Closeout Domains are domains that have been abandoned for some reason or another. Godaddy puts them up for sale before the time lapse and the name gets returned to the registry. Once that happens, that domain will be available to anyone as a new domain to those who wants it. Ahpek dot com was one such domain. I waited until the name lapsed and registered it as mine. Now before this happens it will be placed in GoDaddy’s aftermarket where you can buy these closeout domains for $5.

Some of these domains are as old as 10 years and some has PR as high as 6. The advantages of getting these domains are not so much due to the high PR but age. The older the domain the better it will be. For one, these old domain names are already well established and has lots backlinks pointing to them. Those who knows a little bit of SEO knows the importance of backlinks. The more backlinks the domain have, the more authority it will garner for whatever keywords that it has been linked.

The other advantage is an old domain will not be subjected to the “sandbox” Though Google denys it, the sandbox is like a domain freezer of sorts. All new domains gets sandboxed for a few months. Some shorter and some longer depending on what keywords you are targeting. If you have a blog that has a hot niche with lots of searches but little competition, which means not many are blogging in that niche, you probably can avoid the sandbox because Google need you to perk up their Search Results. If you are otherwise, you will have to sit out that sandboxing period where you will have to do lots of social bookmarkng to get indirect traffic. In the meantime, you will have to create some good contents and build up your backlinks, proving to Google that you are not a spam site just out to get Search traffic to make a fast buck. An aged domain will take away this heartache.

I buy lots of aged domains for my present project and when I buy, I look at 3 things. The name. I choose names with words that suit what I want that domain for. The Age. At least 3 years old, and the PR if available, at least a PR3. I check the closeout market everyday as domains are being dumped every hour and good names can be snapped up by others very fast. However today I noticed that all the PR for these closeout domain names have been removed. I do not know why, but my guess is Google has wiped clean the PR for these abandoned domains. Not that it mattered very much. The domains which I bought that has PR4 and 5 have all been demoted to 2 and 1, but I am not complaining too much. It shows that Google has re-indexed the sites and given it a new life. Believe or not, traffic has actually increased after the demotion.

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