Is buying aged domains considered a blackhat technique?
This question has come up a few times. First, let me give you a little background on the question. It is a widely held belief that the age of a domain plays a role in the search results. I subscribe the theory that the older the domain the better for Search Engine Optimization. One way to side-step the problem of a new domain is not to have one. Instead, you simply buy an aged domain either at expired domain auction, backorder, or from a private seller. Expired domain auctions are the easiest and provide for the fewest headaches later on so I’ll just use that as an example. Everything else translates equally well with only very minor twists.
So, the question…Is buying aged domains considered a blackhat technique?
Yes; but only if you are buying it for the SEO value.
“Oh, great! Another judgement call from the whitehat so-called gurus!!”, you say.
Not quite. I’m a whitehat guy…and a blackhat guy…I draw the line at what would be considered illegal or imoral in the real world. That’s not a justification or addmission of guilt. It’s business and the smartest or luckiest or boldest or (insert any appropriate adjective here), wins or at least wins his or her portion of the traffic.
I buy domain names at expired domain auction and have picked up some real winners over the years. I’ve also picked up some real dogs that should be taken out behind the barn and put out of their misery, (never drink with the browser window open to GoDaddy and your credit card in hand). When I’m in the mood, I’ll go check out all the expiring domains and export them to a list then bulk-lookup the domain age and then sort the results by age. I’ve picked up domains 10 years old but mostly 5, 6, and 7 year old domains. I make sure they’re relevant to what I’m doing or I can at quickly throw up a site and plug in some adsense. I’ll then typically hire somebody to get me a hundred or so anchored backlinks and then forget about it. Over the next few years the site will pay for itself until I decide what I really want to do with it. by the 3rd year I’ve got $50-$75 invested and have about that much in revenue; plus, I still have the site. It’s only getting older and I haven’t really put much into it because I don’t really have time for anything more than that for these, “throw away” sites.
Now, of course I can monetize these a lot better but I would have to spend a lot more time optimizing each site and that’s not my primary objective. Although, some of the more niche sites I do more and get more. My primary objective is to have all the pages indexed and getting natural traffic with the minimum effort. Another rule of mine is that all content on my pages must be unique so that I stay out of the duplicate content filter.
So…right or wrong, I employ the blackhat technique of purchasing aged domains purely for the SEO value. I won’t go into further detail other than to say that buying multiple aged domains for a single client project is routine; use your imaginiation…or don’t…I’ll just tell you. If you can rank highly with multiple domains for the same keyword set then you can dominate that niche.
One note about SEO’s claiming to have the magic bullet with Search Engine Optimization: To paraphrase Jim Rohn: Be cautious of those claiming to manufacture antiques. There are no new fundamentals.
Take care,
David