I let a PR5 expired domain slip through my hands in the Godaddy expired domain name auctions a couple of days ago. It was a really good catch, but when the bidder I was bidding against raised their bid to $1,315, I folded. If I'd not already bought another expired domain for $1,500 earlier in the month, then I might have bid more for this one.

The domain I lost was nortellearnit.org, and it has some impressive credentials:

• PR5
• Around 7,500 inbound links in total
• A lot of .edu links
• 4 .gov links
• A wikipedia link
• A good level of traffic, as indicated by SEMRush
• Very nice keywords it ranks for in Google, also from SEMRush

Erstwhile Traffic

SEMRush can show you traffic levels and also the kind of keywords that the domain used to rank for. It looks like this domain was receiving at least 8,000 unique visitors / month via Google searches.

I've found on my sites that actual Google search traffic is around 3 times greater than the totals reported by SEMRush, so this domain is getting very nice traffic levels. There are so many inbound links, that I think there's a good chance there may be a lot of referral traffic too, but SEMRush doesn't report that.

The keywords the domain ranks for are perfect generic terms. If you had won this domain, you would want to check out the search phrases the domain ranks for and create some content about those phrases. Ideal search phrases are "evergreen" ones that don't go out of date too quickly. If we take a look at the SEMRush keywords report (see link above), we see that the search phrase that brings the most traffic is "teachit". I think this simply means "teach IT", as in information technology. That's a good generic term that isn't tied into specific technology and is more enduring than phrases like "teach windows xp", for example. Phrases that are linked to specific technology risk having a finite shelf life. With "teach IT" the scope is wide, so you could write about a huge range of subjects that fall in the area of IT. And, of course, technology related topics tend to attract higher Adsense revenues, if that's how you wanted to monetise this site.

Trademark Issues

The second biggest traffic puller, however, is the search phrase "nortel", and this triggers alarm bells for me. This shows that people are currently searching for the Nortel company and this domain name is linked with that company. The domain name itself is Nortel Learn IT. A quick check of the WHOIS information for this domain shows that Nortel Networks Limited owns it.

Google provides some clues even as we start typing in our search for "Nortel Networks Limited":

Oh oh! A bit of digging around tells us that Nortel Networks Limited went bankrupt in early 2009 and is still in the process of selling its assets. It's likely that the domain name in question, nortellearnit.org, got forgotten in the chaos and it expired. If only the domain name didn't have any branding in it!

I don't know much about trademark law, but I got a little nervous about the prospect of buying this domain. I didn't like the thought of spending lots of money on it, only to find that somebody had the right to take it off me at a later date. If the bidding in the expired domain auction had only gone as high as $500, it would definitely have been worth the risk to me. As it was, I bid up to $1,300 when the heat of the moment swept me away, but then regained my common sense when I was again outbid!

Another thought is this. You could buy this domain, knowing full well that the new owners of Nortel Networks Limited (or owners of a subsidiary company) are likely to want the domain back, but rely on the fact that it might take years for the sluggish wheels of the legal process to turn. I don't know how long these things take, but suppose you have two years before you have to give the domain back. Nortellearnit.org is a domain that seems to have a lot of authority in the search engines, so a link from it to other sites you own would be worth a lot. Adsense revenues on a high traffic domain like this, in a technology niche as it is, would amount to a fair chunk of money over two years too. And then there's the old link selling route. My guess is that you would probably be able to more than recover your investment over a two year period, if you picked the domain up for under $2,000.

I'll be interested to learn what the new owner does with this domain, as there is so much potential for making a really good site on it. I'll be very surprised (and disapointed) if all they do is park it, as many expired domainers do.