If they are trying to get traffic through a pay-per-click program, they will have to invest hundreds to thousands of dollars if they want to take advantage of a high-performance keyword. However, there is another alternative that can allow a webmaster to get tons of traffic without having to invest too much in time or money. It involves purchasing expired domain names.

What is an expired domain name? An expired domain name is a domain name that never got renewed by its owner. This could be for a variety of reasons such as disinterest in the original website, lack of funds or something more serious, such as an owner’s death. Whatever the reason when the renewal fees aren’t paid, the expired domain name sits out in cyberspace still functioning as any other domain name. There is just one difference… an expired domain name doesn’t have a website attached to it, so it instead points to a 404 error page.

Indeed, it is a waste of traffic when an expired domain name points to a 404 web page. Many domain name companies have realized this, which is why quite a few sell expired domain names either through a regular, upfront sale or through an expired domain name auction. The prices for these domain names can range from less than $100 to over $1 million. Some of these sales may even include a website.

So, how does a webmaster know if an expired domain name is worth buying? First, they need to check to see the Google page rank of an expired domain name. To do this they need to download Google’s toolbar and then type in the URL of the expired domain name. The toolbar will then let them know what the page rank is.

If the page rank indicator is gray, the expired domain name must be avoided since this means the site has been banned by Google. Otherwise, it should be okay, though webmasters should also take into consideration the actual number associated with the page rank. If the number is between 6 and 10, they should strongly consider buying the expired domain name.

Secondly, webmasters need to find out the Alexa rating of an expired domain name. The Alexa rating determines how much traffic has actually gone to a domain name. If a website has not received a significant amount of traffic, it will not have an Alexa rating. To determine the Alexa rating for an expired domain name, webmasters need to visit Alexa.com.

Finally, webmasters need to see how many websites are linking to the expired domain name. To do this they need to put the command link: followed by the URL of the expired domain name into a search engine. If a lot of links are returned, this is a sign that the traffic coming to the expired domain name originated from legitimate sources.

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Danny Brown is a well-respected freelance writer, and owner of PressRelease PR, a specialist press release and unique content company.

A Bachelor of English, he has had his work published in both online and offline publications, and is much sought-after for his expertise and research skills in a variety of fields.

A native of Edinburgh, Scotland, Danny now lives in Toronto with his wife Jacki and their two cats.

PressRelease PR

Firstly, alot of would-be affiliates jump straight on over to clickbank.com and start promoting their program through Google Adwords PPC (pay per click), I’m mean, look how easy it is, and PPC is all the rage now, all you have to do is write a half decent ad, add your clickbank URL, bang in a few relevant keywords and off you go!…..until you…..CRASH AND BURN! 

There are so many factors to consider with ppc marketing to make it profitable, just slight changes to your campaign can make the difference of success and failure, and you can loose a stack of money in a heatbeat if you get it wrong, this isn’t the way to go for newbies, and don’t fall for those over hyped ebooks telling you how easy it is, most of them are just plain rubbish.

In an earlier post I talked about buying your own domain name and hosting, this is the best way to start as it is very easy to setup, even for a total novice, and after a little effort can bring you a steady stream of income.

The other advantage is that your marketing efforts that you do today can bring you a lifetime of traffic. Lets say you signed up for the latest “hot affiliate program” and promoted it through article marketing (I’ll cover that later!) but all of a sudden that program ain’t so “hot” or they close down the website you have spent all your time and money on promoting, what happens to all that traffic? You’ve plastered your affiliate link all over the web but they’ve closed down the site? Oh crap!…..Wouldn’t it have been better to promote your own domain and then redirect the traffic to your affiliate site?

You see in this type of situation you’re screwed, you would be sending traffic to a website that doesn’t exist, or an outdated product etc, however, if you had your own website you could redirect the traffic to another affiliate program in a matter of minutes.

Don’t worry if you don’t know a damn thing about HTML (can’t you tell I don’t? ), SEO, adsense, or getting listed in search engines etc, you don’t need to know, you can upload a wordpress blog that has a bunch of plugins, which are totally free, that will do it all for you, all you will have to do is add content an keep promoting driving traffic to your site.

You can have a website up and running and listed in search engines in a couple of days (or less) and not need to know about all the technical stuff. You’ve gotta love that!!

Finding decent web hosting can be a complete nightmare, no kidding, there is so much competition and so many “good deals” it’s a total nightmare.

Don’t believe all you see!

There are many hosting companies that offer unlimited bandwidth, unlimited domains and a ton of other stuff for just $1.99 a month, it may sound good but trust me, you won’t be doing yourself any favours buying this crap!

Forget FREE hosting providers! All these free hosting providers need to pay for bandwidth somehow, and they do it by adding a ton of adverts to your sites content, plus you will have limited control of what you can do with your own website…..forget it…free hosting sucks!

These hosting providers that offer you unlimited bandwidth (there’s no such thing!) at a really low price are ripping you off, if it sounds too good to be true, it is!

The way cheap hosting works

OK, you find a really “good deal” and spend your $1.99 a month, and sit there all smug that you’ve found the best hosting company on the planet at the fraction of the price everyone else is paying, but did you know, you are sharing your bandwidth with a stack of other people? No? Oh heck..

You see, every domain name is actually an IP address, now what these hosting providers do is rent these IP’s off, to you, and to dozens of other people, now you can have your own dedicated IP address which means you are the ONLY person/website that has that IP, BUT these “good deals” are sharing your hosting IP, “so what?” you may think.

Well, you don’t know who you are sharing your hosting with do ya? you might have a great website, great content, and don’t do any spam or black hat techniques (dodgy stuff!), but the people you are sharing with might!

Also, and this is the more common problem, there is only so much bandwidth to go around, you may not ever use all your bandwidth in any given month, but the people you are sharing with might use over their monthly allowance, guess what happens? Your site goes down!! Yup, that’s right, you may be playing ball, but the people you are sharing with ain’t, it’s your business that suffers.

I really hope that you see my point, yes there is plenty of cheap hosting about, but you have to be careful, there’s “cheap”, and there’s “too good to be true cheap”.

I use Hostgator.com, others I would recommend hostnine.com and lunarpages.com, I have NEVER used the later two hosting providers but I have had good reports and seen alot of good reviews about them.

This is important…..YOU NEED YOUR OWN DOMAIN AND HOSTING! (sorry for shouting!)

This is what will separate you from other “tyre kicker” affiliates, there is so much more you can do with your own domain and hosting than trying to do it the FREE way, but just because you’re paying for it doesn’t mean it’s going to cost you a fortune, heay, I’m the king of cheap! I’m tighter than a ducks arse! LOL Cut costs, maximize profits, it’s not rocket science.

Don’t worry if you don’t know a thing about building websites, or HTML etc, it doesn’t matter, I will go over that in another post, I will show you how to do it for FREE and without any HTML knowledge.

I will post about hosting tomorrow, but for now get on over to namecheap.com to register your domain, BUT before you spend a dime, go to dncoupons.com and select namecheap from the drop down menu to get your domain name discount coupon code, OK, at the time of writing this it’s only about $0.90 but that brings the cost of your domain name down to around $8. DO NOT buy hosting from these guy’s, apparently it’s awful…be warned!

If this is your first time at affiliate marketing I would recommend you buy a domain that is keyword targeted, so if your chosen affiliate program is selling dog training, try get a domain name containing the words “dog training”. If you want your domain to sell several unrelated products, think of a business name you would want to go by, or even one in your own name.