Are you wondering which data to prioritize when selecting an expired domain? Many people focus on SEO metrics like Domain Authority (DA) and Domain Rating (DR), the age of the domain, or even its previous operational genre. Indeed, these data points are crucial when assessing the value of a domain. But have you ever questioned whether all the “standards” widely believed in the industry are actually correct?
What I’m sharing in this article is based on my experiences when I was active as an affiliate marketer in Japan. Specifically, it revolves around black hat SEO techniques using expired domains and single-page websites.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of actual data to present, but I hope you’ll read this as my personal opinion. Nevertheless, by rethinking the “industry standards” that have become apparent through my experiences, you should be able to make more effective choices when selecting expired domains.
In this article, I will explain four widely believed “standards” in the expired domain industry, incorporating actual anecdotes. By questioning the commonly accepted norms, you might achieve even greater success.
The Importance of Rethinking Industry Standards in Expired Domains
Selecting expired domains is crucial in SEO strategy, but the commonly believed norms aren’t always correct. In fact, clinging to these “standards” might be hindering you from selecting the most optimal domains.
Here, we will reconsider each of these suspicious standards one by one.
Standard ①: The Myth that “Matching Previous Operational Genres is Important”
The Theory of Genre Matching Widespread in the Industry
Certainly, when performing a 301 redirect strategy between sites of the same genre, matching genres can be effective. From Google’s algorithm leaked in 2024, we can see that niche genre advantages are associated with domains.
However, how many expired domains exist that are in the same genre as your business? Can you find them within your desired price range?
Beginners in expired domains trapped by this myth first look for domains that match within their budget. If they can’t find a domain in the same genre within their budget, they might increase their budget to purchase an expired domain in a similar genre. As if that were the most important thing.
My Personal Experience Leading to the Conclusion that “Genre Matching is Unnecessary”
However, my experience is different. It may be important, but based on my intuition from testing about 10,000 domains, genre matching is within the margin of error, and to be honest, I couldn’t even find a clear trend.
For example, I have several times conducted SEO tests on trademark keywords for beauty and health affiliate products by preparing about 30 domains in total, including around 5 expired domains related to health, targeting a single keyword. The probability of ranking high did not show a significant difference between the health-related domains, which I expected as the main contenders, and the other domains.
Also, below I have included the genre analysis data at that time of expired domain sites from which I earned affiliate income around 2019–2022.
| Current Site Content (Project Genre) | Domain | Previous Operational Genre/Content | Years of Operation | Backlink | IPs | DR | TF | CF | DA | PA | SS(0-17) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Knee Joint Supplements | *******************.com | Environment | 4 | 330 | 26 | 12 | 14 | 14 | 20 | 22 | 0 |
| Whitening Toothpaste | **************.cz | Language Textbooks | 10 | 16,700 | 29 | 14 | 14 | 19 | 19 | 22 | 0 |
| Hair Growth Products | ******.org | Elementary School in Africa | 20 | 481 | 20 | 17 | 11 | 21 | 13 | 21 | 0 |
| Whitening Toothpaste | ******************.org.uk | Dog Breeding Committee | 10 | 183 | 30 | 19 | 11 | 12 | 27 | 22 | 1 |
| Dog Food | *****************.com | Chamber of Commerce | 7 | 169 | 23 | 8 | 16 | 14 | 14 | 18 | 0 |
| Hair Removal Cream | *******************.com | European Volleyball Tournament Official Site | 5 | 440 | 37 | 26 | 0 | 12 | 23 | 22 | 0 |
| Growth Supplements | *******.cz | Municipal Library | 20 | 2,300 | 83 | 14 | 15 | 23 | 28 | 31 | 1 |
| Growth Supplements | ****************.in | Temperature Sensor Equipment Company | 5 | 161 | 28 | 12 | 17 | 16 | 15 | 23 | 0 |
| Hair Shampoo | ************************.com | University Rankings | 7 | 9,100 | 83 | 25 | 19 | 21 | 15 | 27 | 12 |
| Hair Shampoo | **********************.com | Tobacco Online Shop | 12 | 524 | 50 | 20 | 6 | 13 | 16 | 26 | 9 |
| Night Bras | *************.com | Lunch Matching with Book Authors | 10 | 826 | 62 | 17 | 7 | 13 | 18 | 23 | 11 |
| Growth Supplements | **********.co.uk | Diving & Environmental Protection | 10 | 891 | 41 | 11 | 24 | 15 | 16 | 23 | 0 |
| Growth Supplements | ****************.com | Graphic Designer’s Personal Site | 10 | 929 | 39 | 0 | 16 | 15 | 14 | 22 | 0 |
| Growth Supplements | ************.com | Sudoku Puzzles | 15 | 153 | 46 | 1 | 13 | 19 | 16 | 20 | 0 |
| Growth Supplements | ****************.com | Canadian Regional Travel Guide | 15 | 127 | 43 | 4 | 15 | 13 | 22 | 22 | 0 |
| Growth Supplements | **************.co.uk | Accommodation Facility | 20 | 270 | 60 | 0 | 11 | 5 | 20 | 26 | 1 |
| Snack Online Shop | *****************.net | Virtual Catalog | 10 | 107 | 19 | 18 | 23 | 18 | 12 | 10 | 0 |
| Knee Joint Supplements | *******************.com | Environment | 4 | 94 | 8 | 14 | 8 | 10 | – | – | – |
| Knee Joint Supplements | ******************.com | Construction Company | 3 | 95 | 8 | 54 | 15 | 11 | – | – | – |
| Food Online Shop | *******.com | Golf Course | 11 | 491 | 10 | 29 | 18 | 8 | – | – | – |
| Food Online Shop | ******.nl | Design Company | 4 | 181 | 6 | 15 | 10 | 14 | – | – | – |
| Book Purchase Estimation | **************.com | Researcher | 4 | 27 | 3 | 11 | 5 | 6 | – | – | – |
| Purchase Estimation | *********************************.co.uk | Education | 2 | 32 | 5 | 21 | 3 | 8 | – | – | – |
| Clothing Online Shop | ***********.com | Resort | 17 | 73 | 11 | 9 | 11 | 11 | – | – | – |
| Food Online Shop | *****************.com | TV Program | 7 | 10 | 16 | 42 | 9 | 12 | – | – | – |
| Coffee Bean Online Shop | ********.me | Video Games | 7 | 38 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 10 | – | – | – |
| Enzyme Supplements | ********.nl | Musician | 6 | 47 | 6 | 28 | 12 | 9 | – | – | – |
| Wallet Online Shop | ****************.com | Export Company Information | 9 | 124 | 7 | 25 | 14 | 7 | – | – | – |
| Coffee Bean Online Shop | ***********.co.uk | Museum & Art Gallery | 4 | 69 | 6 | 10 | 7 | 7 | – | – | – |
| Lactic Acid Bacteria Supplements | ************.com | Web Design | 10 | 301 | 4 | 41 | 20 | 9 | – | – | – |
| Lactic Acid Bacteria Supplements | ****************.co.uk | Fine Arts | 12 | 66 | 10 | 9 | 21 | 9 | – | – | – |
| Lactic Acid Bacteria Supplements | *************.in | Famous Photographer | 2 | 527 | 30 | 21 | 9 | 13 | – | – | – |
As you can see, the genres of the projects I was working on at that time were mostly in beauty and health.
As mentioned earlier, I was also testing with many expired domains whose previous operational genres were beauty and health, but I couldn’t confirm any superiority in SEO effects due to genre matching.
From these facts, I judged at a practical level that matching the previous operational genre has little impact, or its importance is significantly lower than other data.
Please note that this result is based on the method of directly placing content on the expired domains. Therefore, the results may differ when using them for 301 redirects.
Standard ②: The Misconception that SEO Metrics Are Everything
If you’re tackling SEO measures using expired domains at a “general budget level,” you may have already noticed that the more domains you handle, the more you realize that indices like DR, DA, CF don’t function much. These indices are useful for setting “a certain cutoff line for yourself,” but you’ll notice that they often don’t correlate with SEO rankings.
When I was an affiliate marketer, I gathered dozens of similar-level expired domains and conducted SEO tests targeting the same keyword, but there was almost no correlation with indices like DR and DA. By the way, due to budget constraints and the rules I had discovered until then, I was usually obtaining and using domains of the class that are sold for $25 to $250 (approximately 3,000 to 30,000 yen in conversion) per domain at regular expired domain shops. Therefore, I have no experience with higher-ranked domains, so I can’t say anything about them.
At that time, even among domains of similar ranks, I repeatedly saw situations where a domain with DR30 had no effect, while a domain with DR5 captured top search rankings. Such experiences consistently occurred during the two years from when I started utilizing expired domains in black hat SEO to when I began earning 8 million yen a year.
Through this real-life experience, I concluded to only use famous SEO metrics to set “my own cutoff line for domains to acquire,” and to try as many as possible within the budget. According to internal documents from Google, there are over 14,000 factors that determine rankings, and actual SEO is even more complex than that. Only a genius or someone inside Google can pinpoint domains that have SEO effects.
The Reliability of Metrics like DR, DA, and CF
These metrics certainly help in measuring part of a domain’s value. However, they don’t necessarily lead directly to SEO results. Especially when trying many domains within a budget, overly relying on these metrics may not be advisable.
The Gap Between Metrics and SEO Results from Real Experience
When you actually use many domains, you notice that cases where the highs and lows of metrics don’t match the results are common. A domain with high metrics doesn’t always produce high effects, and vice versa.
Many practitioners should have experienced such discrepancies.
Standard ③: The Pitfall of Thinking “Older Domains Are Best”
In evaluating expired domains, the age of the domain is certainly a factor to check, but it’s not appropriate to judge value based solely on that. In reality, a domain from a 20-year-old individual shop may be less likely to yield superior results than a domain from an international expo that was only operated for one year. I think the only time to focus on domain age is when comparing domains of the same genre and the same level.
The Value of Expired Domains Cannot Be Judged by Age Alone
Generally, domains with an operation history of over five years are recommended, and those over ten years are considered to have particularly high value. However, even relatively new domains can exhibit high effects.
When analyzing the data of the aforementioned revenue-generating sites, an interesting trend emerges. The average past operation period is 8.8 years, with a median of 8 years, so it seems that many domains have a relatively long operation history. However, notably, 28% of the total are expired domains that were dropped within five years of operation. This fact suggests that factors other than domain age are also important.
Standard ④: The Illusion that “The More Expensive a Domain, the More Effective”
High-priced domains have eye-catching appeal points like high DR, a large number of backlinks, and good link quality. They make you believe that success is guaranteed if you use them. However, for the reasons mentioned so far, things don’t go as you expect.
Think carefully. Are expired domain sellers players who make money using expired domains? No, they are not. Their job is to sell expired domains to people like you who want them. In that case, visible numbers like domain metrics, backlink counts, and operation years help to increase the value of the domains. But they don’t know which keywords the domain will rank for in SEO when you use it. If they knew precisely, they would “immediately quit being expired domain sellers and switch to being affiliate marketers.” In other words, that’s how it is. Even professionals dealing exclusively with expired domains don’t know the true value of each domain.
The Relationship Between Price and SEO Performance
Just because a domain is expensive doesn’t necessarily mean it has high SEO performance. Rather, it’s important not to be misled by the price and to comprehensively judge other factors.
How to Find Domains with High Effects Even at Low Prices
Even low-priced domains can have high effects. What’s important is to prepare as many clean domains without spam history as possible within your budget and try them to find effective ones.
【Summary】What You Should Truly Prioritize When Choosing Expired Domains
When selecting expired domains, you should avoid relying excessively on commonly accepted conventions. I always check various domain metrics myself; I confirm the number of backlinks and look at the domain age. However, to achieve results in SEO, there is a point that should be prioritized more than these metrics.
That is, “trying as many domains as possible within your budget.” I have even had the experience of deploying as many as 500 expired domains for profitable keywords. By trying many domains, sometimes unexpected domains can exhibit high effectiveness.
As discussed in this article, matching the previous operational genre, high SEO metrics, domain age, or high-priced domains do not necessarily lead to results. What’s important is to try many clean domains without spam history and find the effective ones among them.
It is said that Google’s algorithm evaluates based on as many as 14,000 metrics. While it would be ideal to accurately predict all of these and select expired domains accordingly, in reality, it is extremely difficult. That’s why many practitioners reach this conclusion.
However, to execute this strategy, you need to obtain many domains at affordable prices. Purchasing from general expired domain vendors costs about $50 to $100 per domain, and many may find it difficult budget-wise. Next, you might try to spend your own time to find many expired domains cheaply. However, that also requires an enormous amount of time.
For those who get stuck in this way, our site exists.
We sell “usable” expired domains, carefully selected based on my many years of experience, starting from $9.99. Here is an environment where you can try many expired domains without spending time and within your budget. Please make use of this in your expired domain strategy.