Aged Domains – White Hat or Grey Hat?
posted: March 8th, 2010
After speaking at Ed Dale’s Thirty Day Challenge Coming Home Conference in Melbourne last month and prior to the launch of Domain Face I’ve had an influx of people asking me whether buying aged domain names for SEO value is seen by Google as white hat or grey hat, so I’m going to use this post to explore the subject.
I’ll use the term ‘aged’ throughout, which means the domain name is pre-owned and isn’t brand new/unregistered.
I buy aged domain names through various different avenues:
- Contacting owners direct
- Auctions – sold by owner
- Auctions – Pre-release sold by registrar before they delete
- Forums
- Brokers
So why do I buy aged domains?
Because I’m frustrated at the increasingly difficult task of sourcing brand new domains with the keywords or branding I’m looking for and also because I may need other SEO factors to beat my competition within a particular niche.
If I can find an older domain name, with a higher Google page rank, more quality back links and pages indexed than my competitors then I’m starting on a very good foot and it saves me slogging my guts out doing all the initial ground work needed to compete with them.
I will probably pay a small premium for this but it far beats the time, effort and money to do it from scratch! And it’s much cheaper than buying a full-blown website!
If I were to do an analogy I would compare domain names to plots of land:
- Unregistered/brand new domain names are bare, baron plots of land with NO Infrastructure
- Aged domain names with good SEO value are like a fertile plots of land with a Good Infrastructure ready to roll: foundations laid, water mains, electricity, gas, access roads, telephone/broadband lines etc
If you were building a property fast and had the choice of building on a plot of land with or without infrastructure, which would you choose?
So because I have found an easier way of doing things does it make it tainted in any way?
Not to me!
Why would renovating an old domain name (or website for that matter) be grey hat? Why would giving them a new lease of life rather than letting them wither away and die be wrong?
If it was seen as unethical then every website sale going forward would be included, which would mean Google would need to penalise a domain/website every time a domain was transferred or contact details were changed.
Can you imagine being the proud new owner of Business.com (reportedly sold for circa $340m) only to find as soon as the transaction was made and domain transferred to you, Google delists it?
Google has all the necessary measures in place to see whether a website should rank for a particular keyword or phrase so as long as you follow the usual ethical techniques once you buy the domain then the Google Gods should be ok with it.
Rule of thumb – Check the previous content of an aged domain on Archive.org and replace it with content that is equal or BETTER than was on previously in order to offer a good visitor experience. Do this as soon as possible.
As long as your intentions are good then when you purchase an aged domain name, you are buying it complete with the good will from the previous owner which along with many other possible values includes SEO value and if you keep the website in the spirit of it’s previously owner then Google ‘should’ be ok with it.
Always remember to carry out the usual due diligence when buying aged domains.
Happy domaining….
Dennis
09.03.10
Great information.
Leads me to a few questions though.
What steps do you take to make sure the domain isn’t already banned from Google for “unethical” use in their eyes? Would this fall into “usual due diligence” as stated? If so, what due diligence would a newcomer (hate the term newbie, it’s so 90′s) perform?
Dennis
Kenny
09.03.10
I always check whether a domain is indexed by google – type in “site:www.domainname.com” . Other checks include fake page rank and history archives on Archive.org
Hope this helps
Kenny
navaho
10.03.10
Hi Kenny
Just to Bolster your post, I have used the techniques that you have suggested on many previous occasions and have achieved outstanding results in highly competitive markets.
So far I have not lost any PR or asset value on aged domains, the great things about aged domains is that you can build links to them “en masse” without any penalty (in my experience).
My most recent conquest is achieving position 5 in Google for a highly competitive KW in only two weeks!! Traffic is highly targeted and commercial delivering sales each and every day. I am very confident that I will achieve position 1 / 2 in the next 2-3 months.
I attended the Manchester conference and really wanted to see your presentation on the Sunday, but unfortunately had to leave on Friday night (Day1) missing your presentation. I spoke with ED to explain and he said that the conference was going to be recorded to video and I would get a copy…any news on those videos?? Do you have any futher resources from Manchester / Melbourne which I missed?
Regards
nAvAhO
Kenny
10.03.10
I’m not sure when Ed intends to send out the videos, I will be producing some information in the coming months so watch this space
George
10.03.10
Awesome post, I tried out domaining a while ago but was discouraged by some websites saying that a website’s PR is wiped when it expires. Hope you don’t mind if I ask a few question!
Regarding aged domain names, do you also look for domains with PageRank? (Would you get those expired or pre-release or owner auctioned?)
If so, on average how much would pay for one?
Thanks!
George
Kenny
11.03.10
If I’m buying domains with page rank I will go for pre release or standard auction, or direct. When valuing you need to also consider lots of other variables: industry, keywords, history, pages indexed, back link -quality/relevancy, high end directory listings (DMOZ/YAHOO), extension, length, brandability etc etc
Bruce.d.Stewart
13.03.10
If I buy a existing domain name cheaper end of the market, would I put more content on it and then go and approach a related business offline and try and sew up a deal that way.
Thanks
Jeremy Huggins
13.03.10
Nice post with some great tips.
I once bought a domain thinking I was getting a bargain, only to find out that the previous owner had done more damage in the search engines than I would ever be able to fix. The domain had plenty of back links, unfortunately all were less than positive.
Now I always do plenty of research to make sure I am getting the right domain with no skeletons in the closet.
David
26.03.10
Kenny,
All other factors aside, say you could buy a domain with a keyword phrase that is 10 years old but has no PR and no links to speak of. It has just sat around unused.
How much more value does it have than if I were to have registered it today.
Another way to say it is if I blog for 6 months, will I be better off with the aged 10 year domain (that was just sitting) or a new one?
Thanks!
Kenny
26.03.10
David – if you had the choice between 2 domains a new one or an aged one and all other factors were pretty much equal you would go for the aged one, but always check the history of the domain on archive.org to make sure it doesn’t conflict with your website intentions.
Matthew C. Kriner
29.03.10
Great. Now i can say thank you
Andrew Pelt
29.03.10
Great. Now i can say thank you
Paul W
05.04.10
I have tried on two different days to register for the newsletter…at the bottom of the page. Hit submit, and nothing happens. (Firefox on PC) Don’t have this issue anywhere else. Also, can’t find any other way to contact you than like this.
Kenny
06.04.10
Thanks for the heads up Paul – I will look into it and get back to you
Craig Dawber
06.04.10
Hi Kenny,
I love the content on your blog and the videos you do are great.
I would like to chat with you, how can I get in contact with you?
Would be interested in doing a webinar coaching call?
Craig
Gavin
18.04.10
Is it worth getting an aged domain that has no content or links to it.
a lot of domains that come up on a domain face search are aged but have little or no links to them
Gavin
Bobby L. Devlin
21.04.10
Nice post. Hope you will keep up with your great work!!!
Doloris Mansour
01.05.10
cheers very much, I have to say your site is excellent!
Napoleon Homburg
06.05.10
Super web page you have got here. Will keep coming reading these good articles you are going to write.
Remo
30.05.10
I agree with Kenny, as a user I would say that going back to the trusted website is always safer for me than, new website with new domain name. Un-less we have extraordinary marketing of site which could make the user to re-think there loyalty. However, switching over completely requires lot of benefits over aged site. Name could do the trick!! But Rethink!!!!!
Roseanna Baka
03.06.10
Valuable info. Lucky me I discovered your web-site by accident, I bookmarked it.
JJ
08.06.10
I enjoy your info on aged domains. I am still stuck in the technical aspects of what you do after you buy a domain. Are they any videos out there to show you what you need to do? I am technically challenged.
James
16.06.10
Great post. keep up with the great work. Well done.
Dan Sickman
28.06.10
This makes lots of sense! You have great information here and I will bookmark this site and click here again to see what else I can learn. Thanks!
Brook J. Slots DDS
29.06.10
A well written post. I’m an internet gamer and I’m always looking for stuff like this.
Leave a Reply