Note that this is part of the expired domain series which has been compiled in order of importance here.
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I have been responding to emails from readers who have shown me some of their finds, and some have included some spammy domains, including this one:
www.tanieuggboots.com
Statistically speaking, this domain is a premium domain, it has 178 LRDs, and a DA of 41, and a root domain moztrust of 4.64 which also makes it bypass my spam filter. But it is a spammy-ass domain, and you should not buy it. I think I needed to be clearer as to how to identify spam, and this post is an attempt to do that.
What is a spammy link profile
I define spammy link profiles, as profiles that have links from sites that have nothing to do with the site’s topic. In particular I am looking to avoid buying sites that an IM or an SEO might have touched. The reason is that they probably let the domain expire because it got deindexed.
So BS comment links, obvious paid links, sites that are clearly part of someone elses blog network, web 2.0 links and most importantly unnatural anchors or all reasons to run for the hills. The backlink profile is a rich tapestry that should illustrate the domains topic and history to you, if it doesn’t make sense, don’t buy.
In this case, the reader bought the domain based on the metrics but couldn’t see the actual links as OSE had no data. It turns out that OSE had no data because the links were too spammy for them to bother with. When I checked Ahrefs, I could see that this domain has hidden english links on croatian sites that have nothing to do with ugg boots.
PS – If you don’t like ahrefs, you can also use MajesticSEO. A free registered account there also gives about the same amount of infomation as Ahrefs.
Bradley C. says:
I use MajesticSEO as a final check, and unfortunately MajesticSEO give this domain a good “Trust Flow” value.
But, a quick look at the anchor text will reveal that most of these links are far from natural.
It makes me wonder how it got such a high mozTrust and “Trust Flow” value.
Hayden says:
Ya it’s hard to say. But I have found that mozTrust has been a very effective filter (haven’t looked so much at trust flow). I’m thinking of dropping ahrefs for majesticseo though! This is a good demonstration that you need to check the backlinks, everytime.
Andre Garde says:
Don’t buy stuff with:
– ugg boots / uggs
– insurance
– payday loans
– anything pharmaceutical
– male/female “enhancement” related stuff
Brandon A says:
I have come across a couple of expired domains such as this.
Figured I better stay away as it looked like a portion of the links pointing to the site contained articles with different topics.
Hayden – What is your take on domains with less than 10 root domain links pointing to them? I was able to find a big selection of expired domain that have 1 (rarely 2) PR5/PR6 pointing to them..with on occasion a supported PR1/PR2 link. MozTrust on all of these are 5.6+
Are these worth getting, or is the limited backlink profile not worth it?
Hayden says:
I did update the post on the metrics so do take a look at root domain moztrust now. Having a handful of LRDs is not terrible, if the links they do have are super-high authority or PR. It really depends on how this compares to other sites you are finding. If you feel you can find PR4+ sites that have more links, then don’t buy.
Zara says:
Hi Hayden,
I bought 6 domains after my search. Got them indexed. Now 2 domains have turned PR4 & PR5 but other 4 domains are PR 0 ( not PR N/A ). Does it mean that my research was bad on those 4 domains? or they will get PR after next PR updates? All of these 4 domains have PR5 links pointing to them.
Josh says:
Hey Zara,
I had the same thing happen some sites have regained PR others have not, even though they are getting links from the same domains.
I would venture to guess some just take longer than others. BTW PR4 and 5 is good. Mine just turned into Pr3s, but I’m still pretty happy with that.
Zara says:
Whats your own experience? Does some of your domains turn PR 0 after indexing?
Robbie Burns says:
As a another check step you could fire open SEOSpyglass (free version) and check for the backlink profile of your domain before you buy.
Many metrics including anchor text, domain PR, IP address and more importantly link back are all clearly visible.
This will help you identify a spammy, weak backlink profile
Hope this helps
Daniel says:
Hayden, I found one that has 10 linking c-blocks in majestic (0 in OSE) one of them is valid PR6 others are without PR.
I already bought it… do you think it was worth it and should I buy more like this in future or is risk with only 1 strong backlink 2 big?
Also, you are Canadian right? I found a couple decent Canadian domains and can’t register them as I am not Canadian… Maybe you can help me out here and I give you backlinks on those domains in exchange :) ? If you are not Canadian my apologies :>
Andre Garde says:
Hmm, I left a comment yesterday but it didn’t show up. Anyway, try to avoid these types of domains or domains that have anchor texts such as:
– payday loans
– insurance
– anything pharmaceutical
– male/female “enhancement” products
– uggs boots
– buy X or Y product (I see a lot of perfume/cologne and sports stuff)
You can easily tell how spammy by looking at the anchor text weighting. It’ll be all pre-Panda and pre-Penguin so there will be tons of exact match anchor text. Should be easy to spot.
stuart says:
Ive left a few comments yesteday too and they didnt show up.
As a final check I use SEOSpyglass to generate the backlink profile to determine, domain IP, domain link PR, anchor text, plus other valuable metrics.
If you have the time before purchase I would recommend it
Bradley C. says:
Also, be sure to do some extra homework if it looks like the domain was owned by sort of marketing, web design or SEO company, even if the domain hasn’t had any drops.
I have found a few of those, and it looks like these sorts of companies have the tendency to “crash and burn” a domain.
Chris says:
Hayden,
How about a expired domain that has quite a few high pr’s (5s and4s), but the majority are no-follow.
Would this be disqualified?
amp says:
Thanks for the MajesticSEO reference. I find it much helpful than the other super limited restrictions for a basic version. Though I’d have to convert metrics that you typically mention to Majestic’s type since they seem different. For now I’m doing blogs and it does quite take awhile to find good ones. Do you recommend to change the Title of the blog as previously used or use the same but of course with different content?
Dustin says:
Whad do you mean with drops when you said
“Check whois domain tools for the number of drops”
What is the name of the data i need in the whois domain tool? Can I get that data without paying subscription?
Stu says:
Does anyone know how you can take a spam list of words eg ugg* payday* loans* etc and use this list to remove spammed domains from a potential list of domains to buy???
Bryan says:
thanks for the post. I have found a few urls that I think might work and wanted to know if they are spammy or not. Using this article I was able to tell they they weren’t.
Chris in Thailand says:
Stu, I’d try a search and replace in Excel – say FIND ‘uggz’ and REPLACE with ‘ZZZZZ’. From there, conditional formatting – if column has ‘ZZZZZ’ in it it turns red.
Conrad says:
I’m finding a couple good domains that have clean back link profiles, nothing spammy.
Yet checking out archive.org I see that it had previously been owned by an IM. For example… back in 2004 it was a website about a prestigous school, come 2009 in archive.org, its evidently was part of a blog network selling products in the P0|2.n, Pills, Pharm industry. Would you consider developing this domain if the backlink profile was otherwise clean? Or would you give it a miss? Google Index shows nothing so its probably been dropped.
What if it was promoting something less spammy? (e.g fat loss, green coffee beans?)
Thanks
Hayden says:
No to PPP. If something else AND 0 links in ahrefs, majestic and OSE, I’d give it a shot. Just launch the domain, ping it’s backlinks and see if it gets indexed. If so, develop, if not, trash.
Conrad says:
Hi All,
I’ve followed the guide and im finding heaps of good domains. However, I’m finding that more of them have issues more often than not. For example I find a domain with decent stats. “E-SASQUATCH.CA”
A quick look and its got a nice and clean link profile and great IP diversity. Looking in Archive.org, the site was once legit and awesome. (say 2004)
However, looking at recent times (2011), it seems that it was taken over, and repurposed to be part of someoneleses block network. Here’s the kicker. The type of content on the website is part of the tripple P. (Porn, Payday, Pharma) In this example, the IM was selling Fleshlights. (bless his soul)
It looks like the domain expired again, and can now be re-registered. In this case, would you register and build up this domain? The risk that I see is that this site has been deindexed by Google and any penality would transfer over to me. I’m really tempted to pick it up anyway as the link profile is clean with a great IP spread.
For cases like these, what would you do? (Pretty much every 3 domains I find fit in this category)
Thanks!
Hayden says:
When they fall in PPP I just avoid it. Sometimes they will be re-registered and have something else on, if they have no links I’d take the risk and register it. If it gets indexed you know it’s fine.