Site Under Construction

Recently, I discussed how you might boost your blog using an expiring domain name. The crucial word is “expiring”. I don’t think it’s a good idea to go for an expired domain name.

The reasons for not going for an expired domain and instead finding an unused or expiring domain are that pagerank may not be carried over and even if it is, it could take weeks or months and be reduced in the process, backlinks may also be discounted, which is part of the same issue. But, more to the point there is less chance of you being able to check out whether the domain had any blackhat SEO problems or even just gray-hat issues that could mean any new site launched on that domain will be penalized immediately it gets listed and so may never enter the SERPs.

So, with that in mind, it’s a good idea to find a good, strong domain that may no longer be in active use but is not expired. So, how might you do that?

Self Made Minds has some great ideas on finding sites that may no longer be current. Using the following search strings in conjunction with a keyword or two will help you find potential leads:

• “Under Construction. The site you are trying to view does not currently have a default page.”
• “Directory Listing Denied”
• “The requested object does exist on this server”
• “Why is this page displayed?”
• “domain login”
• “does not exist”
• “cannot be found”

Sites that have been spidered for such phrases and reveal themselves to be well within expiry (use Whois to find details) may be ripe pickings for someone hoping to snag a decent, but inexpensive, domain.

By the way, whatever you do with your newly acquired domain, don’t ever, ever, ever, create a holding page with a cr*ppy graphic of a guy digging and label it “site under construction”, it just looks so cheap and nasty and any organic traffic that arrives from the search engines will never re-visit.