Hi everybody, this is my personal guide on where i find expired domains, how do i evaluate them, which services i use to analyze and develop them and total cost of each operation.
1 - HammerHead domains (hammerheaddomains.com) - $29 monthly
There are many services out there to find expired domains. I prefer to use hammerhead domains as i find there very good sites on a daily basis. I suggest you to upgrade your account ($29 monthly) to have all the features available and see the full list daily. The list is updated each days more or less at 4pm (CEST). I personally order the list by 'trust flow' and 'Backlink Toxicity' (0). I pick a free domain (not already registered) from the list.
2 - Wayback Machine (archive.org) - free
It's time to analyze the history of the domain. With wayback machine i can see the past of the site: it has been used for pbn(s)? I can understand that by the outbound links of the main page - if i see many artificial (paid) links there, it mean a very bad signal and probably the site is penalized (reason why is expired). There are Chinese characters on the pages? This mean the site has been probably used for Chinese spam and is penalized.. no good. What i look for is a clean legit website with a clean history.
3 - Majestic ($20 monthly with a VPS account at superseovps.com)
To use Majestic pro and other premium tools, i found a VPS which cost me $20 monthly - it include ahrefs, moz and many other tools. I usually check the domain with Majestic pro. 1st step is to see the anchor text of the domain. I'm looking for clean (not over-optimized) websites, so the major percentage of anchor text should be the url of the site, the name of the site, generic keywords like 'website'. If i see a keyword over optimized, it probably mean that the site has been penalized. The second important thing to look at, are the back-links. I prefer to buy domains with less but valuable back-links, as i can less work to do by scanning each. Keep a look at diversification of the back links and the metrics (is the link juice coming only from site-wide back-links? - that's no good).
MY PERSONAL VPS WITH ITS RELATED TOOL LIST
4 - Hosting and domain registrars (up to you)
I usually diversify the domain registrars. What is important for me is that each domain should have a different owner (better than a private whois), but also a private whois is good. Keep in mind that Google will give more value to the sites registered to a real person than private ones. You can use fake persona generator for that (fakenamegenerator.com). Regarding the hosting, i suggest each site on separate ip, different dns, different countries.
It's time to install wordpress and wait for your site to be indexed by Google (it usually require less than a week) - You don't have time for that and you are curious to see if the site is penalized or not? Buy a list of gmail accounts (), enter google via proxy (if the account is from US, go on Google with a US ip). If asked, validate the telephone number related to the mail address (a list of gmail accounts should provide all these details, including passwords, telephone number and recovery mail). Open the webmaster tools, add your site, upload via ftp the verification file, authenticate the site and voilà, you can see if the site have a manual penalty or not. If you don't see any penalty, you can skip to point 5 directly, because we are mostly sure that the site will be indexed again.
5 - Costapbn (costapbn.com) - $30 per site
This is great, this guys will develop a beautiful site with: personal logo, about us, privacy policy, blog, Facebook page, unique plugins, responsive theme that will amaze even the most demanding Google operator. What you need is just to provide them with your wp login and pass. After few days, you will see you complete site.
Summary: i spent $80 excluding hosting and domain registrar, but i have a monthly paid of majestic and hammerheaddomains, so the next sites will cost me more or less $50 each till the end of the month. But most of all i can get highly valued website with great metrics and clean link profile which i totally control. I hope someone will find it useful.
1 - HammerHead domains (hammerheaddomains.com) - $29 monthly
There are many services out there to find expired domains. I prefer to use hammerhead domains as i find there very good sites on a daily basis. I suggest you to upgrade your account ($29 monthly) to have all the features available and see the full list daily. The list is updated each days more or less at 4pm (CEST). I personally order the list by 'trust flow' and 'Backlink Toxicity' (0). I pick a free domain (not already registered) from the list.
2 - Wayback Machine (archive.org) - free
It's time to analyze the history of the domain. With wayback machine i can see the past of the site: it has been used for pbn(s)? I can understand that by the outbound links of the main page - if i see many artificial (paid) links there, it mean a very bad signal and probably the site is penalized (reason why is expired). There are Chinese characters on the pages? This mean the site has been probably used for Chinese spam and is penalized.. no good. What i look for is a clean legit website with a clean history.
3 - Majestic ($20 monthly with a VPS account at superseovps.com)
To use Majestic pro and other premium tools, i found a VPS which cost me $20 monthly - it include ahrefs, moz and many other tools. I usually check the domain with Majestic pro. 1st step is to see the anchor text of the domain. I'm looking for clean (not over-optimized) websites, so the major percentage of anchor text should be the url of the site, the name of the site, generic keywords like 'website'. If i see a keyword over optimized, it probably mean that the site has been penalized. The second important thing to look at, are the back-links. I prefer to buy domains with less but valuable back-links, as i can less work to do by scanning each. Keep a look at diversification of the back links and the metrics (is the link juice coming only from site-wide back-links? - that's no good).
MY PERSONAL VPS WITH ITS RELATED TOOL LIST
4 - Hosting and domain registrars (up to you)
I usually diversify the domain registrars. What is important for me is that each domain should have a different owner (better than a private whois), but also a private whois is good. Keep in mind that Google will give more value to the sites registered to a real person than private ones. You can use fake persona generator for that (fakenamegenerator.com). Regarding the hosting, i suggest each site on separate ip, different dns, different countries.
It's time to install wordpress and wait for your site to be indexed by Google (it usually require less than a week) - You don't have time for that and you are curious to see if the site is penalized or not? Buy a list of gmail accounts (), enter google via proxy (if the account is from US, go on Google with a US ip). If asked, validate the telephone number related to the mail address (a list of gmail accounts should provide all these details, including passwords, telephone number and recovery mail). Open the webmaster tools, add your site, upload via ftp the verification file, authenticate the site and voilà, you can see if the site have a manual penalty or not. If you don't see any penalty, you can skip to point 5 directly, because we are mostly sure that the site will be indexed again.
5 - Costapbn (costapbn.com) - $30 per site
This is great, this guys will develop a beautiful site with: personal logo, about us, privacy policy, blog, Facebook page, unique plugins, responsive theme that will amaze even the most demanding Google operator. What you need is just to provide them with your wp login and pass. After few days, you will see you complete site.
Summary: i spent $80 excluding hosting and domain registrar, but i have a monthly paid of majestic and hammerheaddomains, so the next sites will cost me more or less $50 each till the end of the month. But most of all i can get highly valued website with great metrics and clean link profile which i totally control. I hope someone will find it useful.