Buying Expired Domains

There’s a stack of people out there buying up expired domains and selling them on, or using them to build sites related to their core business (which is sometimes buying expired domains).

I’ve noticed that there are some dos and don’ts associated with this:

1. If a domain is “dropped” by the previous owner it’s not as good as a domain that has been bought from someone who no longer wants it. Dropping can result in search engine rank changes.
2. If you plan to resell the domain don’t park it, get a proper hosting plan and put up something – even if it’s just a few pages running off a few rss feeds.
3. Thoroughly check the history of the domain – use archive.org to see if there have been any problems – the sudden disappearance of AdSense might indicate dodgy practice in the past.
Here’s a case that was brought to my attention by a Edwin, a user at DigitalPoint.

PlasmaWorld.net is a great domain name and checks out well. However a search came up with this consumer warning:

ABOUT PLASMAWORLD.NET (before placing and order you should know…)

This is all the more interesting for me because the previous company purported to be from Auckland, where I live.

Tom Nicholson, 164 Dominow Road, Auckland, New Zealand, 92074.

Interesting postal code though! And a good reason to only buy locally because then you’d pick up on the discrepancy.

If you’re interested in buying used domains check out DigitalPoint or Edwin’s blog