How To Quickly Rank Amazon Affiliate Sites With Expired Domains
In this post we discuss the advantages of using expired domains over normal fresh domains and we'll show you the various methods of finding great expired domains to give your Amazon affiliate website a kick start.
Let's cover each of these in more detail.
What is an expired domain?
Expired domains are simply domains that have not been renewed by their owners. This can be for many reasons such as a business has failed, the domain has an SEO penalty (we'll cover this in more details), a blogger that simply no longer wants to blog or even a death of a webmaster.
Once they expire they enter a grace period where the original owner can buy the domain back at a more expensive price but after the grace period expires they either go to auction or are just "deleted" where anyone can now buy them using the normal way you'd buy a domain through a domain registar.
Why start your Amazon affiliate website with an expired domain?
You'd start your new Amazon affiliate website on an expired domain for several reasons.
- Skip the Google sandbox
- Gain link juice from the expired domains links
- Free referral traffic
Let's cover those in more details.
Skipping the Google sandbox
Most SEO experts agree there is a Google sandbox or at least a set of Google ranking factors that make it feel as if there is a sandbox at play in the Google rankings. By using an expired domain you can skip the ranking restrictions Google applies to new domain names. Depending on your niche Google can sandbox you for 3-6 months so this advantage is pretty cool!
Gain link juice from the expired domains links
The number one reason people use expired domains for their new Amazon affiliate websites is that they get all the backlinks and in turn link juice that the expired domain possessed before it expired. Some expired domains that go to auction can have 4000 plus referring domains. With all this link juice you are sure you rank higher on Google and you can target more competitive keywords such as keywords with buying intent like "best blenders" etc.
Getting links naturally is very hard these days, especially to Amazon affiliate sites that are created with the sole purpose of selling Amazon items. People guard their link juice like its gold. It's almost like a new web currency. If you were to buy these links it would cost way more than the expired domain and it would look highly unnatural to Google and you risk receiving a penalty and being deindexed from Google.
Free referral traffic
If your expired domain name is in a similar niche to your new Amazon affiliate website then getting some referral traffic through the expired domains backlinks is an added bonus. Plus when your backlinks get natural traffic through them it makes everything look more natural.
When we say referral traffic we're talking about people clicking your expired domains backlinks from the website they are placed on and ending up on your new Amazon affiliate website.
Where is the best place to buy expired domains?
When buying expired domains for your Amazon affiliate website (or any website actually) you have three main options.
- Instantly buy scraped delete/expired domains - You can use cloud software or desktop software to crawl the internet looking for expired domains then register them instantly in a normal manner. While this used to be the default way, people have now began to understand the value of expired domains and its very hard to get strong domains using this method. However if you just want an expired domain with a handful of links to skip the sandbox this method is fine.
- Quickly buy domains from an expired domain reseller - You can use this option if you have an expired domain reseller you trust you can get expired domains that will rank well very quickly and will have all the spam checks (we'll cover this shortly) done already. However just remember it won't be as cheap as buying them at auction because the reseller will ad on their cut.
- Bid on an expired domain auction website such as GoDaddy - If you want strong well ranking domains for your Amazon affiliate website and are confident you know what a spammy backlink profile looks like (we'll cover this shortly) then this will be your best bang for buck option.
What should I look for in an expired domain?
When buying expired domains for your Amazon affiliate website here is a list of key points to help you secure a great domain.
- Check the backlink profile - When buying an expired domain for your Amazon affiliate website always check the backlink profile for spammy links first. By spammy backlinks we're talking about automated links made with software such as SER GSA and low quality public blog network links. These are the type of backlinks that might get your expired domain penalised before you even get to put any content on it.
- Check the quality of the website's content in the wayback machine - In addition to backlink based Google penalties you should be aware of content based Google penalties. These include "pure spam" and "thin content" penalties. It's good to use the wayback machine to check the quality of the website before it expired. That will give you a rough idea if it might currently have a Google penalty applied to it.
- Try to match the niche as closely as possible - Expired domains rank their best when they match the new websites niche and content well. You're backlinks will be more relevant and Google will be less suspicious.
- Don't break the Amazon associate terms of service with your domain name - This should be a given for most Amazon affiliates but if you use an expired domain for your new Amazon affiliate website don't use anything that is against the Amazon associates terms of service such as an adult or hateful domain name.
Conclusion
We hope this short post has given you an idea of how expired domains can be used to give you a head start in the SERPs against your competitors. They come with a price (either money or time scraping) and some small risks as its considered gray hat SEO but they can easily be worth it once that sweet Amazon affiliate commission comes rolling in from day one!