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January 25, 2011

Purchasing Used Domain Names vs. Registering New Domain Names

Learning how to properly choose a suitable domain name is the first step in becoming a successful online entrepreneur, especially if your goal is to continually expand a network of websites. Fortunately, there are an abundance of options available for you to choose from when it comes to registering and purchasing domain names.

It is important to note that, when you register a domain name, you are actually leasing it for a preset period of time, which depending on the domain registrar, typically ranges from 1 to 10 years. There are two main ways to register or lease a domain name – purchasing a registration renewal of a recently expired domain name through a domain auction site or broker, or registering a new domain name with a reputable domain registrar. The following information reviews the advantages and disadvantages of both domain buying methods.

Building an Online Reputation

If you choose to register a fresh domain name with a registrar, you'll have to start from scratch in building an online reputation. The majority of the work associated with building a steady flow of web traffic involves search engine optimization, which is the art of making your websites and webpages rank at the top of the search engine result pages (SERPs) for popular keywords. By purchasing a used domain name from a domain auction site or a “fresh drop” site, it is possible that you could find a domain name that already has an established online reputation, hundreds or even thousands of backlinks, and potentially even PageRank (a scoring system used by Google to weigh the authority of a particular domain or website).

Time and Money-Saving Benefits

As far as saving time and money is concerned, used domain names being sold at auction are typically more expensive, however they also allow the webmaster to save time by coming equipped with the aforementioned essential search engine optimization aspects. Some used domain names will begin bringing in residual traffic immediately, depending on how long they've been expired, and how many active links there are on the web pointing to the homepage of the domain. Registering a new domain is by far the cheapest method, with .info domains costing as cheap as $.79 to one dollar per year of registration, and .com,.org, and .net domains costing $10 per year of registration.

Domain Name Availability and Value

It is no secret that the majority of attractive domain names with popular TLD's have been taken. However, used domain names sold at auction or through “fresh drop brokerages,” have already been selected by another webmaster for particular attractive traits. Thus, by choosing to purchase recently expired domain names rather than coming up with a new name to register, you can maximize the efficiency of your brainstorming and domain name selection process. The majority of recently expired domain names available on the market have some sort of value, which is why they have already been registered in the past. Many people don't realize that it is possible to acquire a very attractive recently expired domain name for as little as $20-$50.

Tags: choose domain,  domain name,  registering domain name,  registration renewal,  domain registrar,  online reputation,  search engine optimization