When was the last time that you purchased a domain name and looked at how many indexed pages the domain name had? I would bet that many never even thought about looking at that number. Although many domain names do not have indexed pages as a lot of domain names were never developed,  a lot of today’s expired or expiring domain named were developed sites at some point.

Expired domain names that have traffic will almost always sell for more than a domain name that doesn’t. Clearly keywords in the domain will help with a higher sales price but "traffic" related domains can also grab a high price at auction as well. Now there are several ways a domain name get’s traffic:

1. Direct Navigation
2. Links

Those are the two main sources of traffic to any domain name. Direct Navigation is clear cut! People simply type the domain name into an address bar for one reason or another. It could be a commercial they saw, an ad in a magazine or a site they think will provide what they are looking for.

Links is a whole different story. I consider links, bookmarks, a link placed on a different site. A link on a different site can be in many ways but search engine listings are links as well. Since search engines get the most traffic, they are also the most likely places to drive traffic for a web page that is indexed based on keywords the searcher is looking for. The more a specific domain name is indexed, the more likely somebody is going to find an indexed page and may click on it. If clicked, this brings traffic to the domain name that holds the indexed page.

With any link to a domain name, it can go away really at any time! A webmaster may simply remove a link, somebody may remove a bookmark and a search engine can remove an indexed page.

One thing that I have noticed with at least Google (the most popular search engine with a 70%+ market share) is they have a hard time detecting Partner Domains that change hands (sell). If a domain name expires and is removed from the registry, Google detects this and will remove any indexed pages. With partner domains, they do not get removed from the registry and hold the domain age creation date. Google has a harder time detecting this and if a web page (actual website, parking etc) is placed on that domain, the majority of indexed pages stay put in the search engine.

These indexed pages often lead to instant traffic to a domain name that you purchase if they happen to have indexed pages.

The biggest problem for domain investors or even domain name buyers, they really do not always think to look at the number of indexed pages a domain name has! I think this is a very big oversight! It can be hard for the average person to even tell if a domain is indexed or how many indexed pages there are for a specific domain.

It’s easy really. In a search engines search box, simply use this:

site:yourdomainhere.com (all together)

The results number shown are the amount of indexed pages for the specific search engine you are looking at. Each search engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing, MSN etc) will hold a different number because each search engine works a little different.

One of the hardest things about these indexed pages, you can not tell the quality of them besides what you can see when you do your search for the amount. Some may be in a different language. Some will basically repeat. You want ones that are all different, hold basically the same keyword(s). The more, the better and also the more likely they will get some traffic.

How do you tell "Where" and for "what" the domain names indexed pages are. This is something that really can not be done before you own the domain name. You can do some keyword searches in the search engine and see if they rank higher but that can take for ever! The easiest way to find this out, is using Google Webmasters Tool but you have to add code into the Head section of your site. It’s something worth doing if you are developing the domain that has indexed pages already but it’s not something you can do before you make your purchase. The webmasters tool will show you where your popular indexed pages are (rank position).

So what tools are available to help you find domain names with indexed pages? I am not aware of many, but I am aware that Freshdrop.net offers the metric. They provide Google Indexed pages under the tab GIDX.

Now do not get super excited because you see a domain with xx,xxx indexed pages and go and purchase it base on that alone! Even though Freshdrop provides this metric, it’s one that I still Manually check because the number is almost always a lot lower then shown on Freshdrop. Plus, you need to see the indexed pages and inspect the keywords used in the indexed pages. Use the GIDX numbers as a baseline to simply point out the domain to you. Do not set that GIDX number in stone. It’s important that the indexed pages all have a main focus and you need to manually check this with using site:yourdomainhere.com .

As I said, do not only purchase the domain based on indexed pages alone. I always use Compete.com to back up these indexed pages to see if the domain is getting some traffic. You can also use Alexa.com as a guide and be sure to manually check the indexed pages.

I often purchase domains at Godaddy Auctions using this. I have domains that I have owned for 3 years that still hold the indexed pages they had when I first purchased them, so don’t let people say… "they will lose the indexed pages". It’s not true all the time! Some will lose some indexed pages, some may lose most pages but I haven’t had this happen with the domains that I purchased based on the indexed pages and my educated guess if they will get some traffic or not. Be sure the domain is a Partner Domain or owned by somebody already and will be removed from the registry.

Start small, buying some Firesale domains where your risk is lower at around $15. If you can park that domain name and make $15 +, you earn a profit! Many of these are not huge traffic domains, but I have several that get 300-500 hits a month and make a couple bucks each month. I even have one that makes $100+ a month during the summer based on it’s keyword and it’s a .org!

Indexed pages can and do produce traffic, but if you are not looking at indexed page, you may simply be missing domain names with traffic. Do not put "trust" in all the tools that estimate traffic, because most miss the indexed page factor. If you are buying a domain name from Somebody, be sure to check for indexed pages and try to find out what keywords they rank for. If the domain you are buying has a high SERP for a popular search term, that is added value to the domain.

Fun Fact: This article contains: 1223 words

Well you know the saying. A picture is worth a thousand words! I love to take screen captures and thought what the heck, I am going to make it a common thing to see on DotWeekly.com on Friday’s! We all like to have a little fun on Friday before we kick off the weekend of fun, so I thought, why not! There will not be a specific reason for the screen shot always but I will be sure to let you know WHY I am posting it.

I have never seen an active hyperlink (highlighted in yellow) in a meta description before, until now! Not sure how Wikipedia was able to get that but I guess I never added "code" to meta before either to try it. I have seen Google SiteLinks but this is clearly not those.

Sub-domains are NOT a domainers friend. For the educated ones that use Sub-Domains, they may save money on buying a domain name that would help them rank in SE’s better and just use a sub-domain. Just a feeling I have, you don’t have to agree with me. Sub-domains are underrated IMO and can be used to gain SEO. Sub-Domains are NOT good for branding purposes! A search on Google for screen capture software displays the screen capture from above. The website using a sub-domain to help grab the # 1 spot. screen-capture-software-review is the sub-domain part and TopTenReviews.com is the actual domain name.

I get a kick out of these kinds of tweets on Twitter. Right away, just because somebody beat "drOffset" to "his name" as a domain, the owner is a Squatter? No! I was pissed somebody owns all the lots on my street but I don’t call the owner a squatter! I mean really.. bitching about "three figures".  Made me laugh!

The above is a review for a Mr Coffee machine that is $34.88 at Walmart. I guess you have to read it from the start, to the part I highlighted to get the full effect I did! She brews 5-10 Pots of coffee on the weekend! Holy Smokes lady! Leave the house a little bit! LOL No wonder why the thing died in 8 months!

The yearly charted domain name sales are always interesting to look at. Since we can only see the reported domain name sales, you have to go by the data provided but I think several things can be learned by looking at last years data.

DnJournal.com keeps a handy running list of the highest reported domain name sales in a simple chart which is easy to follow. With 2010 only 15 days old, the "new" 2010 list has not been started yet but I don’t think it will be long before we have the first seven figure reported domain name sale. The questions yet to be answered are what the domain name will be and who will have a hand in selling it.

Using data from DnJournal.com and taking a look at the top 5 reported sales from 2009:

• 2 sales were from Private Transactions
• 3 were from an auction service

4 of the top 5 sales happened in the first 6 months of the year and only two were above the $1M dollar mark. Candy.com for $3M and Toys.com for $5.1M. All of the top 5 reported sold domains were .com (top 26 are .com really).

With those numbers, it would be a pretty good bet the first 7 figure domain sale of the year will be a .com and it would have a pretty good shot selling in an auction.

If you include the Top 10 of 2009

• 2 sales were from Private Transactions
• 8 sales were from an auction service

5 of the top 10 sales happened in the first 6 months of the year with 8 of the top 10 being over $1 Million dollars.

The highest reported ccTLD for 2009 was Spel.es (games) in Swedish for $266,000. The highest Global Contender was Casino.mobi for $135,000 beating out Jesus.net which sold for $124,337.

That is the history and the future is ahead of us. Although only 2 weeks are in the books for 2010, the early reports look like ccTLD’s (country code) will be a player in the list!

Credit.fr is currently leading the highest reported domain sales of 2010 with a sale price of $851,875 USD. The domain name sold at the auction service Sedo.com .

The highest reported .com domain name sales of 2010 at time of posting:

• CookingGames.com $350,000
• Leisure.com $150,000
• Migraine.com $125,000

It will be 11 more months until we can say 2010 domain sales numbers are history and we will truly have the answer then, but if I were a betting man, I would say the highest reported domain name sale for 2010 will be a .com and will sell at an auction type service. ccTLD’s may give .com a run for it’s money but .com is much too popular to lose the top spot.