Comments on: Cloning Expired Sites: Blackhat Tactics and Whitehat Strategies Don’t Mix, But Greyhats Eat the Cake

By: Broken Link Building – A Case Study

Broken Link Building – A Case Study — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:41:10 +0000

[...] [Editor's note: It's like cloning expired sites for links.] [...]

By: SEO ROI » A Reader’s Guide To 30+ Advanced Search Marketing Blogs

SEO ROI » A Reader’s Guide To 30+ Advanced Search Marketing Blogs — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:34:48 +0000

[...] Eli’s Blue Hat SEO – The goto man on blackhat techniques, Eli’s tactics have inspired more than one person’s creative thinking. In fact, his desert scraping combined with Slightly Shady SEO’s scrape of expired domains with Yahoo backlinks lead to my idea on resurrecting sites from the dead. [...]

By: Interview with Gab Goldenberg, 21 Year Old SEO Consultant of SEO ROI

Interview with Gab Goldenberg, 21 Year Old SEO Consultant of SEO ROI — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:00:51 +0000

[...] like I said, is a big inspiration. One of my first original ideas, cloning expired sites, came from a discussion with him about expired domains still in the Yahoo [...]

By: My Most Popular Posts

My Most Popular Posts — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 01:35:34 +0000

[...] Cloning Expired Sites aka Resurrecting Sites from the Web’s Graveyard [...]

By: 3 New Uses For www.Archive.org | SEO ROI Services. Need an SEO Rockstar? Contact Us. Prices $3K-$10K/mo

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 05:14:58 +0000

[...] 25, 2008 submit_url = “http://seoroi.com/analytics/5-new-uses-for-wwwarchiveorg/”; Besides cloning expired sites (being sure to buy the rights to stay legal, of course; hat tip Stephan Spencer), Archive.org has [...]

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Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:29:31 +0000

[...] the material is more original, more edgy, more ahead of the game. Who else is teaching you about cloning expired sites? How about using n grams to make your anchor text profile more natural? No one else is sharing [...]

By: Gabriel Goldenberg

Gabriel Goldenberg — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:56:33 +0000

@Nick – this is old, but I responded by email. You’re right that the legalities of scraping and republishing aren’t great. BUT: If you buy the old content (or usage rights to republish), you’re good to go.

Drew – PR is not what it’s cracked up to be.

By: drew

drew — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:36:59 +0000

Not bad, but grabbing expired domains with decent pr is pretty difficult and a lot more pricey than it used to be.

By: Nick Wilsdon

Nick Wilsdon — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:20:15 +0000

Gab – one point you’re leaving out here is that ‘cloning’ is still a very nice word for ‘stealing’.

I’ve been in this exact situation a few times now. Where a client has lost their domain or let it expire, only to find someone has resurrected *their* old site on it.

As you might imagine, they are not to happy about the situation when it happens. Their biggest concern is that old clients will view the site and still think it is them trading.

This technique is ethically equal to scraping other people’s sites for profit. 100% blackhat.

Being responsible, I would suggest that anyone employing this technique keeps the structure intact (URLs) but never copies the exact branding, copy or logo of the original owner.

By: Gabriel Goldenberg

Gabriel Goldenberg — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 05:05:49 +0000

It does take an investment, and a significant one if you want a half-decent site with potential for monetization. If you're just buying for backlinks though, this is probably a more affordable (and questionable) strategy. BTW, if you're into site flipping, you'll like a blog I used to run: http://siteflip.blogspot.com

By: Adam Maywald

Adam Maywald — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 04:43:33 +0000

I usually try and waste my time on buying sites that are still active and then flipping them. That’s been working quite well, but does take a bit of an investment to get started.

Great post btw!

By: Gabriel Goldenberg

Gabriel Goldenberg — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 19:04:07 +0000

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a grey/blackhat!

By: canada seo

canada seo — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 18:55:42 +0000

Great post, I’ve always been interested in buying expired domains. But I’ve never had any of them penalized. One guy even bought one back I’m definitely going to have to play with some of your tactics here. Cheers!