Leading SEO expert Craig Campbell has bought Nigel Farage’s old domain name, which the politician failed to renew.
Campbell seized the opportunity to buy the high-profile domain mainly for SEO purposes like the power of its impressive backlinks (e.g. Wikipedia, the BBC, Forbes, etc). Campbell explains, “I got the domain name, and within a couple of weeks I’ve already got the website getting 13,000 monthly hits, ranks with 223 keywords. So that is how quick and easy you can get websites making money if you take advantage of expired domain names.”
However, he also bought the domain to demonstrate the consequences of letting domain names expire to his audience, and to educate them on the importance of looking after your online reputation. Once your domain name has expired, anyone can wreak havoc with your online reputation and even redirect your old domain to a competitor (indeed, Campbell has redirected the newly purchased domain to the page of someone Farage dislikes – Michel Barnier). That’s why it’s best to keep old domain names active until they dry up, so you can protect your online reputation.
Taking advantage of expired domains
High-profile people and companies let domains slip all too often, leaving plenty of opportunities for people to jump in and buy them at auction for their own purposes. Often, their reasons behind buying expired domains are related to the backlink power of such domains, or they might want to redirect the site either for backlink purposes or simply to prove a point – or for more nefarious reasons such as messing with a company’s online reputation. Expired links may also be purchased with the aim of selling them on for profit, which can be pretty lucrative.
Protecting your online reputation
As you can see, it’s important to look after your domain names and ensure they don’t expire and fall into someone else’s hands. By keeping your old domain name active, even when you’re using a new one, you can prevent reputational damage and fines for data breaches. The registration fees are a tiny investment to make to ensure your online reputation remains intact, sparing you some stress and misery. Here are some extra ways to make sure your domain is safe:
Automatically redirect your old domain name to take visitors to your new domain name and website
Look into how visitors ended up at your old domain – your old domain name may still be mentioned by third parties, so you can try writing to these websites and asking them to change the mentions to your new name
Monitor the traffic on your old domain name, and as soon as you notice it drying up, you can consider whether you want to extend this name any longer
Create an automatic reply for emails sent to your old address, clearly stating that the address is no longer in use. Also redirect these emails from your old address to your new address
SEO expertise to benefit your business
Craig Campbell SEO specialises in link building, online reputation management, and PPC management, but also offers SEO training courses and a variety of other services tailored to suit your business needs, such as digital marketing, social media marketing, lead generation, advertising and much more.
Craig Campbell is a recognised expert in SEO, having over 18 years of experience in the field, and he has recently been named the highest-paid Scottish businessman on YouTube after landing a six-figure sponsorship deal with ODYS Global. His popular virtual marketing course on YouTube has helped hundreds of people to launch their own successful businesses. What’s more, the course is free because Campbell believes in giving back to the community, and he didn’t want money standing in the way of him showing people how to improve their Google rankings.
