From The Horses Mouth

Tim Soulo says it's H-Refs.

So that's what we're going with.

Doubt I remember and will continue to pronounce it 4 different ways per video.

That's free tier quality content for ya...

This will probably shock you but I don't really have a solid roadmap for this newsletter.

Mostly wanted to force myself to write daily so I could build a streak and then get better at forcing myself to write on other stuff.

Sort of successful so far.

There will be days where I'll probably look for inspiration, not find it and not pollute your inbox.

And days where I'm just too damn busy to make it happen even when I want to.

So, without a whole lot of inspiration today, we'll tackle a couple of questions I received instead.

Hello, when deciding on getting an expired domain name what do you consider?

Responded that it's way too complicated of a topic for the time I had available but that I focus on:

Existing Links, Domain History, Anchors.

Will you do a loom video on this?

How about hell no?

Sorry but that's a competitive advantage that I'm not willing to divulge.

I find (with lots of work, it's not easy or automated) amazing links for $8-15.

Once I hit page 1 with my foundational links + steady drip of our Amplified Links, I'm going to do two things.

1 - Tweak my on site content to be finely tuned against the similar intent bucket sites on page 1.

2- Start building a relatively small PRIVATE mini network of expired domains with good existing links.

And then boost them.

Amplified drip gets smaller in volume as the network gets bigger.

Not rocket science.

Not easy.

Not push button.

Just works.

Probably always will.

Plus finding good links that nobody else can get on the cheap is the sort of SEO Easter egg hunt that should get you excited.

Not if you're running a 50 person agency, you can't be that deep in the trees.

But if you're just starting out or a smaller operator, learning to master this area of our field will pay dividends again and again.

One more and I'm back to the salt mine for the evening...

When you say this: "A properly executed 301 will push 85-90% of what's behind it into the target." Can you expand on some steps we need to take to ensure it passed the link equity?

Again, not rocket science and should be fairly self evident but I'll run through my process real quick.

1 - Host the redirect, not registrar.

Yes, it's more work.

Do it anyway if you want the link juice.

If you host it, you can prevent almost ALL Soft 404 treatment to your links.

If the site you're redirecting has good links to inner pages, you have to map them to relevant pages that exist on target site.

Or build them so you can.

If you just point the whole thing at the home page, eventually (sometimes immediately), the Gurgle will treat them like Soft 404s.

Buh-bye link juice.

Also, some registrars like to throw you a 302 and tell you it's a 301.

.htaccess ninjas only.

2 - Get the good links crawled.

You bought the domain because it has good links.

You can either wait around for Google to re-crawl the domain and then hopefully properly attribute its existing links to your new site.

Or you can get off the pot and force it's hand.

Any link that you think will help you rank higher should go through multiple indexers and crawls/submits.

I don't bother doing anything to the redirected domain.

I bought it for the links, that's my focus.

The domain is just a pass thru vehicle.

Like an S-Corp of SEO.

Or something.

I should find a better analogy to finish this off but I'm not going to.

You get what you pay for.

Cheers,

Grind

P.S. Links and consulting for those who'd rather done for than DIY over at https://clients.grindstoneseo.com