welcome back this is John Locke and today I'm answering a great question that I saw in an SEO
forum. It goes a little something like this. "What is the the better type of domain to get
to try and rank with the site? Should I buy a brand new domain? Or should I use a dropped or
expired domain?" Now I have a couple thoughts on this. Now keep in mind too that Google became a
domain a domain registrar, meaning like GoDaddy or Hover or Namecheap, they can register domain
names in certain situations. And the reason that they did this is so they can get access to WHOIS
records. This means they can look at the records of everybody who has registered your domain,
and they look they can look at the full history of that [registrar history]. Now with dropped
domains and expired domains, there is a danger, because a lot of times people have their reasons
why they've been allowed to expire. The reason why they're dropped is because people at one
point were using them for a private blog network (PBN). Or maybe they built a bunch of shady links;
maybe they built a bunch of garbage links back to this website. Maybe they were using it for
affiliate Commission. Maybe they got hacked or infected. There's a million reasons why domains
end up getting dropped and not used, so be very careful [before using them]. Do a lot of research
into that [domain history]. Don't just pick up a dropped domain and use it for your "money" site.
I would say in fact, don't use any dropped or expired domain for a money site. If you're going
to use an established domain, and it is a good way to stay out of the Google sandbox--and the
sandbox, as we've talked about in previous video, is where there is a bit of a dampening effect on
the ranking power of a site for the first nine, ten, eleven, twelve months that the domain is
being used. Because Google wants to make sure that it's not a churn-and-burn site, meaning
people are using it for affiliate commissions. So a lot of people they'll just register a domain
for a year--they'll build up all the garbage links in the world to it [the website]. They'll
be writing articles to try and get attention to rank for things , [trying to] rank for articles,
and they will use all sorts of things [to try and rank]. But they're dropping all these affiliate
links in there. So they really don't care about the long-term health of a dropped domain. So
that is one reason to avoid using it for a money site. Now if you have carefully checked out a
domain, and you've determined that the risk is worth it and there's not a bunch of garbage
links that are going to start flowing PageRank to that site again. if you activate it and use
it for your satellite site then go ahead; but I wouldn't use it for your main site. Use it for
a satellite site. You can use it for a secondary site or something like that. But don't use it for
your main money site. I would say in fact use a brand new domain for your money site don't
try and and flow that old PageRank into your main site. Because again, things can crop up [causing
problems]. Now I like I said before, Google is a domain registrar. I do believe that if a domain is
all the way dropped and expired, and it is out of that grace period where people can re-pick it up
for a fee, then Google [I believe] treats those as a separate type of thing, [as opposed] to if it's
a transition--where if you acquire a business, and you take over the domain, and you're taking
an active business over, and you're transitioning that domain, and you're transferring ownership--I
think that's a little bit different and Google treats those as probably the most pure. Those
are the the safest type of transitions but if you're picking up a dropped domain? Like I said,
I think that Google treats it as if it's basically starting from scratch. Now I do think that it's in
the sandbox for less period of time the links will eventually like flow PageRank back into
it [the website]. Like I said, if it's a money site, you get a brand new domain. If you just
need a secondary site, or if you're just doing a hobby site or something like that, and it's not
your main business, then go ahead and and pick up that dropped domain. But realize Google puts it in
a different category once that domain has been expire--fully expired--and you're resurrecting
it as a brand new site. Now one thing that I do want to mention is, if you are picking up a
dropped domain, you can't just build any old thing that you want to on top of it. The subject matter
has to match up [to the original website]. Because Google will try and crawl the old URLs that has in
Googlebots's memory--remember that Googlebot has an infinite memory. So it's going to try
and crawl those old URLs. So if the content that you're putting on this newly launched site closely
matches up to the original content, that's going to be good. Like I said, if you if you're buying a
dropped domain for, let's say catering, you can't just put a photography site on there, or something
like that, it has to match up one-to-one. Also, if you relaunch the site the closer that the content
is to the original content at first, that's going to be better. If you can go back in archive.org
and closely match the content that was there before and then if you want to gradually change
it, that's probably a good idea. But don't just resurrect the site and and not have redirects in
place. [All those sorts of things.] Make sure that any pages that once existed on that old site are
redirecting to the pages that will exist on this newly relaunched version. But like I said, dropped
domains are not a big SEO tactic [in present day]. I think in the past this would have been
a thing. Like I said, most people now pick them up in order to build PBN's or private blog networks,
and so if it was involved in something like that before, that might be a reason why it's dropped.
Be really careful with them. Don't go overboard on it [buying and using dropped domains]. It's
not the main type of SEO strategy that I would employ. Yeah, I hope that answers
that question. My name is John Locke, My business is Lockedown SEO. We're here every day publishing
videos. I would love to see you subscribe. That's all I have for now. Until next time, peace.