Grumpy SEO Guy (0:00)

This is Grumpy SEO Guy, episode 82. Are expired domains really gonna lose their authority? 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. I'm grumpy today because there's been a lot of discussion about whether or not expired domains are going to stop having authority. We're gonna find out if we can answer that question today. 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, let me give you a little bit of information because you probably understand what I'm talking about, but you might not. So authority is a main ranking factor, and the only way to get authority is by getting backlinks from authoritative domains. In fact, the quality of your backlinks is probably the biggest factor in whether or not you rank. It's not about the quantity of backlinks. It's very easy to go out and get thousands of low quality backlinks. They're not going to do much for you. It is very hard to get good quality backlinks. Okay, so one way that people get good quality backlinks is by buying expired domains and repurposing them to provide links to their client websites or their target websites or the sites that they want to rank. Okay, now, you can get authority with a regular domain, like not an expired domain. Like you can go buy a brand new domain with no authority, and you can get authority to that domain too. But it takes a lot of money and it takes a lot of time because you have to get good quality backlinks. Okay? So an Easier way to do it is to buy an expired domain where the last owner already got lots of authority and you're just buying the domain and it retains its previous authority. In fact, I explain how to do that in episode three. Okay, so anyway, anyway, there was a post made by Google that talked about something similar to that and how it's considered bad. And then people started saying, oh no, expired domains aren't gonna have authority anymore. Oh no. Anyway, okay, so let's talk about whether or not I think that's true. And then let's talk about what would happen if that were true. Okay, okay, so this episode might be a little scatterbrained because I want to explain a few things, but I'm not sure that I'm gonna explain them in an order that makes sense. So just listen anyway and I think it'll make sense. Okay, so I want to talk a little bit about the concept of expired domains losing their authority. Okay, so there were a number of things that I thought of when I heard this. And actually I want to first start by talking about where this idea even came from. Alright, so Google published on their blog and I'll give you the URL of this later so you can look it up yourself. But I'll just tell you what it says anyway. It says expired domain abuse is when an expired domain name is purchased and repurposed primarily to manipulate search rankings by hosting content that provides little to no value to users. For example, someone might purchase a domain previously used by a medical site and repurpose that to host low quality casino related content, hoping to be successful in search based on the domain's reputation from a previous ownership. So in other words, it's talking about somebody who buys a website that previously was a medical website and has lots of authority and then they repurposed it into a casino website. Now a couple, like a couple things here that first of all, if you listen to the exact language used, it says repurpose that to host low quality casino related content. I think it's funny that they specify low quality casino related content. Anyways, it doesn't matter. Okay, look, so, okay, my first thought on this is this is a casino website. Casino websites don't have the same guidelines as other websites. So ultimately it doesn't matter what website you use to make your casino website, it's a casino website. No disrespect. Like, come on, casino and adult and pharmacy are kind of controlled by a different set of guidelines than websites that are not casino, adult and pharmacy websites. So you know, like so, like, okay, look, that's the first thing I thought of. But let's, let's just, let's just kind of. Let's just kind of hold off on this for a little bit, okay? Because nowhere in here does it say that it's dropping its authority. It says, and I'm saying this in my own way here, it says you're abusing a domain by buying a previously authoritative domain from a medical site and making whatever casino website with it. Okay, well, obviously that doesn't sound like a good idea in the long run. Nowhere in here does it say that expired domains are losing their authority. Okay? But of course, that's how people interpreted it. And they're like, the expired domains aren't gonna work anymore. We're not gonna be able to build PBNs. That's private blog network. We're not gonna be able to build PBNS anymore. Okay, guys, look, this brings me to my next point. Search engines do not like people who do SEO. Okay? Like, just, just hold on, let me explain this. The purpose of SEO is to manipulate the search engine rankings, okay? People are like, no, not if you do good white hat SEO, dude. The purpose of SEO is to manipulate search engine rankings. I don't care if you're talking white hat or black hat or gray hat or whatever. The purpose of SEO is to manipulate results, okay? So even if you're only doing good SEO and you're only doing H1 tags and title tags, and you never buy backlinks because that's bad. Which, by the way, it's not. That's how you do SEO. But this is just what some people feel, right? Even if you're only doing those things, what made you use that specific H1 tag? What made you use that specific title tag? Is it because you're trying to rank higher for your keywords? Is it? Yes, that's manipulation. Anyway, look, so here's the point. Search engines do not like SEO people because SEO people manipulate the results. And search engines really do not want people to know that the results can be manipulated because then people might not value them as much. Right? Can you imagine a world where somebody's like, oh, did you look that up online? And they're like, oh, yeah, but you know what? Those results can be manipulated, so we're not gonn use them anymore. Okay? That would be like. That would be horrendous pr, Right? So search engines do not want people to know that they can be manipulated. But anyway, look, it's actually a very effective way to rank a website. If you were to buy expired domains, repurpose them into your own blogs, and link to your client websites, okay? That's a very good method that I explain in detail in episodes 3, 4, and 5. So you should listen to those episodes if you want to know how to do this. In fact, I would say that is probably the best thing you can can do. And, well, of all the SEO strategies that exist, there's a reason my agency does it that way and has done it that way for over a decade. Okay? Because it works like, ultimately, you need authority to rank. That's the most effective way I know of getting authority. So anyway, and by the way, if you want to know about the other. The three other ways to get authority, because there's four ways total to get authority, listen to episode 51, which is called the Four Ways to Get backlinks. Getting backlinks is the same as getting authority, because authority only comes from backlinks. It does not come from content. It does not come from title tags, it does not come from images. It does not come from site loading speed. It does not come from dwell time. It does not come from anything else. It only comes from backlinks. So if you want to know how to get authority or how to get backlinks, and there are four ways, listen to episode 51. Anyway, so look, so the point is, search engines don't like SEO people, but they have to play nicely with them, okay? And this isn't like this. I'm not. I'm not being like, this isn't like a conspiracy, right? It's not like, well, they hate them, but they have to play nicely with. It's just, they know that SEO people exist and they just need to maintain peace among everybody. Even though I feel like a lot of SEO people are consistently angry with the search engines. But whatever, whatever, it doesn't. It doesn't matter. They're just. They're just mad because that strategy that they were doing stopped working when the algorithm update happened. And it's like, bro, maybe if you hadn't. Well, you know what? I'm not even gonna. I'm not even. I'm not even gonna go there. I have other episodes that talk about that. So here's the point. Search. And I'll say it one more time, search engines do not like SEO consultants because they manipulate results. Okay? That's fine. So if there's a very effective way, okay, of getting your website to the top of the search engines, right, and people are taking advantage of it, it might make sense that the search engines would devalue it. Okay? In fact, I have an episode about this. It's called SEO Things yous Can't Do Anymore Because Spammers Ruined them. It's episode 33 and I talk about things like blog comment backlinks and forum profile backlinks and EMDs which is exact match domains and.info domains. So why people were taking advantage of them and the search engines basically stopped it being effective. Now, I do not think that that is the case with expired domains. Let me explain why. Actually, you know what, I'm going to explain this one in the next episode because otherwise this episode is going to be too long. Okay, now next topic. Just because they said something doesn't mean it's true. I'm not saying that search engines lie and I'm not saying that they're truthful. I'm just saying just because they say something doesn't mean it's true. But if you guys look at the actual document, it. It doesn't even say that expired domains are losing their authority. It doesn't even say that. It gives an example of making a casino page off of a medical domain, which is probably not a great idea anyway. Okay? I don't know. I just. I don't know. But you know what? They didn't even say it. So I don't have anything to say because they didn't even say it. Okay? Anyway, and next thing I was gonna say, there are different search engines. So just because Google does a thing, and by the way, all search engines have some unit of authority, right? Just because Google says a thing doesn't mean that Yahoo or Yandex or Bing or DuckDuckGo or whatever search engine is your favorite doesn't mean they're gonna do the same thing. Alright? And now the argument could be made. Well, everybody uses Google. Yeah, kind of. But you know what, who knows if that's gonna like, maybe like, I don't know, do you think that's gonna change in the future? So. Yeah, but you know, still. Anyway, so like, guys, here's what I would recommend. Actually, I'm gonna give you a couple ways to do this. One, you could go get an expired domain and see if it still works. Because just because somebody says a thing doesn't make it true. So maybe you could go see if it works. Or, or here's another fun way to do it. Ready? Because for those of you who don't want to spend any money but still want to see the result, watch the prices of authoritative domains and see what happens. If they lose their authority, okay? And it no longer works, the prices of expired domains will decrease. Do you want to know why they're so expensive right now? It's because they're effective, okay? If you're paying lots of money for an expired domain, the reason you're paying lots of money is because other people know it's worth money and they're bidding on it. And you're competing with other people because they know how useful it is. If they stop working, that whole economy will stop existing and nobody will care anymore. And prices will no longer be expensive. They will be whatever the cost of a brand new domain is because nobody will want to buy expired domains because they will not do anything anymore. So you can, you can, you can figure out if this works just by observing the prices of expired domain auctions. Yeah, that's your answer. Anyway, look, don't like so my personal opinion. Stop. Stop worrying about it. It's not. If this happens, the SEO, The SEO industry will change substantially and we'll have other things to talk about, ignoring whether or not expired domains still have their authority. So in conclusion, quit worrying because who cares? It's. And it's not a big deal. And I don't even think it's gonna happen. And if it does happen, well, I'm not sure. But you guys, it's not like, again, let me just say this. Oh, oh, I forgot to give you the URL too. Let me just say this one more time. The article that they posted, there are two things in this article, okay, that make me think this is not even a problem. Number one, they did not even say that expired domains are losing their authority. It does not say that anywhere. And number two, they talk about making a casino site. It's a casino, like, whatever. Oh, Anyway, here's the URL.com search blog2024 03/core update spam policies? HL equals EN. That's the address. You know what? This is on Google's website, okay? And people are still gonna like, not believe it. Or they're gonna say Google lies. Or like, whatever, it's on Google's website. So whatever, whatever. Oh, something else I forgot to say. Okay, check it out. Google knows that SEO consultants are influencing the rank of websites, right? That's literally why we do SEO. So maybe they would say something like this to try and discourage people from taking advantage of expired domains. But again, they didn't even say that. They just said, don't make a medical website into a casino website. And Specifically what they said was low quality casino related content. So I'm not saying that if you had high quality casino, a high quality casino website, that it would exclude this, this, this concept. But I just, I just thought it was funny. Maybe, maybe there, I don't know. Whatever. I just, I thought it was funny, guys. In conclusion, quit worrying about expired domains until you see prices decrease drastically for expired domains. Then start worrying. Basically, anything you know about economics also applies to SEO. Just like we talked about in the last episode, right? In order to what. What does something have to have in order to be valuable? It has to be useful and it has to be scarce. Okay, so like quick summary from the last episode. If you're wondering if something is. Is valuable for SEO, ask yourself, does it have a use and is it scarce? Is it hard to do? Okay, if the answer to both of those is yes, it's probably useful. And if the answer to either of those is no, it's probably something that you might want to forget about, right? So the examples in that episode were what, what did I talk about? Impressions, easy to do. Eeat, easy to do. Clicks, easy to do. Authority, hard to do and has value. So authority matters. None of those other things matter. Same thing, same thing here. That's an economic rule. Okay, in order to be valuable, a thing needs to be both of those. Both of those. Both of those characteristics. Right? Same thing here. If search engines were to randomly devalue expired domains, the rules of economics would apply and currently existing links would become very expensive and all new and the prices of all new expired domains would fall. Okay, does that make sense? I don't know how else to explain it. I can't wait to hear what the haters have to say. I'm telling you why I'm wrong. Anyway, that's all I have to say about this. I hope this episode was helpful and I'll talk to you next week. 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 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 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 SEO guy 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 things that would change about the SEO industry if expired domains lost authority.