Now that you have done your research for keywords (see blog post here) and you are ready to register that brand new domain name, we suggest that you consider an aged domain instead.

What is an aged domain name?
An aged domain name is one that has been previously registered and for whatever reason has not been renewed. Repeatedly, people register them and, because they are no longer using them, just do not renew them or just plain forget to.

There are many reasons why aged domain names become available for re-registering including, the company or individual using the domain name has gone bankrupt and has no further use for it. And, sometimes people register domain names just to on sell them (called domain name flipping).

When it came time to renew a website name, many people do not have an automatic renewal system in place or their renewal notice went to an email address no longer used by the registrant, and the domain name then became available for anyone to register.

This is why it is important that you always keep your contact details up-to-date with your domain registrar.

What are the advantages of owing an aged domain name?
1.    Domain Age: Because it has been registered for a longer period of time, search engines like Google assume it has more authority.

2.    Page Rank: Many expired website domain names still have back-links linking to the website and as such, still have a page ranking within the search engines.

3.    Back-Links: If a site has good back-links from other highly ranked websites or from authority sites like government sites (.gov or .org sites) they will automatically index faster and rank higher for keywords and phrases in the search engines.

4.    Existing Traffic: Many expired domains may still have visitors because of previous postings or campaigns by the previous owner of the domain.

There are other reasons why you might want to consider an aged domain name but these are generally the main reasons why you would get one. And, if you can get one containing a keyword you are targeting, that’s better still.

Please note: We are talking about aged or expired domains and not deleted ones and there is a difference. An aged or expired domain will still retain its age but a deleted domain, while still retaining its age, page rank, links and traffic, it may well be subjected to what search engines call “sand boxing”. This is where the search engines treat it as a “new” domain because it was deleted.

The trick is to grab the domain before the domain registrar deletes it.  There are a number of free websites available that you can use to find aged domains or expired domains. We use http://www.aged-domain-finder.com which will allow you to search for domains and provide information about the age of the domain name, how many and what type of back-links it has, whether or not it has and traffic (visitors), and its page rank.

Click the play button on the video below to get an overview of the aged domain finder website.

You can even do a search for domain names using your keywords which is a handy feature, and also has what is called a way-back machine, which is a catalog of all its web pages at various points of time so you can see what sort of content it contained (just in case its been black-listed from the search engines).

So in a nutshell you are looking for domain names that:
1.    Have your keyword(s) in it.
2.    Is at least 5 years old.
3.    Check the content history to make sure its appropriate to what you want and not blacklisted.
4.    Has a decent amount of good back-links if possible.
5.    Has some existing traffic if possible.

Buying an aged domain can leap frog you in front of your competition when launching your website and you can often pick up domain names for as little as $5 plus standard registration fees. Many of the domains offered at aged domain finder are either auctioned or sold as “buy it now” so be careful to check before placing your bid… and happy hunting!