A (0:00)

This is Grumpy SEO Guy, episode 83. Are expired domains actually losing their authority? Part two. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. I'm the grumpy SEO Guy, and I'm sharing with you the strategies that have helped me successfully run my SEO agency for the last 14 years. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my knowledge and experience, discussing tips and strategies, and trying to help you cut through the confusion that permeates this industry. If you listen to this podcast, you will know more about SEO than 99% of people on the planet. Ready? Let's get started. I'm the Grumpy SEO guy. Let me tell you why I'm grumpy today. Actually, I'm not really that grumpy today. Let's be honest, I'm pretty grumpy, but I'm not really that grumpy today. But look, here's the thing. In this episode, we're gonna talk about additional reasons if expired domains are losing authority. This is the biggest thing that everybody loves to say. They love to go expired domains losing their authority. And that means you're not gonna be able to make a PBN anymore. Okay, take a step back. Take a step back. I'm gonna rehash some of what we did in the last episode, and then I'm going to give you one more reason why expired domains are probably not going to lose their authority. But before I do that, I want to address a couple things. First of all, people have commented on YouTube and they have said, Grumpy SEO guy, I have a question for you. How do I get in contact with you? And the reply is, just listen to literally any episode. Because I give my email address at the end of every episode. Look, I know that not everybody has time to listen to a full episode, and I am very grateful for the people that do listen to my episodes, however long you listen to. So I'm going to tell you my address right now, hellorumpyseoguy.com that's how you can contact me. Or you can just listen to the end of the episodes. Because at the end of the episode, I tell you what my email address is. But if you don't want to email me, you can contact me on Reddit. My username is Grumpy SEO Guy. Or you can post on the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit. We have a cool discussion forum there where people who listen to Grumpy Grumpy SEO Guy can ask the questions and get responses from me and other people. It's pretty awesome. Okay, I hope that helps. If you have questions, that's how you can get into contact with me. For people that want to support the podcast, you can do that@patreon.com Grumpy SEO Guy, you don't have to, but I'm very appreciative of those that do support the show. This podcast takes a long time to do every week and it really helps. So, okay, let's get back on subject. But before we do that, my lawyer tells me that I have to say this right now. A quick disclaimer before we get started. Everything I say here is based on my experience and opinion from 14 years in the industry. I don't officially know how Google or any other search engines work. Everything I say here is hypothetical and based on my experience, this podcast does not constitute advice or services. What worked for me may or may not work for you. Okay, back to the show. Okay, look, so here's kind of what we talked about in the last episode. Let me summarize it for you. People buy domains that have authority and are expired because it is much quicker to buy a domain with authority than to try and get authority on a brand new domain. Okay, and why do we want to do that? Well, because the main ranking factor is authority, and the only way to get authority is to get backlinks. And authoritative domains have more authority to provide with their backlinks compared to regular domains. Domains. Actually, that's a bad way of putting it. I don't want people to think that there are authoritative domains and not authoritative domains. Every. Let me. Okay, let me actually clarify this because I feel like people have not understood this point. So let me just say it really quickly. All backlinks give authority. All backlinks give authority. Unless it's like a spammy domain or a penalized domain or something. Look, okay, all normal, non penalized websites, okay, all normal websites give authority with their backlinks. And of course, unless it's like a nofollow, which is. Which is arguable, by the way, if it actually passes authority or not. I have another episode on that. So that episode is episode 38, whatever. Or if it's UGC user generated content or if it's sponsored, you know, like whatever. But like, normal backlinks provide authority. Now, the more authority a website or a webpage has, the more authority its links pass. So people buy authoritative domains and they create backlinks to their sites or their client's sites. From those authoritative domains and it makes them rank higher. Okay? That's how SEO works. That's like the majority of SEO right there. So anyway, people say that expired domains are not going to have authority anymore. Okay, that's fine, whatever. Look, so in the last episode, I said that is. It's not feasible that that's going to happen. And I quoted the article that people got this bit of data from and explained why. I don't think it's correct. But anyway, look, this is a way you can tell if this is actually real or not. Watch the prices of expired domains. Expired domains are very expensive. If they stop working, meaning they lose their authority, the prices will drop very quickly. Why? Because nobody's going to want to spend lots of money on a domain that doesn't have a lot of authority. Most buyers do not want to spend lots of money on domain just for the domain name. I mean, like, that does happen, but seldom, okay? What they do buy is domains with lots of authority. So if that authority vanishes, nobody's gonna spend a lot of money on expired domains anymore. So the easiest way to find if expired domains have lost their authority is to watch the prices of expired domains. And if they drop, it means they lost their authority and nobody wants to buy them anymore. Okay? That's how supply and demand works. This is economics. This is also how SEO works. People complain on this podcast when it's not how to do SEO, how to do SEO quickly, but the best episodes. And this is coming from somebody who does SEO for a living. The best episodes are the ones that explain SEO, not a quick checklist to do SEO, because SEO is not a checklist. SEO is not a procedure. Procedure of things that you follow. SEO is understanding theory and concepts that explain why it worked the way it worked, why it works the way it works, and why it will work the way it will work. So it's funny. I publish episodes that I think are the best episodes and they get like, the fewest views because they're not like six easy steps to rank anything. But if I produced an episode like that, it would be a disservice to everybody listening because there are not six easy steps to ranking. That's not how SEO works. I've said before that if you understand economics, you understand SEO. I think I said that. I might not have. My bad if I didn't. I also think I said if you understand social behavior, you understand SEO. I have talked before in detail about how ranking a website is the same as being popular in high school. Okay? And as Far as I'm concerned, that's like the most helpful analogy ever. So I'm probably not going to get into it now, but I will, because this is going to be a short episode. Anyway, look, okay, this is how SEO works, okay? And I want you to think about being popular in high school. I was not popular in high school, but I watched the popular kids. Okay, look, actually, not kidding. I was not popular in high school. Anyway, look, what makes you popular in high school? People will come up with all these crazy things that seem right, they sound right, but they're wrong. They will say, you know, being funny makes you popular. Well, maybe popular kids might be funny, but that's not why they're popular. Being good looking makes you popular. Well, maybe you might be good looking and popular, but that's not what makes you popular. Being good at sports. Well, maybe there are many kids in high school who are good at sports and popular, but that's not the reason they're popular. And then they'll have all these other reasons that make you popular. It's not the reason they're popular. The reason they are popular is because they are friends with other popular kids. That is the reason they are popular. And if you really remember back to high school or those of you that are in high school now, you can just look around your high school. That is what makes people popular. And if you really look hard, okay, you will see people in high school who are good looking but not popular, who are funny but not popular, and who are good athletes but are not popular. Okay? Therefore, those are not the things that make you popular. And you will also find popular kids that are not those things. Okay? That is not what makes you popular. Now, let's talk about SEO for a second. What makes you rank? Having authority makes you rank. People will come up with all this thinking that they think it makes sense. They'll say, oh, websites rank because they have good content. No, that's the wrong reason. Websites rank because they have good user interaction. No, that's not why you rank. Websites rank because they load fast. Nope, that's not why you rank. Websites rank because they have authority. That is what makes you rank. Now, obviously there's like a couple other things, but most of it is authority. Okay? You can have good content and authority, but good content is not the reason you have authority. You can have a fast website, but being a fast website is not the reason the website has authority. You can have good user interaction, but that's not the reason you have authority. I'm sure you've seen bad websites rank and you're like, this content is terrible. Why is it ranking? It's ranking because it has authority. That is the reason websites rank. Well, I mean technically there's four things you need to rank, and we talk about these in episode 51, which is called the four things you need to rank, but authority is the biggest one. Anyway, that is the greatest analogy for SEO. The point is, if you understand stuff like that, you will be so much more skilled at SEO than if you're like, oh, I need checklists, things to do to rank. SEO is not a checklist. SEO is understanding how SEO works. I'm not gonna be like three simple ways to get to the top of the search engine like some clickbait video. Alright, what? Whatever, whatever. Look, let's talk about the other reason that authority is feasibly going to remain attached to expired domains. Okay, okay, but let's think for a minute. It's not three simple steps to SEO. Okay, okay, look, I want you to imagine that There are only 100 PBNs in existence and I have no idea. I'm sure there's more than that, but I want you to just think that There are only 100 PBNs in existence today. Okay, so Google says expired domains are losing their authority. Okay. Uh oh, they just lost all their authority. So what does that mean? That means no one will be able to quickly build a PBN ever again. Why? Because expired domains just lost their authority and now they're starting from nothing. Okay, so what does that mean? That means that all expired. First of all, it means the prices of expired domains would drop. But it means any domain that you buy would have zero authority. Well, it would have minimal authority, not zero authority. And you'd have to start building backlinks to it, which takes money and it takes time. It would take a very long time to build a PBN if that were the case. It would take a very long time because you'd have to get backlinks from already authoritative websites, which you would have to either spend a lot of time doing or pay for them. Okay, it would take a lot of time. Nobody wants to do that. With that said, remember I said in this example there are only 100 PBNs in existence. Okay, so what does that mean? It means nobody can build a new PBN. What does that mean? It means the only PBNs that are beneficial to use now are the ones that already exist. What does that mean? That means the cost of backlinks is going to raise considerably because nobody can build a PBN anymore. So the only PBNs that are worthwhile are the ones that already exist. That increases scarcity. Do you remember from two episodes ago, I said for something to be useful in SEO, it has to be one useful or valuable, whatever. And two scarce, okay? If everybody can do a thing quickly and easily, it will not benefit any SEO. Why? Because it's easy to do, it has to be useful, and it has to be scarce, okay? If this were the case and all the authority was removed from expired domains, it would mean that nobody has quick and easy access to a PBN anymore. So that means that existing PBNs just became more scarce, which means they just became more expensive. The cost of backlinks would 10x if not more, because nobody could build a PBN anymore. And I do not think Google would let that happen. Because remember, search engines do not like SEO consultants. They acknowledge them and they know that SEO is a business, but they do not like SEO consultants because SEO consultants game the search engine results on a daily basis. Okay? And I talked about that in the last episode, so I'm not going to get into it more now. But anyway, if expired domains drop their authority, this means the prices of backlinks will go up massively. Because the only PBNs that will work will be currently existing PBNs. And anybody that doesn't like me talking about PBNs like this, you can just say authoritative domains, those back. Even if, even if it's not a pbn, those backlinks that you're selling or that somebody's selling, whatever, the price would go up because nobody can replicate it anymore because it just became scarce. Okay? That's not going to happen. It's not. That's not going to happen, okay? People are going to say that this is wrong, but the principles of economics govern all business, including SEO. And SEO is kind of in a different area where, like, not only do the principles of economics govern it, but also the principles of society. Like, I was talking about popularity and ranking and all that stuff, because SEO is really just social understanding, but with websites instead of people, okay? So, like, I don't know how else to explain it. People are gonna disagree and say, well, just write the good content. But those people can't rank anything. So I don't know, man. So I hope this makes sense. In conclusion, expired domains are not losing their authority. Stop worrying, stop complaining, and stop complaining. And I said it twice because stop complaining. A lot of the messages on the grumpy SEO guy subreddit are like, oh, this is gonna stop working. No, it's not. Calm down. Calm down. Okay? Let's calm down. I just explained why it's not gonna stop working. And if it does, which it's not, but if it does, maybe content would start mattering and the Internet would become a better place. But that's not gonna happen, because quality of content is not a ranking factor. Content matters, but it matters about relevancy, not about how good the content is. And for those of you that still think that's the case, how would you account for bias? Nobody can even answer this question. Everybody's like, nah, just write good content and you'll rank. Except you won't. How about bias? If the. Okay, my gosh, you guys. If the algorithms, okay, could determine the quality of content, which they can't, but if they could, how would they compensate for bias? Well, what do you mean by bias, Grumpy SEO guy. Look at this. This episode is longer than I thought it was gonna be. Bias means, what is the belief system of the person writing the content? If you've ever searched for anything related to anything that's an opinion. Music, sports, politics, movies, art, any of those things, you cannot. You. You cannot remove bias from the search results. Why? Because all of those things are subjective. What does that mean? It means everybody has their own opinions on them. Okay? So I cannot tell you that such and such band is better than such and such other band because there is no. There is no good and bad when it comes to music. I mean, because you have your personal preferences, it means music is subjective. Search engines cannot account for that because somebody was like, what is the best song like? You can't even answer that question. You might not like the song that they suggest. That doesn't make any sense. Content will never. Let me start over. The quality of content will never be king because of bias and also because search engines can't understand it. Saying content is king is like saying that being smart makes you popular. Like, okay, that's a trait that some popular people have, but it's not the reason they're popular. Good content is a trait that some ranking websites have, but it's not the reason they rank. In conclusion, going to the topic that we were talking about before. Anyway, look, if it were to happen, you will see the prices of expired domains tank. You will see them tank to almost nothing. Because nobody's going to want to pay for a domain that doesn't have authority, okay? Because nobody will pay extra for any of it because it won't have any value. Economics, people do not pay extra for stuff that does not have extra value. Okay, the prices will fall and the prices of backlinks from websites and PBNs that already have been built and have authority will raise substantially. If those things happen, it means the authority was pulled from expired domains. But if those things do not happen, it means they're fine. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe and if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review. It would really help the show out. I hope this episode was helpful. If you have any questions or want to suggest a subject for a future episode, you can contact me on Reddit. My username is Grumpy SEO Guy. You can visit the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit or you can email me@hellorumpyseoguy.com if you email me, please either whitelist my email address or check your junk folders because I've been told that my replies are going into the junk folder and it's probably because we're talking about things like SEO and backlinks and I think those words will clash. Classify an email as spam and if you want to support the podcast because it's the best source of SEO information on the planet and it's free, you can do so@patreon.com Grumpy Seoguy and I will talk to you later. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. Join us next Wednesday when we talk about do all backlinks pass.