Affiliate sites built on expired restaurant domains are everywhere right now. I don’t think they’re a good investment, especially for someone that’s relatively new to website flipping or investing. Here’s why.

AGERN & Talbottteas

The websites https://agernrestaurant.com/ and https://talbotteas.com were listed for a combined $220k earlier this year on Investors Club - if you look at them when they reached their peak, a newbie investor may have thought they were getting a cracking deal and a website on the up.

The domains were purchased for $2k and $880 via GoDaddy auctions in August & September of 2020, then pumped with fresh (pretty awful) content. Fast forward a few months and both of these websites were ranking well, but eventually got battered by Google. See their peaks to current traffic;

Why the heavy drop? Well, I imagine the fact that a lot of the content on site is about weightlifting and exercise machines, whilst the AGERN domain used to be that of a restaurant, is a big fucking factor in that 😂

I mean, at least keep it relevant with food-related products on restaurant domains, right? Well yes, but that doesn’t seem to mean you’re safe from getting screwed by Google..

Full Moon Restaurant & Bukowski Tavern

Two other sites that have been listed on Investors Club more recently are https://bukowskitavern.net/ and https://fullmoonrestaurant.com/. Lo and behold, they’re both built on expired restaurant domains. They’re up for sale for a combined $50k on Investors Club.

These websites have seen massive growth throughout the year. But surprise surprise, both of these sites seem to have been affected badly by updates in December;

This doesn’t mean to say that every site like this will tank - a good example of one that’s survived the hectic past 12 month of continuous updates is https://boatbasincafe.com, which was recently listed for over $100k (and assumedly sold, as it’s no longer listed) on a brokerage.

Domain was bought for $2k in November 2019. If we look at the Wayback machine for March 2020, we can see that they’d used the standard Generatepress default theme install and some content - probably just to see how the domain reacts to this new content.

Then, when the traffic picks up after a few months and keywords start ranking, they can come back and improve the site, tweak the content and make it look at least half decent. If you check the site now it actually looks fairly respectable and is likely bringing in a decent income via Mediavine Ads and affiliate links.

Conclusion

In the UK, we have a saying; “I wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot barge pole”. That means that these sites are high-risk, and I personally wouldn’t dream of buying them - I’d advise you not to either! 😂

What can we take from this?

• Ideally, you want a domain that has strong links AND is also brandable. I particularly like domains that could have been bought for their domain name alone without even considering the links (though they tend to cost $$$).

• If you want to build sites on these domains then be my guest, they do work; just remember that there’s a good chance that they may get hit by an update someday.

• If you build these sites and sell them for a low multiple to someone that knows the risk they’re taking on & has experience with expired domains, then fine. But, if you build them intentionally looking to sell them to some newbie investor that doesn’t really know what they’re buying, then you’re a twat.

Anyway, hope you all have a good 2022 - stay safe and stay away from purchasing expired restaurant domain sites!