Interesting situation after I won a domain from GD Auctions

[andreint]

Hey guys,

I have an interesting situation going on.

A couple of days ago I purchased an expiring domain from GoDaddy auctions. It was listed that this domain receives ~18k monthly visits. It's an EMD in the weight loss niche.

Price was really cheap and I decided to take a gamble and see if those traffic numbers are even remotely close.

I'm not really into this niche, but the plan was to create a coming soon page with 1 optin form and give visitors some incentive to sign up. Former website has pretty sweet history and I can scrape the archive.org w/o problems and recreate the old site.

So, yesterday I finally got the domain in my account and I instantly hosted it and installed Clicky code to see what's gonna happen.

I was both confused and shocked after I received ~40 visitors within the first 2 hours and 90% of them were from the USA. No email signups tho.

4 hours in and the count was somewhere around 83 visits - 0 signups.

I went to sleep and after I woke up this morning the count was at 116 visits for the day - 0 signups.

​

It seems that I maybe on to something here, but here's the problem..

I'm receiving a shitload of traffic from sources TOTALLY unrelated to freaking weight loss. That's probably the main reason why there are no sign ups nor any activity. Practically all of my visitors are coming from tech searches/referrals and I really can't figure out wtf is happening here.

I was thinking of simply 301ing this domain to some sweet aff offer but it seems that my demo will probably not be interested in learning how to lose weight if they are searching for "email marketing" xD.

What would you do to determine what type of audience is hanging around this site and what do you recommend I do next?

thanks

 

[andreint]

This keeps getting better and better, and hence confusing as hell

Today:

 

[Golan]

Lol. One can't simple get a good domain with such great traffic for that cheap.

Also,

Former website has pretty sweet history and I can scrape the archive.org w/o problems and recreate the old site.

You better not. Claims from the previous owners guaranteed.

Always shuffle content from archive.org between different sites. Never use content from site A on site A.

 

[Ashraf]

Maybe this thread from @CCarter might help :- http://www.wickedfire.com/enlightened-members/165861-case-study-additional-traffic-sources.html

 

[CCarter]

Always shuffle content from archive.org between different sites. Never use content from site A on site A.

This is bad advice. Once you do this you've instantly destroyed the relevancy factor of the links and the categorization of the domain. The sites that are linking to site A, are now sending irrelevant links. You just fucked up the domain, over something trival. If there is something crazy, just delete that part. This is just bad advice from a structural standpoint and literally defeats the whole purpose of re-creating the site from archive.org for the traffic and even for the SEO benefit with this one move. The links and traffic coming in are completely irrelevant now...

 

[Ryuzaki]

There is also the chance that the previous owner is sending bot traffic through the site's list of backlinks just to try to snag a better sale than the domain should have been able to achieve. You might have gotten played. Those traffic sources just in that screenshot scream "SEO backlinks" to me, which indicates manipulation, which indicates that you might have gotten played. I hope that's not the case.

 

[CCarter]

There is also the chance that the previous owner is sending bot traffic through the site's list of backlinks just to try to snag a better sale than the domain should have been able to achieve. You might have gotten played. Those traffic sources just in that screenshot scream "SEO backlinks" to me, which indicates manipulation, which indicates that you might have gotten played. I hope that's not the case.

^^ This. That's why you always check only "expired" and nothing else... those closeouts or auctions have a reason to be manipulated - owned by other sellers, versus an expired it's only owned/controlled by Godaddy - I literally state this several times whenever I talk about this technique... 18K visitors should go for $1500 to $2500 easily - if it was real traffic - hence why I state only "expired auctions".

^^ If you got more then that one checked, you are going to get screwed over.

Now if you actually did "expiring auctions" and not closeout or something else, then you probably haven't consider that the traffic might be coming in since it's a former redirect of some sort. Check out the pages the traffic is coming from and look for a link to the domain. If you can't find it now - well, you got screwed over by the seller.

 

[andreint]

Yeah, I think I got screwed over but I was aware of the possiblity when I placed my bid.
I did tick 'expiring auctions' but there really weren't any red flags from the getgo.

Link profile was clean and archive dated back to 2008 with relevant and well structured content.
Here are today's numbers so far:

​

Meh, I'll just let it sit there a couple more days before I decide to pull the plug.

Thanks for your reposnes​

 

[Golan]

This is bad advice. Once you do this you've instantly destroyed the relevancy factor of the links and the categorization of the domain. The sites that are linking to site A, are now sending irrelevant links. You just fucked up the domain, over something trival. If there is something crazy, just delete that part. This is just bad advice from a structural standpoint and literally defeats the whole purpose of re-creating the site from archive.org for the traffic and even for the SEO benefit with this one move. The links and traffic coming in are completely irrelevant now...

It's not the case, if implemented right. All i tried to say - using the old content from the same site causes the previous owners outrage. I faced it a few times myself so don't do it anymore. But i keep all the structure, all the pages that have backlinks, but with relevant content that i scraped from another archive site, and if the url structure can't be replicated - just 301 old urls to new ones. So if G or visitor comes to my site by the 'blue widgets for cosmic tractors and their mythology in medieval media' link, he lands on very relevant 'blue widgets for cosmic tractors and their mythology in medieval media' page with relevant content. Who cares that the url is slightly different than they saw it before click.

 

[CCarter]

It's not the case, if implemented right. All i tried to say - using the old content from the same site causes the previous owners outrage. I faced it a few times myself so don't do it anymore. But i keep all the structure, all the pages that have backlinks, but with relevant content that i scraped from another archive site, and if the url structure can't be replicated - just 301 old urls to new ones. So if G or visitor comes to my site by the 'blue widgets for cosmic tractors and their mythology in medieval media' link, he lands on very relevant 'blue widgets for cosmic tractors and their mythology in medieval media' page with relevant content. Who cares that the url is slightly different than they saw it before click.

... but that would literally defeat the whole purpose of scraping the archive.org content to put up the same site over. Your inbound links' topical flow is going to be effected, the content has changed and so has the urls...

I've had people pissed off too that they forgot to renew their domains, so what? They've fucked up, but in your method, they still will be pissed you have their domain, but now you are negating the actually reason for scraping archive.org and getting the domain.

When content changes the keyword ratio changes, but more importantly Google notices the changes according to their former engineers (https://twitter.com/pedrodias/status/484020260006551553 - in your scenario the content around your internal linking has changed, but also the content to which your inbound links are going to has also changed), and will score the new content and overall site less, you are negating the benefits cause some people on the internet might get a little mad. There is little they can do - they fucked up.

I strongly suggest you reconsider your strategy if you want the proper flow of your ranking juice and want the benefit of the age - otherwise there is no difference in buying a new domain.

 

[Golan]

I've had people pissed off too that they forgot to renew their domains, so what?

Yes, but what do you do if they demand to take their old content down? Domain is one thing and the content which may be copyrighted property - another thing. Didn't anyone of those ripped former owners send abuse to your hoster and registrar yet? I had them. Sorry boss, i hope i don't seem rude, but it seems you just theorize here on 'how to use old sites scrapped from archive.org' thing.

 

[lion1978]

Yes, but what do you do if they demand to take their old content down? Domain is one thing and the content which may be copyrighted property

Regarding the copyright issue Normally the content is copyrighted to the site and not the creator/former owner so unless they can prove that they hold the copyrights they can bitch and moan as much as they want if the old footer or the content it self just has copyright notice on it then it is copyrighted to the domain, if the copyright notice on the other hand stets that the content is copyrighted by a speciffic person then they have a valid case.
I know that this wont help with abuse to your host and registar unfortunatly but I do think your host and registar wont take much notice of it

 

[CCarter]

Yes, but what do you do if they demand to take their old content down? Domain is one thing and the content which may be copyrighted property - another thing. Didn't anyone of those ripped former owners send abuse to your hoster and registrar yet? I had them. Sorry boss, i hope i don't seem rude, but it seems you just theorize here on 'how to use old sites scrapped from archive.org' thing.

You know I don't theorize - it sounds like you didn't pick the right hosting companies or setup. Let them send a DMCA - you simply combat it. You can keep doing it your way, I'll keep doing it mine, just don't think I will not continue calling you out when you are openly giving bad advice to people that negates the whole point of the technique. The problem is you give out this advice then months later I have people PMing me asking why this technique is not working and then they statement "Golan said to do it like this." So then I waste my time explaining the problems, and how to fix the bad advice - but I can solve all this right now. I'll just tell everyone that took your advice to PM you when their network gets de-indexed or tanks... cause I've been trying to give you hints as to why that has been happening to you but you aren't reading between the lines.

To end this nonsense conversation and keep my sanity - sure your "right" - Good luck, I'm done wasting my time correcting bad advice. If at this late date, in 2015, you don't understand changing content around a link is going to effect the SEO worthiness of your inbound links and the internal links, the relevancy, and especially the age, there is nothing I can do to teach you, you'll just have continued tanking websites within your network and will continue being baffled as to why.

I'm just tired of all this nonsense - my patience is gone - learn SEO or don't. This is my last comment ever on this whole subject. No one PM me about this foolishness. Good luck people.

 

[Golan]

^^
Okay okay i don't know a shit about SEO. SEO is dead anyway, so who cares. Just calm down bro. You're right and i'm wrong.

 

[secretagentdad]

OOOOO a shit fest heres my 2 bits.


Why the heck are you guys such a bunch of cheap bastards. If you're gonna drop cash on a domain with legitimate traffic whats so hard about dropping a little more cash on some useable relevant content to match.

Stealing content is such a broke peasant move, no matter how you go about it.

Get a decent writer and work out a way to maximize your value extraction opportunity.