Expired Domain Finder with SEO Metrics

Find genuinely available expired domains — verified as registerable right now — enriched with backlink counts, domain popularity scores, Wayback Machine archive history, spam detection, and a quality score with BUY/WATCH/SKIP recommendations.

What it does

This actor scrapes ExpiredDomains.net for expiring/dropped domains, then verifies each one's real registration status and enriches it with SEO metrics so you can act on domains you can actually register.

⚠️ "Expired" ≠ "available". Most listings on expired-domain feeds have simply passed their expiry date but are still held by the previous owner through the registrar grace / redemption / pending-delete window (typically 30–75 days) — they are not yet buyable. This actor checks every domain's true status via RDAP (the IANA-standard registration protocol, with a DNS fallback) and, by default, returns only domains that are genuinely available to register right now. Set onlyAvailable: false to also see still-registered candidates, each labelled with its real status.

Per domain, you get:

• Verified status: available (registerable now) or registered, checked via RDAP/DNS (availabilityCheckedVia)

• Basic info: domain name, TLD, expiry date, age, previous registrar

• SEO metrics: backlink count, referring domains (domain popularity), archive snapshot count

• Historical context: first and last Wayback Machine capture dates, last known page title

• Risk signals: spam indicator count (from keyword heuristics on domain name and title)

• Scoring: composite quality score (0-10) with BUY/WATCH/SKIP recommendation and rough estimated value

When to use it

• Domain investors looking for aged domains with existing backlinks
• SEO professionals finding expired domains for 301 redirects or backlink recovery
• Brand monitoring watching for expired trademark variants
• Content marketers finding relevant expired domains in specific niches

Input parameters

Field	Type	Default	Description
tlds	array	["com"]	TLDs to include (e.g., ["com","net","org"])
minBacklinks	integer	5	Minimum backlink count
minDomainPopularity	integer	5	Minimum referring domains
maxAge	integer	7	Max days since expiry (0 = no filter, 7 = last week, 30 = last month)
maxDomainLength	integer	25	Max domain name length (excl. TLD, 3-63)
keywords	string	—	Comma-separated keywords to filter (e.g., "tech,blog,shop")
maxResults	integer	100	Max domains to return (1-1000)
checkWayback	boolean	true	Query Wayback Machine archive history (~0.5s/domain)
verifyAvailability	boolean	true	Verify each domain's real registration status via RDAP (DNS fallback)
onlyAvailable	boolean	true	Return only genuinely available (registerable) domains; set false to include still-registered candidates labelled with their real status
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify proxy	Proxy settings

Output format

Each result is stored in the dataset as a JSON object:

{
  "domain": "scrantonrent.com",
  "tld": "com",
  "status": "available",
  "availabilityCheckedVia": "rdap",
  "expiryDate": "2026-04-14",
  "domainAge": "20 years",
  "registrar": null,
  "backlinks": 25,
  "referringDomains": 929,
  "domainAuthority": null,
  "archiveSnapshots": 83,
  "firstArchiveDate": "2006-02-08",
  "lastArchiveDate": "2025-07-13",
  "previousTitle": null,
  "spamIndicators": 0,
  "qualityScore": 7.4,
  "recommendation": "BUY",
  "estimatedValue": "$500-2,000"
}

Quality scoring

The composite score (0-10) weighs:

• Backlink count (0-2 pts)
• Referring domains (0-2.5 pts)
• Archive snapshot history (0-2 pts)
• Domain age (0-1.5 pts)
• Name quality (length, no hyphens, 0-1.5 pts)
• Spam indicators (penalty, -0.5/indicator)

Recommendations:

• BUY — score ≥ 7 (strong signals, worth acquiring)
• WATCH — score 4-6.9 (moderate, keep an eye on it)
• SKIP — score < 4 (weak or spammy)

Pricing model

Pay-per-result. Each enriched domain = 1 billable result.

Notes and caveats

• Source data comes from the default ExpiredDomains.net feed (recently expired domains list). The feed refreshes daily.
• No official API keys required. Runs entirely via HTTP scraping + free Wayback Machine API.
• Wayback Machine adds latency — disable checkWayback for faster runs if history isn't needed.
• Keyword filter scans up to 10x the requested page count to find matches, since keyword-matching domains are rare in the daily feed.
• Domain authority field is always null in this version — integrating Moz/Ahrefs API is planned but requires paid keys.
• dist_ and location fields do not apply — this is for domain metrics, not geographic fires.

Example inputs

Quick BUY list

{
  "tlds": ["com"],
  "minBacklinks": 100,
  "minDomainPopularity": 50,
  "maxResults": 20,
  "checkWayback": true
}

Niche filter

{
  "tlds": ["com", "net"],
  "keywords": "tech,ai,saas",
  "minBacklinks": 10,
  "maxResults": 50,
  "maxAge": 30
}

Raw feed dump (no filters)

{
  "tlds": ["com"],
  "minBacklinks": 0,
  "minDomainPopularity": 0,
  "maxAge": 0,
  "maxResults": 200,
  "checkWayback": false
}

Version history

• v1.7 — Keyword filter now scans 10x more pages when active (was missing matches)
• v1.6 — Fixed metric extraction bug where BL showed inflated values (582M instead of 582)
• v1.5 — Fixed HTML table parser to match actual ExpiredDomains.net structure
• v1.4 — Added maxAge parameter for date-range filtering; server-side filters for BL/DP
• v1.3 — Added multi-strategy HTML parsing (selectors + regex fallback)
• v1.2 — Output schema integration with dataset views
• v1.1 — Logo, metadata refinements
• v1.0 — Initial release