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SEO Value Of Drop Domains and Legal Question??

Hi

I just found this forum - lots of great information, thanks.
I am relatively new to domain buying but have done quite a lot of research. 2 questions:

1. From an SEO perspective, if i but a domain via auction at netfeet and the likes, and those domains have solid links - will they be good for SEO purposes if i rebuild a website and then link out from that website to a 'money' site. I have read conflicting views on if these 'dropped' domains have any benefit even if the links are good to them. Any comments appreciated.

2. If i buy a domain at auction that a company has accidentally forgot to renew and the domain has their company name in , eg abbottworworking.com.au where abbott woodworking is their registered business/company name - can they make any claim against me if i repurpose the website, say, in this example, to sell or blog about woodworking and equipment for woodworking??? Can their lawyers or domain governing body make me sell the domain back to them or claim i am trying to make false representations in any way??

thanks in advance

Marty
 

James

Top Contributor
The thing about expired domains and SEO is the domain can go down for 6 months and be de-indexed and Google is aware of this. When a new buyer picks up the domain on the drops if the domain is already deindexed from the serps its probably not going to be as powerful as a indexed dropped domain.

Plus Google has changed the way they do business in the past say 5 years ago people use to throw up a network with 50 dropped domains and rank for a money term all on the same IP/ similar footprints. Google picks up this thing now and wiped them all out. I saw a network with over 150+ clients get wiped out recently for a spammer agency its the type of thing people sue over now.

If they have a trademark on the domain and if they have a trading business name and you are just a sole trader using the domain in bad faith they can take it back via a complaint.
 
Thanks for thr reply James. Re buying a domain thats also a business name i found some useful information here:

www.netregistry.com.au/files/getfile.php?f=my-au-domain.pdf

Yes, trademarrk is an issue. From reading this document is is not neccessarily a 'done deal' for companies to claim back their domain.

Re buying drop domains for SEO, if they are still indexed with good links have you found them effective?

Cheers
 

James

Top Contributor
Yeah if you buy the domain and you are in a related business you will probably be fine. Trademarked domain is what I am referring to where issues can happen Erhan from Cooper Mills can provide more in-depth information here.

Dropped domains really probably only are worth while for traffic and very high quality natural links. Most of the domains which have links which expire have a very poor quality link profile so in essence you are probably buying something that has been hit by an Algo penalty or Manual penalty. You really would need to do your research.
 

findtim

Top Contributor
martyjames

pay attention to james's advice +

1) research to find the inbound links + 301 redirects ( many people will disagree with me )

2) bad bad bad, "abbott" is where you wil fail, if you go generic eg: redgumwoodturning you will be fine IMO, names like that which drop i stay away from.

if "abbott" was a town and the domain was "abbottmechanic" then should be ok.

they won't make you sell it back to them, they will make you GIVE it to them and then go threw your portfolio and AUDIT you for all the other domains you own.

all these questions have been asked already on dnt, so i suggest you do some searching/reading and get different opinions on your questions.

tim
 

Shane

Top Contributor
To answer the first question, this used to be an incredibly effective strategy if done properly.

Today, not so much...
 

helloworld

Top Contributor
To answer the first question, this used to be an incredibly effective strategy if done properly.

Today, not so much...

I think it goes back to what James said. It seems to be powerful if A/the domain is picked up and hasn't been de-indexed entirely. B/is specific to the niche you want to rank for

If you have a lot of the same niche it could be useful but time factor is huge.

Niche dependent, but outreach can work just as well and take less time and resources. If you build a profile for yourself or your client then you WILL be able to reach out on for yourself or on their behalf. You might not get the anchors you like but you will get real clicks if it's a popular site. You also make new contacts which you can use again.
 

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