Buying Aged or Expired Domain Names for 301 Redirects

301 Redirect Expired or Live Domains

Whats Better? Buying Aged & Live or Aged & Expired Domain Names for 301 Redirects for passing Page Authority

There has been a lot of talk about buying expired domain names for passing page authority but no one is talking about buying real, aged, live websites… which works MUCH BETTER.

301 redirects are an unusual and unexpected way to gain traffic to your website. This strategy shouldn’t be used indiscriminately, but when it is used properly it is a great way to boost your website by taking advantage of all the SEO work that other website owners have done before. This strategy should be used inline with your content marketing, inbound marketing and link-building efforts. 

What is a 301 redirect?

A 301 redirect is a redirect from an expired domain that carries over Page Authority and Domain Authority or PA and DA. When readers go to the the expired domain, they are instead redirected to your website. Visitors can land on expired domain names through links on other websites or from direct traffic.

When should you NOT use a 301 redirect?

  • When the website is not relevant to your niche
  • When the website has been used for spammy purposes (Private Blog Network)
  • When the website has Google penalties for infractions such as spammy, low quality backlinks.

When SHOULD you use a 301 redirect?

  • When the website has high quality Backlinks
  • When the website has relevant Backlinks
  • When the website has high quality Content
  • When the website has not changed WhoIS information hands

If the expired domain has high quality, white hat SEO and is related to your niche, this is when it is best to point a website over to your domain name. Many businesses get bought and sold and domain names do come with those business sales. When you do a 301 redirect with these domains, you will be soaking up about 99% of their Page Authority and Domain Authority. 

Buying Expired Domain Names for 301’s

Where to Buy Expired Domain Names?

  • Freshdrop.com (Expired, Pending Deletion Domains)
  • Domcop.com (Expired, Pending Deletion Domains)

Buying Aged, Live, Real Businesses for 301’s

Where to Buy Aged, Live Domain Names?

  • Flippa.com (Live, Aged Domains)
  • EmpireFlippers.com (Live, Aged Domains)
  • Website Broker (Live, Aged Domains)
  • Sedo.com (Live, Aged Domains)

Related Content

With any expired domain that has decent enough SEO to make it worth acquiring, there’s one very important thing to consider: Google already knows what that website is about. So if the content is completely unrelated to your topic, Google will just get confused.

You’re already working hard on your website’s SEO. You’ve put a lot of effort into getting Google to realize that your website is about herbal health remedies, for example. So if you acquire another website that’s about cute kitten videos, you are sending Google a mixed message. Is your website about herbal health remedies or about cute kitten videos? And when Google is confused, your website gets pushed lower in the ranking.

Same Audience

Boosting traffic through a 301 redirect isn’t just about getting clicks and hits. It’s also about getting a high quality audience – specifically, an audience who wants to be on your website.

If people went to the website you acquired expecting to find cute kitten videos and instead find a website about herbal health remedies, they aren’t going to buy anything from you. They’re not even going to stick around long enough to read your articles.

They will click away in less than a second, and Google is going to penalize you for having super short visit lengths. You want to increase your engaged audience and boost your sales, not just get more IP addresses logged on your stats.

High Quality Links

When you acquire a website via a 301 redirect, you’re getting all their links, link text, and contextual keywords. Branded link text is good, as are naked links.

Identical link text (identical to the keywords, that is) are not so good, because they can be penalized by Google. Check Majestic SEO to identify the link’s Topical Trust Flow and to see that the links are high quality.

The Topical Trust Flow should be no less than 15 for any domain you acquire and 301 redirect from.

No Spam

If the website you are looking to acquire has been used for spam in the past, it already carries Google penalties with it. You don’t want to inherit those.

You’re working hard at your SEO, and you don’t want to be penalized because of the black hat methods someone else used to get results without really putting the work into their own content.

Indexed in Google

Needless to say, this strategy is going to be worthless if the website you are acquiring isn’t already indexed in Google.

Don’t waste your time or money redirecting from a website that doesn’t have the SEO clout to give you the results you want. This is why it is so important to purchase domain names that are live and aged instead of expired and aged. Im sure the search engines will see a live domain name being forwarded as more legit than an expired domain from FreshDrop.com or Domcop.com.

Take Care of Your Content

No matter how much traffic you drive to your website, it’s not going to do any good if you don’t have great content of your own to catch and hold your visitors and turn them into customers. 301 redirecting is a tool you can use to boost your SEO strategy, but it is always going to be auxiliary to your main SEO strategy, which must center on content above all else. Also, for an awesome 301 redirect tool that is integrated into a CMS, take a look at our recent Adobe Business Catalyst CMS Review. They have the 301 redirect integrated into their platform which makes for a simple transfer of websites when dealing with URL transitions. 

If you are looking for more ways to boost your SEO rankings and get your site the high quality traffic it deserves, give Front Street Media a call today and make your SEO goals a reality!