this post, I’m going to introduce you to two ways that I’ve been finding expired domains in 2015. I’m not going to go into too much detail about why you might want to find them though. There’s a lot of documentation online about that already and not much has changed since they were written.
I’ll give you a brief overview, then jump straight into showing you how to find them.
Later on this year, there will likely be another post with more details about some of the uses.
Why Expired Domains?
Essentially there are three reasons people use expired domains.
1.) To build a PBN.
2.) To build a money site.
3.) To redirect to their money site.
Whichever use we talk about, they all boil down to one thing; increasing your search engine rankings.
Imagine if one day I let the domain Humanproofdesigns.com expire. Not going to happen any time soon, but let’s say I did. All of those links I’ve built up over the years would still be pointing to the site.
Now if you were to go ahead and register the domain for yourself, and build a new site on the domain, all of those links would still be pointing to the site, which would mean you’d start off with a domain with great metrics.
If you’re planning to manufacture authority for your site, an expired domain is a great way to do it.
Where To Find Expired Domains In 2015
Finding them is perhaps the most complicated part of it all. People cay say “Use X metrics” or “Make sure it is spam free”, but unless you can actually find them in the first place, you’re not going to get very far.
I’ve had luck with 2 different places over the past year or two, and we’ll take a look at them now, starting with my recommended option.
Option 1: PBNLab
I helped beta-test PBNLab and it’s been great to watch it grow over the past months. What you have here is a suite (or ‘lab’) for crawling expired domains.
Want to find domains in any niche? Enter in your keyword, and let the crawl do its own thing.
I’ve found tens of thousands of expired domains in my time using it, and while some of them have been worthless (not every domain that expires has value), a lot of them have been excellent.
The majority of domains for my own PBN have come from here (and the rest from option 2, below), and I’ve learned a lot in the process.
The way it’s set up makes it pretty easy to check the previous site content (important stuff) and check MajesticSEO and Moz data to analyze whether or not the site has value.
If you’re thinking that PBNLab’s pricing is high, then you need to consider what it’s aimed at. For what it does, it’s actually cheaper (and in many ways better) than its competition, and large SEO agencies will get great value from it. However, for the smaller entrepreneurs like many of you reading this, the 7-day plan is perfect. You can easily get the domains you need in this time, and come back later when you want more.
It’s pretty addictive.
On top of that, you have to consider the fact that PBNLab pays Moz and MajesticSEO to get the domain metrics for you, which means that you’re not only saving money on them, but you’re also saving a lot of time.
Another important factor is that PBNLab has some excellent training as well, which is going to be important for all of you first-timers. Everybody teaches these things slightly differently, but you need to get a solid foundation before you dive in.
Long story short: PBNLab is my top recommendation and I know over the next few months it’s only going to get better.
Option 2: Hammerhead Domains
HammerHeadDomains works slightly differently from PBNLab, which has its plusses and minuses. Rather than let you crawl domains yourself, the Hammerhead team are constantly crawling domains, and provide a list of domains for you every day. You can start off with a free list of about 10 domains, and as a paying member, get access to higher quality domains in the DA 21+ list.
As you don’t get to choose what the niche is that the domains are in, it can be hit and miss, but I’ve actually found a surprising number of domains this way. The more niches you are involved in, the better Hammerhead Domains will work for you, but even if you are only in one niche, it’s worth checking out. Even the free level gets updated daily, so that’s a lot of domains going your way.
Everyday, you get access to the following:
– 10 free domains (DA 15-20)
– 75 pro domains (DA 15-20 and DA 21+)
Sometimes the 21+ section has domains in the high 30s.
Again, like PBNLab, Hammerhead Domains also shows you the Moz and Majestic stats at a glance, which makes it very convenient to use.
The one downside might be that because everyone sees the same list, you have a lot of competition to get there first. However, in my experience not everybody is after the same niches, and if you check it as soon as the list is updated, you have plenty of time to get your domains registered.
I’ve never lost out anyway.
Josh has also recently opened up the option for people to buy a niche relevant domain list. This means that all the domains they archive that don’t get picked up are sorted into categories.
If you want, you can pay to access that list. This is a pretty good way of getting instant access to a list of niche relevant expired domains, although there’s no guarantee how many of them will be good enough for you.
Like PBNLab, there is also some good training on-site and this guide to spam checking is well worth reading.
Conclusion
Both PBNLab and Hammerheaddomains have their merits. I like how HHD lets you instantly browse a list of domains, and I like how PBNLab gives you control over your search. I use both regularly, so I don’t believe that one is necessarily better than the other.
I recommend PBNLab first simply because of the sheer volume of expired domains you can find very quickly. I did one crawl last week that found over 10,000 expired domains in one go. Yep.
If you’re interested to find expired domains, these two places will not do you wrong. If you’re unsure about using domains themselves, how and why, then stay tuned for my next article on the topic, or send me an email.
