The SEO secret of (the not) free domain names

A good domain name can be worth from 100 euros to thousands of euros. Depending on the name and the number of backlinks.

But why don't real gems ever get released through a platform like ExpiredDomains or any other similar platform?

I delved into that once and there I came across quite a shocking thing.

Why are (vacant) domain names interesting?

By now you know that SEO consists of technology, content and authority. Authority, also called link building, indicates how authoritative your website is within Google.

Being an authority in Google depends on many things. For example, the age of your domain/website, the number of backlinks, the quality of the backlinks and more.

Building good backlinks is very labor intensive and can take you months or even years.

What if I told you that there are people who have had a website for years, built their authority, but then quit their website and thus get rid of the domain name?

Then, of course, now you're thinking, "Well, then I want that domain name, because that authority is worth something.

You can link to it, use it yourself or use it for link building purposes.

Disclaimer: deploying used domain names is gray area within SEO. So be careful with this!

How to find out if a domain name is released

Obviously, released domains can be a goldmine. Now you may be wondering "How do I know when a domain name becomes free?".

There are a number of ways to do that:

• You can check with SIDN when a domain name expires
• You can see lists of domain names being released on websites like ExpiredDomains on DomainQuarantine
• You can buy domain names from other people (if someone beat you to it)

There are also all kinds of software, tools and other features on the market. But I haven't tested those yet.

The secret about the unreleased domain names

Drumroll...

We have arrived at the most important part of this article. When I tell people this normally, they look at me questioningly and think "Huh, seriously?".

Because to be perfectly honest: the really good free domain names, the gems of the Internet, you're never going to come across them.

The reason is very simple. This is because large online marketing agencies with their own link network of thousands of websites have made price agreements with registrars.

Before I continue: a registrar is an organization that is allowed to register .nl domain names.

Because of this price agreement, the big agencies have privileges. For example, they can hijack a domain name 2 days before it is released to the general public.

Bizarre huh. This means that the link network will get even bigger, more and more good domain names will be gobbled up and there will be nothing left for you and for the small agencies.

By now I have spoken to several of these larger agencies. And they all tell me very proudly that they add as many as 50, 100 or 200 websites per month to their link network.

And if you don't already know: so that's black-hat SEO. In other words, SEO that Google doesn't like and can (and someday will) punish rock hard.

So be careful with that.