Aged domains on Flippa are a great selling item. However, it is not always that easy to simply buy an aged domain and simply sell it for top dollar. You see, value is something that can not be faked when all the information that you provide and that Flippa backs up is provided to the potential buyer, it is all out there for people to pick apart and hep them make that decision on whether or not to buy or not.
Sure, it is really simple to go ahead and pull out Domain Samurai and find a great aged domain, bid away, then set up a WordPress blog on it and sell some time later, but the problem is not within the domain or the website contents itself, it is something else. Lets take a few moments to discuss that, shall we?
First things first, anyone who understands how to execute due diligence on any websites that they purchase on Flippa will be mindful that an aged domain is only half of the value. Pulling up a website on the WayBack Machine can say a lot about the potential of that site, in how established it really is.
So, what is the WayBack machine? In a nutshell, it is an archive of all websites that have been created, and that ever have been, which have been recorded in an absolutely massive data center. This is every single website from the start of 1996, up until present day. What this does is it gives us a historical overview of the Internet from its very beginnings, and as a service to those who are exercising due diligence when buying aged domains on Flippa, this allows us to check the history of these aged domains. Pretty cool, right?
Lets take this auction for example, the domain itself is a 7 year old domain, and it is doing fairly OK in auction. Normally, buyers associate by default “aged domain” with “established”, however, by pulling this site up in the Way Back Machine, you will see that there is no history at all when it comes to the current site. Now for a 7 year old domain, you would think that there is something, but in this case there is nothing. To me, this says that the site itself is not as established as the domain age might seem to claim, and in that sense, I would probably execute some due diligence.
An aged domain works in a handful of ways. First, aged domains tend to rank better in the search engines, thus, buying an older domain is going to make things easier when ranking. This is one selling point, however, rankings do not always come easy. You will still need to do some SEO to rank for those tough keywords, and in particular for some tough keywords, you are going to be ranking against a set of other aged domains at the same time, which is only rely going to level out the playing field.
Although it can be easy to go ahead and buy a website on Flippa based on the domain age itself, you need to consider a handful of things. Do you want to spend the time establishing the site? Do you have the resources to rank the site? Do you really want an aged domain that has had a website installed on it only recently? In a nutshell, I talk about the startup site market quite a bit, and in essence, purchasing an aged domain is one thing, but paying more for a website installed only recently on an aged domain is in fact not that much different than buying a startup site. The only difference is that it is not as easy to spot.
So, consider this next time you purchase a website based on how old it is. An aged website that is as established as its domain age implies will always be worth more. Even if it is simply a one year old site, you will always get better value for your dollar. Not to say that there is no value in aged domains, seriously, if you haven’t got a copy of Domain Samurai, its free and will help you find good aged domains, but just remember that value can not be faked. Sit on that website for a while, it will work out better in the long run. And, lets not forget, as always, if you have any questions or anything that you want to add, comment below, contact me, or follow me on Twitter!
