Expired domain glossary

Plain-English definitions of the terms you will meet when buying expired and expiring domains.

Expired domain

A domain whose registration period has ended without being renewed. It usually stays with the registrar for a while before being deleted. See what is an expired domain.

Grace period

The days after expiry when the owner can still renew at the normal price. For generic extensions it is set by the registrar, up to about 45 days.

Redemption grace period

A 30-day period for most generic extensions after a registrar deletes an expired name. Only the previous owner can restore it, usually for a fee.

Pending delete

The final five days for most generic extensions. The name cannot be restored and will be released when the period ends.

Drop

The moment a registry deletes a name and makes it available to register again.

Drop-catching

Using many registrar connections to try to register a name the instant it drops. See auctions and backorders.

Backorder

A request placed with a drop-catching service to try to register a name when it drops. You usually pay only if it succeeds.

Expiry auction

An auction run by a registrar for a name its owner has not renewed, held during the grace period.

Closeout

A fixed-price sale of an expiring name that did not sell at auction.

RDAP

Registration Data Access Protocol, the modern replacement for WHOIS. Registries use it to publish a name's status, registrar and key dates. Our domain checker uses it.

WHOIS

The older system for looking up who registered a domain and when. Being replaced by RDAP.

EPP status code

Codes such as clientHold, redemptionPeriod and pendingDelete that show what can be done with a name right now.

Registrar

The company you register a domain through, such as Namecheap or GoDaddy.

Registry

The organisation that runs an extension, such as Verisign for .com or Nominet for .uk.

Backlink

A link from another website to yours. Links from real, relevant sites are what can make an old domain valuable.

Referring domains

The number of different websites linking to a domain. Usually more telling than the total number of links.

Domain Authority (DA)

Moz's 1 to 100 score predicting how well a domain might rank, based on its links. It is Moz's estimate, not a Google measure.

Domain Rating (DR)

Ahrefs' 0 to 100 score for the strength of a domain's backlink profile.

Trust Flow (TF)

Majestic's score for how closely a domain is linked to trusted sites. Compare it with Citation Flow.

Citation Flow (CF)

Majestic's score for how many links point at a domain, regardless of quality. A CF far above TF can be a sign of spammy links.

Wayback Machine

The Internet Archive's record of how websites looked in the past. The first place to check what an old domain was used for.

Private blog network (PBN)

A group of sites built on expired domains to link to another site. Search engines treat this as link spam.

Spam score

FreedDomains' own 0 to 100 estimate of past spam on a name, from its archived pages: gambling, adult, pharmacy, replica or loan pages, foreign keyword spam, mass-generated pages and long redirects all raise it.

Quality score

FreedDomains' own 0 to 100 rating of an expiring name from its length, words, extension, other extensions taken, archive history, authority and spam. See how we score domains.

Radio test

Whether a name can be said once and spelled correctly by the listener: real words, no numbers, no hyphens.

Drop-catching

Registering a name the instant the registry deletes it, using many registrar connections at once. Drop-catching services charge only when they catch the name.

Domain age

How long a name has been registered. An expired name that is re-registered usually counts as new; its archive history is a different thing.

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