On January 18, 2020, an expired domain was bought for $14,783 on GoDaddy.
The domain itself: 72hours.org
Content was deployed quickly, without much effort put into design. As an example:
It has already started ranking in the top positions for keywords related to «72 hours»:
- how much is 72 hours
- 72 hours
- 72 hrs is how many days
Even though there is no actual content about 72 hours there, Google factors in the domain name itself and tries to rank it accordingly.
It’s already ranking even for review keywords: «infinitikloud reviews» is already at position #13.
The guys are trying to break into the medical niche and have medical backlinks. I think one of the E-A-T and YMYL criteria is backlinks from medical sites, which are very difficult to obtain. That’s why the price for the domain turned out so wild.
They are targeting the most profitable topics:
- weight loss
- supplements
The site is polished for speed. PageSpeed shows 95 on mobile:
We can add this site to our monitoring list and see what happens to it in six months.
Following up on this site, I happened to notice an overly high price for a domain with very few backlinks. And guess what? Looks like it’s the same team that launched 72hours.org.
3366 evergladesplan.org 2020-01-09 NameJet
703 evergladesplan.org 2019-01-09 NameJet
They just bought the domain for $3,366, even though a year ago it cost $703.
I would understand if it had medical backlinks, but the domain is about restoring some Everglades park or something similar.
They also launched a barebones template and dumped medical supplement articles onto it.
In my opinion, the price is way too high and the domain is totally off-topic.
evergladesplan.org—let’s remember it. In six months, we can come back and check whether it took off or not.
Update: $15k down the drain
Exactly one year ago I wrote about the domain 72hours.org, which was bought for $14,783—the site hasn’t gone anywhere since.
When people buy domains for $15,000, it doesn’t mean they know exactly what they are doing and can’t make mistakes.