Unless you’ve been living under the proverbial rock for the last few years, you by now are aware of the growing trend of buying aged domains. There are many benefits alluded to using an aged domain, some are true, some are not. There are even more”recommendations” on how to find, research and use aged domains for your internet marketing projects. This article will set the record straight on the topic of using aged domains based on what I’ve personally experienced.I remember learning about using aged domains for website projects from the first Commission Blueprint product. The topic was more focused on buying aged domains that had high PageRank or “PR”. It seemed an ingenious idea that, judging by the rapid increase in after-market domain prices since then, wasn’t being used by many people at the time. For example, you could purchase a 2+ year old domain with a PR4 at around $60. Fast forward to today and that same domain will cost upwards of $100; the masses have caught on, and you better believe Google has too.

Things have changed a lot in internet marketing over the last 2 years, as they always do in this industry. One of the biggest changes has been that of relevance as it relates to Page Rank. To put it simply, I no longer care what the PR is of a domain I am purchasing; I’m much more interested in the subject matter of the website that was on it while Google had it indexed. You see, Google’s massive database tracks this sort of information and an OLD domain featuring a website that has constantly been about a particular topic is worth much more than one that just has high PR.

Here’s just one a several real world examples in which I’ve seen this be the case. Before becoming a full-time internet marketer, I was a real estate appraiser. I had a .net domain that was about 2 years old, was a PR3 and ranked on the first page (but not top 3) for many local terms. I decided I wanted the .com and the plurals of my domain name so I contacted the owners of those domains. One domain, the plural, was being “squatted” on by a reseller. I coughed up the $700 to buy this domain purely for branding purposes, it had no PR, no pages indexed, no real value other than being the plural of a domain I was about to purchase. The singular version of my .com was owned by older, retired gentleman in California (I’m in Texas), who no longer performed appraisals. However, the domain was 10 years old, PR1, had a simple 5 page site on it, was about real estate appraisals in his local area AND had been indexed in Google for years.

At this point in time I had no idea the value of this domain, I was purely interested in the branding of my company. After purchasing the domain for $50, I transferred it to my account on the same registrar as the former owner, and promptly moved my website to it. I 301 redirected all other domains and all the pages on my previous .net domain. Within 3 weeks I was now #1 in Google for almost ALL searches in my market area. The kicker was, I hadn’t done any SEO in over 2 months, and I certainly had not done SEO for the NEW domain name. After doing more research and testing the scenario again, I quickly realized that it was the domains age and topical relevance, even though targeted to another geographic region, that had propelled my site to the top of the SERPs.

I repeated the process several times within other markets to tweak the process and determine exactly what needed to be done, and NOT done, to make this work. So here are my guidelines and tips for purchasing an aged domain to use for your next internet marketing project. If you follow these, you will no doubt rank your site MUCH faster than if you had bought a new domain or just a non-relevant high PR domain.

  1. Search for domains that contain a highly relevant keyword within the domain name. – This is usually a dead giveaway that the previous website was topically relevant.
  2. I prefer domains that are AT LEAST 3 years old, older is better though.
  3. The domain MUST be currently indexed by Google, just the homepage is fine. If it is still indexed and cached with a “Page For Sale”, “Parked” or other registrar page, that is fine. This only proves that Google must have a lot of faith in the domain to STILL have it indexed with a known dead site.
  4. Page Rank doesn’t matter so long as the domain is indexed.
  5. Use Archive.org to take a look at the site’s previous content. Look at several snapshots throughout the years to make sure the content was the same throughout time.
  6. Use domaintools.com to make sure the domain has never “dropped”.
  7. Once you find a good domain, pick it up at auction or however it is being sold.
  8. Once the domain is in your possession, change the Registrant info and immediately apply WHOIS protection so Google doesn’t easily see the change of ownership.
  9. (Optional) If you are intending on ranking a LOCAL business then change the WHOIS info to the exact business information and do not apply protection
  10. Do NOT move the domain from the current registrar for at least 12 months.
  11. Move your website to the new domain and don’t forget to 301 redirect ALL important pages to the new domain.

And that’s it. It is really that easy to pickup a domain that will allow you to start ranking sooner. And because these domains are old, pre-existing and still on topic, you can blast them with a lot more links then you could a new domains. Final Note: These domains can sometime be had for dirt cheap as But It Now and Final Offers such as GoDaddy’s $5 closeout domains.