A Search Engine Strategy - Use Or Avoid It?

One of the strategies that website owners use to get a high rank or to get indexed quickly in the search engines, for their new websites, is to buy expired domain names.

Basically, an expired domain name is a domain name that was not renewed by the previous owner. When it's expired, you have the right to buy it.

You see, an expired domain is good for search engine strategies because some of the expired domain names are already indexed in the search engines (Like Yahoo.com or Google.com). If you’re lucky, that domain name might have already ranked with a high position in the search engine for certain keywords.

Other than that, some expired domain names have existing 'backlinks' from other websites to it. This will definitely help to increase the search engine ranking. So if you buy a domain name before it gets 'kicked out' from the search engine, your webpage will be indexed faster.

If you're confused about what 'getting indexed' means, don't worry.

Let me explain. Basically, when you buy a new domain name and set up the website, your website is not in the search engines yet. You see, there are millions of websites in the search engines. It takes time for the search engines to find your websites. The first thing you need to have before getting a high rank in a search engine for certain keywords is you must get 'indexed'.

But don't be fooled with this simple strategy.

I want to share with you my recent experience so that you will not fall for my same mistake.

2 weeks ago, I bought an expired domain name that was already indexed in Yahoo.com.

Yes, I confirmed that it was already indexed.

Don’t know how to confirm it?

You can do that by going to www.Yahoo.com and type in the domain name for the search term. So if I want to know whether www.internetmarketing-tactics.com is already indexed or not, I'll just go to Yahoo.com and search for "internetmarketing-tactics.com".

So theoretically, when I go live with my websites using this new expired domain name that I've just bought, my websites will be indexed by the search engine faster than a using a brand new domain name.

Make sense? Good.

2 weeks passed. My new site was not indexed by the search engines – AT ALL.

I was puzzled. How can this happen?

I mean, that domain name had already been indexed in the search engine. In another words, it already existed in the search engines!

Finally, I figured out what could have gone wrong that time.

Yeah, it could be an expired domain that had already been indexed by the search engine.

But, I don't know the history of that expired domain name. There's a possibility that it had expired and was not renewed, even though the domain name is already indexed, because ...

It might be a banned domain.

I have no clue what the previous owner might have done to upset the search engines, but once a domain name is banned, it will no longer appear.

Stay away from banned domain names. It'll take a lot of work and effort to get them unbanned.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that using expired domain names do not work. It works but you must be careful and really understand the system first.

What's the lesson here?

Don't follow any internet marketing strategies blindly. Some of those marketers teaching all sorts of strategies might not even have a clue whether they are workable or not. The best method is to always do your own testing and further research first. At the end of the day, it's your responsibility to be successful.