How to Buy Expired Domains (and Pick the Ones Worth Money)

Every day, well over a hundred thousand domain names expire because their owners forget or decide not to renew them. Some are junk. A few are short, aged .com names that a business would happily pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for. Knowing how to buy expired domains, and which ones to skip, is one of the cheapest ways to build a domain portfolio.

This guide explains how a domain expires and drops, where to buy expired domains, how to judge one in a couple of minutes, and how to find the people who will buy it from you.

What happens when a domain expires

A domain doesn't become free the day it expires. For a .com, it goes through a few stages:

1. Expired, grace period (about 30 to 45 days). The owner can still renew at the normal price. Most registrars put the name into their own expired domain auction during this time.
2. Redemption (30 days). If nobody bought it at auction, the name goes back to the registry. The owner can still restore it, but for a high fee.
3. Pending delete (5 days). No one can renew it anymore. At the end of these five days the name is deleted.
4. Dropped. The domain is free again, and anyone can register it at the normal price. Good names are caught in the first seconds by backorder services.

So you have three chances to get an expired name: the registrar's auction, a backorder at the drop, or a hand registration if nobody wanted it.

Where to buy expired domains

Registrar auctions

Most of the best expired names are sold before they ever drop. GoDaddy, the biggest registrar, auctions its expired domains on GoDaddy Auctions, and other registrars such as Dynadot, NameJet and SnapNames run their own. Auctions start low, often around $10 to $15, and the highest bid when the timer ends wins. You usually pay the auction price plus a year's registration.

Closeouts

A closeout is an expired name that got no bids at auction. It is then sold at a fixed price, often just a few dollars, to the first buyer. Closeouts are cheap, but remember why they are there: nobody else wanted them. Most are, but now and then a good name slips through because it got no attention.

Backorders

For names that go all the way to the drop, backorder services (DropCatch, SnapNames, NameJet and others) try to register them the moment they are deleted. You usually pay only if they catch it. If more than one person backordered the same name, it goes to a private auction between them.

Search them all in one place

Checking each auction site every day takes time. The free PitchName Expired Domains list loads the GoDaddy auctions ending today and tomorrow and the Dynadot closeouts every morning (100,000+ names) and lets you filter by keyword, extension, length, price, age and backlinks. Ready-made lists help you start: expired .com domains, short expired domains, aged domains and cheap names under $15.

How to judge an expired domain in two minutes

Most expired names are not worth buying. Run each one through these checks before you bid.

1. Would a business use it?

The question that matters most: is there an obvious buyer? A name like austinroofing.com has dozens of end users, every roofing company in Austin. A made-up word with no meaning has none until someone falls in love with it. Our guide on how to pick domain names that sell covers this in detail.

On the PitchName list, names that contain a local service (roofing, dental, law, plumbing and so on) are marked End-user buyers, so they stand out.

2. Is it easy to say and spell?

Read it out loud. If you have to spell it for someone, it loses value. Avoid hyphens, numbers mixed with words and double letters at the joins (shopporter.com).

3. Is it the right extension?

For selling to businesses, .com is still the safest choice by far. Other extensions can sell too: .io and .ai to tech startups, country extensions to local businesses. But they have fewer buyers, so pay less for them. See which extensions are getting bids this week on the Domain Market page.

4. Age and backlinks

An older domain with real links from other sites can be worth more, for SEO buyers especially. Check that the links are real and on-topic. A name that was used for spam can carry a bad history, so look it up on the Wayback Machine before you buy.

5. Is it a trademark?

Never buy a name that contains a brand (nikeshoesdeals.com). You can lose it in a dispute and you can't legally sell it.

6. What will it cost to keep?

Renewal fees add up when you hold names for years. Some extensions renew at $30, $50 or more. Check the renewal price before you bid, and compare registrars with our domain price comparison so you know where to keep it cheaply.

How much to bid

Set your maximum before the auction, and stick to it. A simple rule many investors use: don't pay more than about a tenth of what you can realistically sell it for, because most names take a long time to sell and many never do.

Look at the number of bids too. A name with many bids has already been noticed by other investors, so the price may climb fast in the last minutes. A good name with few bids that ends today is often the best deal on the list.

After you buy: find the buyer

Buying the name is the easy part. Selling it is where the money is. Instead of waiting for someone to find it on a marketplace, contact the businesses that would use it:

1. Find the businesses. For austinroofing.com, that is every roofing company in Austin. The PitchName Buyer Finder lists them from Google Maps, with their website and contact details.
2. Send a short, personal email. Explain why the name would help their business, and keep it to a few lines. Our domain outreach email templates give you tested examples.
3. Follow up. Most replies come after the second or third email.

Our full guide on how to sell a domain to an end user walks through pricing and closing the sale.

Want a name that is still registered?

Sometimes the perfect name is taken, and the owner isn't using it. You can wait for it to expire. Add it to the free PitchName Domain Watchlist: it checks the name every day and tells you when it expires, goes to auction, enters pending delete, or becomes free to register, so you are ready to bid or backorder at the right time.

Quick checklist

• Search the auctions and closeouts ending today, filtered to the names you can sell.
• Keep names a business would use: short, easy to say, .com, no hyphens or brands.
• Check the history, the renewal price and the number of bids.
• Set your maximum bid before the auction ends.
• After you buy, find the businesses that need it and email them.

Expired domains are a numbers game: look at many, buy a few, and sell to the businesses that need them. Start with today's list.

Some links in this article are affiliate links: PitchName may earn a commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you.