There are literally thousands of domain names that expire every day. For some reason or another the owner chose not to renew the name. Many of these domains have page rank, tons of backlinks and high-ranking keywords.What happens to those names and how can you get one without losing the age that is associated with it?

Most of these domains end up for sale at auction. The ones with higher Page Rank (3 or better) tend to command a premium price. If the name is coupled with a high-ranking keyword… look out! It will be very expensive to acquire.

When dealing with Page Rank on an a domain name that you are interested in purchasing, you need to be sure that the PR is valid. Many times domain names are pointed at other domains and they inherit the Page Rank from the site they are pointed at. An easy way to check is at Rank Checker. Just enter in the domain name and click. In a few seconds, you will know if the rank is valid or not.

Many domain experts will tell you to steer clear of closeout domains. At times, a few of these domains may have had issues in the past and some of the links pointing at them may not be the type of traffic that you desire. Some may even have been blacklisted for spam or other nefarious schemes. I say… embrace the closeout domains. I have gotten many bargains (including a PR 5 site) through closeout auctions. It is easy to determine if a domain name has issues.

If you need to determine the type of backlinks pointing at the site use Yahoo Site Explorer. This will show you up to 1000 backlinks pointing to a domain. Clicking a few of the links will show you what type of traffic that you can expect from them.

Checking on the banned status of a domain name is fairly simple, as well. You can search the Spamhaus Project and Realtime URI Blacklist to see if a name is banned. Even if you happen to purchase a banned name, do not panic. The time limit for a ban is usually very short and the name will soon be usable, again.

Where to find aged domains for sale.

There are many places out there where you can purchase quality aged domain names. Do a Google search for “aged domains for sale” and you will come up with quite a list. I personally prefer using GoDaddy and eBay.

There aren’t too many aged domains listed in the auction section of eBay, but I have been able to find ones with age and Page Rank and pick them up quite reasonably. It may take some time to sift through the listings, but finding a great domain name at the right price is worth the time and effort.

GoDaddy auctions are huge! There are tons and tons of domain names added each day. With GoDaddy, you can refine your search for many variables such as: age, traffic, price,  type (.com, .net, .org… etc.). This makes sorting through the list much quicker. You can even search by keyword if you have a specific project in mind. The one downside to GoDaddy is they charge you to participate in their auctions (except for the closeout domains). The one-time fee is nominal if you plan on purchasing many domains over the next few months.

There are literally hundreds of tools to help you find quality aged domain names. A few are free and others are quite expensive. These tools can be a huge time saver if you are buying large quantities of domain names. If you are only buying a few domains per year, the investment in high-priced tools is probably not something you will need or be cost-effective.

Why not wait until the domain is dropped and register it without paying the auction price plus renewal fee? If a domain name is dropped back into circulation, you may not get it registered before someone else does. Also, when you register a domain name this way, the age of the domain (in the eyes of registrars and search engines) returns to zero, so you lose the age that has been built up by the previous owner(s). Aged domains tend to be indexed quicker and rank higher than new domains, so why piss away that clout to save a few bucks?