Quality expired domains are a rarity that you can’t find with conventional methods.
But, tools like Scrapebox make it ridiculously easy to hunt the right kind of expired domains on a mass scale.
However, it can be a little complicated to use. If you want to fully leverage the tool for expired domain hunting, stay with me till the end.
In this article, you’ll learn:
- Uses of expired domains
- How to find expired domains with Scrapebox
- And, much more
Let’s get started.
What are Expired Domains
Domains that are not renewed past their registration period are termed expired domains.
After the registration period of a domain is over, anyone can buy it.
Moreover, after someone buys a domain name, they are normally considered as the owner, which is technically incorrect.
A domain registrant is simply renting a domain name for a specific period of time.
And, when they fail to renew that domain for whatever reason, it’s up for grabs for anyone who can find it.
You can buy expired domains right after they are expired or you can buy them from auctions.
Auctions tend to be more expensive if there is competition for that particular expired domain.
And, once you get your hands on an expired domain, you are simply a registrant of that domain, not an owner.
So, it’s important to keep paying for a domain’s renewal periods.
Why Use Expired Domains
From the SEO perspective, an expired domain with high-quality backlinks pointing to it is far more valuable than a fresh domain.
Let’s say you want to create a website; you can either start with a fresh domain or buy an expired one.
Now, Google recognizes the expired domain as it might already have high-quality backlinks pointing to it.
A fresh domain is fresh in the eyes of Google, so it doesn’t carry that trust and authority.
Eventually, you have a much better chance at ranking the site built on an expired domain than the one built on the fresh one.
When you link an expired domain to your established site, it transfers the link juice, helping you rank higher.
Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can use an expired domain.
Uses of Expired Domains for SEO
The SEO power of a high-quality expired domain cannot be underestimated.
It’s one of the most sought-after commodities in the SEO world.
SEOs repurpose expired domains in a variety of ways.
Of course, you have to find the ones that can actually add SEO value to your project, which we’ll talk about in a bit.
Let’s first see in what ways you can use a high-quality expired domain.
To Resell Them
Now, we all know how important expired domains are to SEOs. So, what if you get your hands on an expired domain that an SEO would want?
Well, you guessed it.
What you can do is, buy an expired domain at its base price and put it for sale at a higher price.
And, if someone wants it that bad, they’ll buy it from you.
All you have to do is find the right domain, put it out there, and wait for the right offer.
It’s easier than the other methods and potentially a pretty lucrative one, too.
To Build a PBN
Another way to use an expired domain is by building a private blog network.
The purpose of a private blog network is to pass the link juice of several domains to your main site.
SEOs buy multiple expired domains and point them to their money site.
However, the strategy is a little risky as Google takes it as manipulation of its search algorithm, so it can be risky.
To Pass Link Juice
Link juice, as the name suggests, is when a link transfers its “Juice” (authority) to another domain.
SEOs link expired domains to their money site, which can help their site’s search engine rankings.
To Create an Authority Site
One of the most popular ways to repurpose an expired domain is by building an authority site.
As discussed before, an expired domain gathers backlinks over time, which adds to its trust and authority.
So, creating a new website on an old or aged expired domain is an effective strategy to rank your new site relatively quickly on the SERPs.
In fact, many bloggers prefer to leverage expired domains instead of new ones for new websites.
It gives them a good head start in their SEO efforts, and they don’t need to start their new site’s SEO from scratch.
But, how do you find authoritative expired domains? Domains that have a clean history and high-quality backlinks?
There are several ways to do that, but we’ll focus on a paid and effective tool called Scrapebox.
Similar Article – How To Find Expired Web 2.0
What’s an Expired Domain Finder
Expired domain finders are tools that can help you hunt expired domains with strong backlink profiles.
These tools essentially crawl search engines and check for recently expired domains.
They even let you filter crawled expired domains on the basis of keywords, authority, and backlink profiles.
Most of them, like Scrapebox, also help you qualify expired domains so that you land on the ones that can add real SEO value.
One of the most used expired domain-hunters is Scrapebox, which we’ll be talking about in detail now.
What’s Scrapebox
Scrapebox is a paid web scraping tool that helps marketers scrap data from the web.
One of the primary functions of Scrapebox is to extract emails from the internet.
It’s also a powerful domain extractor tool, which is why many SEOs use it for expired domain hunting.
The tool’s core features include:
- Harvesting search engines like Google
- Harvesting keywords
- Proxy harvesting and testing
- Scraping web pages
- Mining online data
- Checking links
Let’s see how to find expired domains with Scrapebox.
How to Find Expired Domains With Scrapebox
You can use Scrapebox to extract a lot of niche-relevant expired domains easily.
Here is a complete breakdown of how to find expired domains with Scrapebox.
Follow these steps to find high-quality, relevant expired domains for your next project.
Go to:
- “Scrape”
- “Keyword scrapper”
Enter your keyword
- “Start”
- “Export”
- “Export all keywords to Scrapebox keywords”
Enter “Links” in Harvester and keywords
- “Start harvesting”
- “Start”
- “Addons” at the top
- “Scrapebox link extractor”
- “Lead URL list from Scrapebox harvester”
- “Start”
- “Show save folder”
Open the file and copy the domains. Then, go to:
- “Clear” in Scrapebox
- “Paste from clipboard”
- “Remove filter”
- “Remove duplicate”
- “Trim to root”
- “Remove entries which are not URLs”
The above steps will help you clean your list. Next, go to:
- “Export URL list”
- “Copy all URLs to clipboard”
Now, you have a list of URLs that you can check the availability of.
For that, you can use a separate tool/website called NameBright.
Just paste your list of keywords and let NameBright filter out the available URLs.
Source: Namebright.com
But, wait. The tool only lets you check up to 20 domains per session. So, if you have a lot more, it’ll get too time-consuming.
Fortunately, in that case, there is another website that you can use to extract available domains in bulk.
Name.com
Source: name.com
You’ll know which domains are up for grabs and which are not.
Another cool thing is, you’d know the price of those domains right there and then.
Now, you want to check the domain or page authority of these domains before pulling out your wallet.
This is important as you don’t want any spammy expired domain pointing to your main site.
So, one of the ways you can do that is by simply using the “Scrapebox page authority” option.
So, after pasting the list of domains in Scrapebox, go to:
- “Add ons”
- “Scrapebox page authority”
Let’s see how you can find expired domains with Scrapebox for PBNs.
How to Find Expired Domains with Scapebox for PBNs
You probably already know what a PBN is but here is a quick definition:
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a linking strategy used by SEOs to improve the trust and authority of their money site.
You simply buy a few expired domains with high DA/PA and link them to your main site.
Expired domains tend to gather backlinks over time; linking multiple of such domains to your main site helps its search engine rankings.
So, how to find expired domains with Scrapebox for PBNs?
Well, the process is exactly the same as discussed above.
The difference is that you buy several of them, preferably from different domain registrars, and point them to your money site.
If you think your competitor is using hiding their PBN links from you, Scrapbox would be a great tool to find those hidden PBNs.
Hidden PBNs are mainly hidden from a particular SEO tool in the robots.txt file or the htaccess file.
For instance, if someone blocks Ahref’s bot from crawling their backlinks, you won’t see their backlink data in Ahrefs.
How to Find Web 2.0 Expired Domains Using Scrapebox
Scrapebox also makes web 2.0 expired domain hunting a breeze.
The first step would be to harvest proxies in order to remain safe.
So, after you open Scrapebox, go to:
- “Manage”
- “Harvest proxies”
- “Start”
The tool will now start harvesting proxies for you.
After it’s done, go to:
- “Test proxies”
- “Test all proxies”
Of course, you only want to keep the proxies that pass the test. So, after the test is done, go to:
- “Filter”
- “Keep proxies which passed the Google/Custom test”
- “Save proxy”
- “Save all to Scrapebox proxy list”
Now, you have your proxies set up and can hunt for expired Tumblr domains safely.
You can scrape expired Tumblr domains based on your niche keywords; just make sure the keywords are fairly broad.
Go to:
- “Scrape”
- “Keyword scraper”
Enter the keywords and click “Start”
Once Scrapebox is done scraping domains, click:
- “Export”
- “Save all keywords to Scrapebox keywords”
Next, you want to use the custom footprint at the top left corner.
Enter “Site: tumblr.com” in the search box and click “Start harvesting”
You’ll see a pop-up. Click on “Select all” and then “Start” under the “Available search engines” option.
Next, right-click on the blank screen and select “Import and add to current list”
Open the saved file in the folder “Scrapebox” > “Harvester_Sessions”
To clean the URLs, go to “Remove filter” and select:
- “Remove duplicate URLs”
- “Trim” > “Trim to last folder” plus “Trim to root”
- “Remove URLs not containing” and type in “tumblr.com”
- “Export” the URL list and select “Copy all URLs to clipboard”
Done!
You have a list of expired Tumblr domains now; just go to any domain availability checker to check which ones are ready for registration.
You can use this tool.
Source: httpstatus.io
Similar Article – How To Find Expired Domains for PBN
Things to Check Before Buying an Expired Domain
By now, you should have an extensive list of expired domains.
But, the process of expired domain hunting doesn’t end here.
You don’t want to use ANY expired domain as most of them won’t even add enough value to your SEO project.
Here are a few metrics that you should be checking before investing in an expired domain.
Domain Authority
Domain authority is a metric by Moz, a reputable SEO company that provides an extensive set of free and paid SEO tools.
SEOs use DA to estimate how authoritative a domain name is.
It’s essentially a reflection of how qualitative the links pointing to a particular domain are.
So, the higher the DA score of a domain name, the better.
Ideally, you want to hunt expired domains that have a DA of more than 50.
So, how do you find the DA of multiple domains?
Luckily, we have free tools for that, too.
One of the prominent and effective ones is the Website SEO Checker.
Just copy the list of the domain names you got from Scrapebox and paste them into the search box.
Source: websiteseochecker.com
Wayback Machine
Only an expired domain with a clean history can add value to your SEO project.
You want to avoid expired domains that have spammy histories.
Wayback Machine gives you how a particular domain looked at each point in its life.
Source: archive.org
Enter the domain name you want to check the history of.
Let’s put in Yahoo for the sake of this tutorial.
Source: archive.org
You can then see how that particular domain/website looked like on a particular date in the past.
Just click on the year box and select the date from the calendar view.
Here is how Yahoo looked like on February 2, 1999.
Source: archive.org
This way, you can use the method to see if the expired domain you’ve hunted has a spammy history.
For instance, if you see a Chinese webpage on that domain at any point in the past, abandon that domain right there.
Majestic Metrics (TF, CF)
Another important factor to look at before buying any expired domain name is its Trust Flow or TF.
Trust Flow is a metric designed by Majestic, an SEO company trusted by many bloggers around the world.
It reflects the “Trustworthiness” of a domain, so the higher the better.
Moreover, the citation flow is a metric that tells you how many backlinks that particular domain has.
If the trust flow and citation flow aren’t close, know that the domain has a high number of spammy backlinks.
So, it’s the ratio of TF and CF that counts.
Although Majestic is a paid tool, you can do a free search to see if a domain is worth buying.
For instance, let’s put Forbes.com into its search bar.
Source: majestic.com
That’s close to ideal. The lesser the difference, the better.
Spam Score
The ratio between the Trust Flow and Citation Flow metrics gives you a good idea about the quality of the backlinks pointing to a site.
However, if you can’t afford the tool, there are free alternatives that calculate spam scores.
For instance, you can pluck a list of expired domains in this tool and it’ll show you their spam scores.
Source: websiteseochecker.com
Expired Domains with Scrapebox – FAQs
What are Expired Domains?
A domain expires when a domain registrant fails to pay for its renewal period.
Once the domain expires, anyone can register it again.
What’s the Grace Period of a Domain?
A period of time after the expiration date of a domain and before it’s available for registration is called its grace period.
The grace period of a domain tends to vary between 0 and 45, depending on the registrar.
What is Scrapebox and Why Use it to Hunt Expired Domains?
Scrapebox is a tool that helps marketers scrape data from the web.
One of its stand-out features is scraping niche-specific domains.
The tool makes expired domain hunting a breeze. You can literally get thousands of expired domains within minutes.
So, an SEO who is looking for high-quality expired domains would find it useful.
What Are Expired Domains Used For?
SEO experts use expired domains for:
- Building a new website: Creating a new site on a high-quality expired domain. It gives you a head-start as far as off-page SEO or link building is concerned
- Building a PBN (Private Blog Network): A combination of expired domains linking to a single domain to improve its authority and eventually search engine rankings
- Redirecting to an established website: Passing the link juice of an expired domain to a money site to boost its authority with search engines like Google
- Reselling the domain for profit: Making profits by buying and reselling expired domains
What to Check Before Buying an Expired Domain?
Before you buy any expired domain, you should check its:
- Domain authority score: The DA score by Moz tells you how authoritative a domain is
- Trust Flow and Citation Flow ratio: The TF and CF ratio reflects the quality of backlinks pointing to a domain. It should be as close to 1 as possible.
- Domain history: Use Wayback Machine to see if the domain has any spam history
- Domain spam score: There are tools that give you a spam score based on the quality and repetition of backlinks
How to Check the Availability of an Expired Domain?
After you get your hands on a bunch of domains, there are several free tools you can use to check which domains are available for registration.
A couple of them are:
- NameBright
- Name.com
What is the Spam Score of an Expired Domain?
The spam score is essentially a reflection of the number of spammy backlinks pointing to a domain. So, the lower the better.
How Much Does An Expired Domain Cost?
One of the reasons why expired domains are so attractive is that they don’t cost more than what a fresh domain costs, in most cases.
What are Web 2.0 Expired Domains?
Web 2.0 expired domains are typically sub-domains of micro-blogging websites like Tumblr.
For instance, blogs on Tumblr are considered web 2.0 domains. And, the backlink coming from such a domain are called web 2.0 backlinks.
What are Expired Tumblr Domains?
Expired Tumblr domains are Tumblr blogs that are abandoned by their owners and get deleted by the platform.
SEOs use expired Tumblr domains as a backlink to their main site to rank higher in search engines.
Final Thoughts
This was all about hunting expired domains with Scrapebox.
Scrapebox saves a ton of time when it comes to scrapping data from the web. But, it’s a paid tool.
So, if you have the investment and want to find a lot of expired domains in no time, it’s probably the best tool.
Note: The safest method to use an expired domain is by building a new site on it. Using an expired domain for search algorithm manipulation is risky and violates Google Webmaster Guidelines.
You may also like – Expired Domains – Everything You Need to Know in 2021
