The benefits of buying old domains

Each server on the Internet has its unique number called the IP address. This 32-bit number. This IP address can be entered directly in the browser. However, since most are reluctant to remember numbers of IP addresses we have domain names. If the domain name is entered into the browser all data is fetched from the appropriate page. The user gets nothing from the IP address and doesn’t need to, as he or she need only remember the domain name.  Thus, each domain name is unique to make sure the right data arrives at the browser.

Picking a domain name, be it old or new

If you are going to pick a domain name that is old, then consider the criteria and the points made below.

• It must be noticeable

• Hard to write incorrectly

• Be available for either sale or creation

• Be legal

• Easy to write

• Easy to pronounce

• Short

Looking for a domain name that best suits the project? There are already numerous occupied domain names so buy an old one or be creative with your new one. The domain name should be related to your company or your offer. It could even reflect and represent the content of your website if you wish.

Why, www.  If not necessarily needed?

Actually, this “www.” is not necessarily required.  However, you should specify this when you create a link. Printed content, whether newspaper or books, show people the “www.” as usual.  When linking, you should always specify the domain without the home (http) indicator. So when you link, you should link like this:

www.website.com

And no and not like this

http://www.website.com/index.html

Or

http://www.website.com

Old domain names are knocking around

For existing domain name, you can operate a partial past research project. There are websites that have been monitoring old domain names since 1996, and some have as many as eighty five trillion websites registered, so you can do a little research about your old domain name online.

Old domains have on the one hand already indexed pages in search engines and accumulated confidence (trust) on Google.  Therefore, it is worth, depending on the project, building a new project on an old domain.

Vacated domain names

If domains are free again, it may be advantageous to secure it quickly. This sort of thing may happen if the previous owner gives up and cancels the domain. Or, this can also happen if the owner forgot to pay his or her hosting bills. Old domains have the advantage that they may already be known by the search engines and therefore new content on the old domains are indexed fast.

How do you come to the information of which domains have become available? 

There are services on the internet that attempt to list these domains.  However, it is technically tricky to determine this.  Therefore, not all domains are listed by these services, and in turn, these services are closely monitored and reasonably useful domains have 5 minutes in which these are unregistered.  In these 5 minutes, set the value, estimate the possible legal risk and register at a fast provider.

Dangers with old domains

There are also dangers with buying old domain names:

Domain name may be legally bound to something in a country

Domain name is burned – the last contents were so critical that search engines have banished from the index the domains.  This banishment may also be forever.  This means that new content will not show up in the search engines.

Advantages and disadvantages of old domains

Advantages:

• An old domain has usually more trust on the part of Google.  With an old domain to get often faster and higher in the rankings than with a new domain.

• Old domains often have many backlinks, are registered in directories etc.

• Also, a PageRank that has an old domain can be beneficial.

• An old domain has usually also good rankings in Google.  You just have to make sure that these are redirected appropriately to the new pages.

 Disadvantages

• You no longer have a completely free choice in domain names and have to see what is there.

• Old domains may have a turbulent history.  It could have been out spam and Google could have punished the domain in the past.

• Google could see the changing of the content after buying a domain negatively and worsen the rankings.

This shows already that old domains are not in general the better choice, but you should look carefully and analyze before you buy an old domain.

What should you look for?

Age – The age is relatively important in a domain.  Although the SEO experts argue about how important the age is, it is certainly understandable that an old domain with a “clean slate” has more trust from Google than a newly registered domain.

History – The age of a domain is not everything.  What is very important is also what happened with this domain in the past.  This can be checked on old registries to looking for old version of the website. If the old version no longer exists, one should be suspicious.

PageRank – The PageRank is not going to have a big influence over the ranking in Google.  But lately violations of Google’s guidelines are often punished with PR-deduction.  So an old domain with many backlinks etc. and a low PR or even a PageRank 0 is also a warning sign.

Rankings – This is very important, and it is the ranking of a domain. To this end, one looks for some main keywords of the site. There are tools that allow you to check this sort of thing.

Backlinks – The backlinks are an important criterion.  How many are there? How many have a high quality and do they originate in a natural way?  This sort of thing can be checked with online tools.

Directories – In particular, it is still interesting to see whether the domain is on one of the major directories like Wikipedia. The website may still have a place in paid directories which you can take advantage of.