Why not Host your Niche Sites for Free?

Okay, so you got this terrific “long tail keyword” and you want to make a niche site for it, but you are thinking twice about maybe it mightn’t work, and you want to put your toe in the water first before you spend too much, so what do you do?

Simple answer: try either of these………

• Sub-Domain

1. Just set up your trial on a sub-domain on your main site. You use the Long Tail Keyword as the domain name – like this www.long-tail-keyword.yoursite.com. Easy, right?, and you don’t have the aggro of trying to buy a domain name with that particular key phrase……….. or,

• Add-on Domain

2. Next trick is to look for an expired domain with some kind of connection to your key phrase and set up your new niche site using that domain as an add-on to your existing domain. You might get lucky and find an expired domain with both a key link AND some PR – you can buy PR3 or better expired names just for the effort of searching the current expired lists, and from $5.00

• Full Featured Domains

Of course, if your current host doesn’t offer add-ons and sub-domains as part of your deal, you might need to look around for a better domain host where you can host your niche sites for free.

Expired Domains with Fake PR (Page Rank)

• No Traffic

A really nasty trap with buying traffic by recycling expired domains is that the Google PR might have been faked. You need to know this because the name may have no traffic in its own right

• Redirect Script

What the faker does is write a sneaky little script to detect Google-bot and redirect it to some page with massive or higher PR. This then causes the PR of that page to show in the Google tool bar instead of the real PR. This works because the page rank is computed from the actual page referenced; in this case someone else’s high rank page.

• 301 Redirect

Another twist on the same theme is where the whole domain, usually just a single page, is referred using a 301 redirection – again the PR of the final destination page is quoted in the Google tool bar. Today on PRTag.com there is an expired domain with a PR8 rating for sale for $35. It is fake PR, because there is a 301 redirect to a different website. The actual domain name has no PR at all.

• Check that the PR is for real.

So if you are buying an expired or re-used domain, check that the PR is for real. Here are a couple of tools to use to verify that the expired domains don’t have fake PR:

http://www.tracerank.com/

http://checkpagerank.net/index.php?name=opotiki.com&links=1

http://www.domainpagerank.com/

• Check the Google (or MSN) cache

Another quick check is to compare the actual domain with the domain and content in the Google cache. If they don’t match, that might just be the ‘fakin’ reason.

• No Comeback

The kind of nasty that would do this trick is the same kind of nasty that would refuse to give your money back when you complained about them selling you expired domains with fake PR, so do your checking first.

• UPDATE – Page Redirects

Another method is when the cheat uses the REFRESH command to redirect the URL to a page with high PR:

E.G. - <  meta HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" content="0; url=http://www.topPRpage.com/" >

They might even include some script to force the address bar to show the original URL to make the deception complete!

• Good Page Rank

A good way to cash in on Internet potential to make money is to find expired domains that have good page rank and set them up on your own site. Every week hundreds and hundreds of domains expire for whatever reason. Most of them are worthless, but you can trawl through each days new offerings and find domains with better than Page Rank 3. Maybe the owner forgot to renew, or they changed their e-mail address and didn’t get notified about the expiry, or they just plain lost interest, or they reached their ‘use by date’, and got sent to that giant domain in the sky…..

• Expired Domains

What you do is go to some expired listing service – like Godaddy, click on Domain Auctions and then navigate to “Expired Domains”. and the Expiring Tab. Click on the Traffic Column header to sort the domains by Traffic and you will

………………………………………… find some quite impressive traffic available for quite nominal bidding.

Another trick with Godaddy is to simply sort them by price, and list them in your browser window one at a time and watch the Google Page Rank scale. With a bit of mindless determination, you can find domains for $5 with PR3 or better. Try it!

• Finding Expired Domains

Another place to look for expired domains is this site , although you need to register here to see the ‘goodies’. This one has a FREE section and another PAID section with lots more info available.

A word of caution here – the PR may be faked. Check it out BEFORE you buy. If this idea is new to you, read some more here.

• Good Keywords

Having found some potential domains for a price that will fit your budget, choose the ones with good keyword appeal, and buy them. Set them up with appropriate keyword optimization on your own host and load them with Adsense/Affiliate/E-Book links, and let the Search Engines rediscover them. They will enjoy immediate traffic from the old PR rank in the SE caches and existing back-links; and if you did it right, your renewed site will continue to grow, and you’ll be smiling as you generate income from expired domains.