To benefit from an instant boost in search engine rankings, some internet experts may suggest that your business invests in an expired domain. These are domain names which already exist but have not been renewed by the person who made the previous registration.
By picking an existing domain name, your website should automatically benefit from the search engine rankings applied to the previous site. This is great where the expired domain has a “good” rating, but could be disastrous if the site was blacklisted, or flagged as harmful by the search engines. So how do you tell?
Before registering any expired domain name, you should carry out a basic check to see whether Google has recorded any problems. There are two ways to do this:
1. Visit Google and search for your domain name using the format site:[Insert domain name]. If no results are returned, it is likely that Google has de-listed the domain name – poison for the success of your new website. It is important to note that any completely new domain name will not appear in the search results either.
2. Visit blacklis.com (that’s no mistype – there is no ‘t’) and use the supplied tool to check whether the domain has been blacklisted by Google.
By checking domain name registrations in this way you can be sure you get the bonus boost expected, rather than a painful penalty. If in any doubt at all however, speak to your SEO or domain name registration specialist.
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