Any SEO expert will tell you: expired domain names have never been so popular, and some of them can sometimes sell for several thousand dollars.
If you want to change the domain name for your WordPress site or capitalize on expired domains, learn how to find them for free. If this leverage interests you, you will have to go through paid methods to obtain relevant information on NDDs.
However, taking advantage of it is not always easy, and it is not uncommon for some newbie site builders to spend weeks researching the perfect domain names.
Choosing an expired domain name
The step of choosing a domain name is crucial: it can save you hours of work, or on the contrary, waste a lot of time. It is no coincidence that more and more platforms on the web are now offering expired domain names: It is a real time-saver in research, and in some cases, you will be able to find the pearl rare. However, effective research to boost its natural referencing and/or in a professional capacity will rather pay off.
But if you have very little money and time, you have a simple method left that will allow you to find expired domain names without having to pay anything.
This method is not perfect, and it will not be as effective as the others that exist, but it is free and will allow SEO beginners or bloggers to understand the reasons for searching for an expired domain name. Note that this method will not allow you to analyze the backlinks of domain names. It is very useful or even essential in some cases, but it requires paid tools.
Why an expired domain name?
The expired NDDs have a liability in SEO which makes it possible to go directly to the most interesting SEO capital. Hence the interest in finding the domain name linked to your domain, unless you want to make a business out of it. These NDDs leave a trace on Google, and it is sometimes enough to reactivate them to benefit from their genesis and the SEO juice they provide.
Do a keyword search on Google
First of all, go to Google! Before searching, you will have to modify your parameters by clicking on the cogwheel at the top of the screen then by clicking on Search parameters. In this screen, choose to display 100 results per page instead of the usual 10.
Then, research the keyword you are looking for (such as “best community manager opinion” or “choose social media consultant” according to your project). You will then get many websites that rank for a keyword. Via a manual operation that will be rather tedious, or with tools available for free online, retrieve the list of all the domains present.
To save time and maximize your chances of finding expired domains that rank in Google, you can also use the “-site:” command. It will allow you to specify a known website address that ranks in Google results like Wikipedia or Amazon depending on your domain and if a site is present several times.
Finally, do not hesitate to research older dates by going to Tools> Any date> Specific dates in the Google search results interface.
Retrieve these results in a notepad, Excel table, or Google Sheets, and write down the corresponding keyword. Obviously, you can repeat this operation with several variations of a keyword by using the various suggestions offered by Google.
Automatically filter domain names
Once you have retrieved this list of domain names, copy it and place it in a domain “parser,” that is to say, a tool that will take care of identifying all the domains by removing the parts—URLs that are not needed, as well as duplicates. So a tool like this will turn mysite.com/test.html into mysite.com.
You will find several free tools online, for example, the CheapNames site, which offers a DomainParser page. Using this type of tool will limit the results of your list, and you will be able to retrieve only the domain names to keep.
Check the availability of domain names
Once you have retrieved your list of domain names filtered via the “parser,” all you have to do is find available domain names. There is no need to check them manually one by one: it will take too much time! Other free tools let you check the availability of hundreds of domain names with just a few clicks.
For example, by going to the Bulk domain search page of the Name site, you will be able to paste all the domains you want to check. The site will tell you which domain names are available and which ones are already in use in just a few seconds.
All you have to do is find an opportunity and buy your domain name! Before rushing into your purchase, do not hesitate to use a site like Wayback Machine or Google’s cache: this one will allow you to see what the old site looked like on the domain name you are about to buy!
In conclusion
This is a basic method that is presented to you here. It is functional and has the merit of not costing anything and of familiarizing yourself with expired domains as part of a search for performance in SEO. This is a real business where many experts are already positioned, but it is enough to find the rare pearl sometimes to save years of work.
At a higher stage, it is essential to use paid tools, but to find a single expired domain, it is not necessarily useful.
