How I Got 1,200 Visitors a Year Using an Expired Domain (For Just $36)

Everybody wants to get a lot of visitors to their site every day because traffic directly impacts your business. Eventually, some of those visitors will become customers. I want to share a strategy using dropped domains with backlinks that can bring you long-term web traffic. With this approach, I’ve been getting around 100 relevant, unique visitors each month — and it only cost me $36 (I bought three expired domains for a year). Getting new visitors to your site also helps improve your SEO by speeding up page indexing and boosting your rankings on Google. Dropped domains often come with backlinks from trusted, high-traffic websites. This is usually because the previous owners promoted the domain through articles, blog posts, videos, and by sharing links across various platforms. People still come across those old links and click on them. So if you find a dropped domain that’s still getting traffic, you can buy it and redirect those visitors to your own site. Getting new visitors to your site boost your SEO Better engagement If people read, click links, or share your pages, Google notices. Good engagement means good content and that helps your SEO. Lower bounce, more time If people stay longer, it shows your site is useful. That helps rankings, especially in tough niches. More backlinks & shares Some visitors might link to or share your site. Backlinks are still SEO gold. If new visitors bounce right away, it won’t help and could even hurt your SEO. It’s more about the quality of traffic than just the numbers. Relevant traffic is crucial for SEO If your traffic isn’t relevant, visitors will quickly realize your site isn’t what they were looking for — and leave immediately. This behavior leads to a drop in metrics like Bounce Rate and Visit Duration, which can negatively impact your search rankings over time. Bounce Rate and which is normal? Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors who leave after viewing only one page. For blogs, higher bounce rates are normal (people read 1 post and leave). For SaaS, tools, landing pages, you usually want it under 60%. Average Visit Duration and what value is normal? Average Visit Duration means how long people stay on your site on average. If your site is just a simple tool or info page, 45 seconds might be fine. But if it’s a content-rich site, you’d want longer. So, traffic from expired domains should be relevant. How to find domains with relevant traffic To find domains with traffic and backlinks, you can use dropped domain platforms, expired domain services, or domain auctions. I personally prefer using GoneDomains expired domains service, because it only crawls high-authority, high-traffic websites like Forbes, Medium, and Product Hunt. This means it offers high-quality dropped domains with solid backlinks that have a strong chance of still getting traffic. Plus, GoneDomains has helpful filters and data tools that make it easy to find the right domains in just a few clicks. Also it has AI tips, like “Get appraisal” which help to get domain appraisal, understand it value, business potential and in what kind of business domain can be used and so on. Very useful feature. When you find a domain you like, the next step is to check its backlinks. The backlinks should be related to your niche — this ensures the traffic is relevant and helps improve key metrics like Bounce Rate and Average Visit Duration. Improving these metrics has a positive impact on your overall SEO, including faster indexing and better search rankings. You can use free backlink checker by Ahrefs. Setting up a right 301 redirect After when you find liked and suitable domains, you need to buy them and setting up a 301 redirect to your main domain. It did the same way but in different section in depends of your registrar, I use Cloudflare free redirect feature. In the URL https://gone.domains?ref=expiredomains.today , the part ?ref=expiredomains.today is called a URL parameter. So this URL is being used for referral tracking. It tells the website analytics that the visitor came from expiredomains.today This is useful for: Tracking where traffic is coming from Analyzing which marketing channels are working This parameter is very important for analytics and for keeping track of domains with irrelevant traffic. Regularly check domain traffic Check your domain’s traffic for relevance once a month. If you notice that a traffic source has a very low visit duration (less than 1 minute), it can negatively affect your SEO. You should identify and remove redirects from these low-quality traffic sources to your main site. Otherwise, they can hurt your SEO and impact your business in the long run. Calculation how much it cost It cost me just $36 to buy a bunch of expired domains with traffic for one year. They bring me 100 visitors per month, or 1,200

Apr 14, 2025 - 07:07

How I Got 1,200 Visitors a Year Using an Expired Domain (For Just $36)

Everybody wants to get a lot of visitors to their site every day because traffic directly impacts your business. Eventually, some of those visitors will become customers.

I want to share a strategy using dropped domains with backlinks that can bring you long-term web traffic.

With this approach, I’ve been getting around 100 relevant, unique visitors each month — and it only cost me $36 (I bought three expired domains for a year).

Getting new visitors to your site also helps improve your SEO by speeding up page indexing and boosting your rankings on Google.

Dropped domains often come with backlinks from trusted, high-traffic websites. This is usually because the previous owners promoted the domain through articles, blog posts, videos, and by sharing links across various platforms.

People still come across those old links and click on them. So if you find a dropped domain that’s still getting traffic, you can buy it and redirect those visitors to your own site.

Getting new visitors to your site boost your SEO

Better engagement

If people read, click links, or share your pages, Google notices. Good engagement means good content and that helps your SEO.

Lower bounce, more time

If people stay longer, it shows your site is useful. That helps rankings, especially in tough niches.

More backlinks & shares

Some visitors might link to or share your site. Backlinks are still SEO gold.

If new visitors bounce right away, it won’t help and could even hurt your SEO. It’s more about the quality of traffic than just the numbers.

Relevant traffic is crucial for SEO

If your traffic isn’t relevant, visitors will quickly realize your site isn’t what they were looking for — and leave immediately.

This behavior leads to a drop in metrics like Bounce Rate and Visit Duration, which can negatively impact your search rankings over time.

Bounce Rate and which is normal?

Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors who leave after viewing only one page.

For blogs, higher bounce rates are normal (people read 1 post and leave). For SaaS, tools, landing pages, you usually want it under 60%.

Average Visit Duration and what value is normal?

Average Visit Duration means how long people stay on your site on average.

If your site is just a simple tool or info page, 45 seconds might be fine. But if it’s a content-rich site, you’d want longer.

So, traffic from expired domains should be relevant.

How to find domains with relevant traffic
To find domains with traffic and backlinks, you can use dropped domain platforms, expired domain services, or domain auctions. I personally prefer using GoneDomains expired domains service, because it only crawls high-authority, high-traffic websites like Forbes, Medium, and Product Hunt.

This means it offers high-quality dropped domains with solid backlinks that have a strong chance of still getting traffic. Plus, GoneDomains has helpful filters and data tools that make it easy to find the right domains in just a few clicks.

Also it has AI tips, like “Get appraisal” which help to get domain appraisal, understand it value, business potential and in what kind of business domain can be used and so on. Very useful feature.

When you find a domain you like, the next step is to check its backlinks. The backlinks should be related to your niche — this ensures the traffic is relevant and helps improve key metrics like Bounce Rate and Average Visit Duration.

Improving these metrics has a positive impact on your overall SEO, including faster indexing and better search rankings.

You can use free backlink checker by Ahrefs.

Setting up a right 301 redirect

After when you find liked and suitable domains, you need to buy them and setting up a 301 redirect to your main domain.

It did the same way but in different section in depends of your registrar, I use Cloudflare free redirect feature.

In the URL

https://gone.domains?ref=expiredomains.today

, the part

?ref=expiredomains.today

is called a URL parameter.

So this URL is being used for referral tracking.

It tells the website analytics that the visitor came from

expiredomains.today

This is useful for:

Tracking where traffic is coming from
Analyzing which marketing channels are working

This parameter is very important for analytics and for keeping track of domains with irrelevant traffic.

Regularly check domain traffic
Check your domain’s traffic for relevance once a month. If you notice that a traffic source has a very low visit duration (less than 1 minute), it can negatively affect your SEO.

You should identify and remove redirects from these low-quality traffic sources to your main site. Otherwise, they can hurt your SEO and impact your business in the long run.

Calculation how much it cost

It cost me just $36 to buy a bunch of expired domains with traffic for one year.

They bring me 100 visitors per month, or 1,200 per year.

At just $0.03 per visitor, it’s very cost-effective, especially when the traffic is real, organic-looking, and relevant.

Most legitimate paid traffic options are more expensive, unless you’re really good at ad targeting or finding underpriced channels.

I’m documenting my journey of growing products with smart SEO, creative promotion, and solo hustle.