Domain — is a website's address on the internet, what users see in their browser's address bar. It consists of several parts separated by dots. Let's look at them using shop.example.com as an example:
-
domain extension — the part after the last dot, in this case .com. You choose it from existing extensions: .com, .ru, .net and others;
-
name — the part before the extension, in this case example. The owner chooses it themselves;
-
subdomain — an optional part on the left, in this case shop. The domain owner creates subdomains themselves, and there's no need to purchase them separately.
You can't buy a domain forever; essentially, you rent it. You register it through a registrar — a company that sells domains — for a period of one to 10 years, then renew it. If you don't renew it on time, the address becomes available, and anyone can register it.
A domain itself — is just an address. To make a website accessible through it, the domain is connected to hosting — a server where the website's files are stored.
In marketing, a domain — is part of a brand. A short, memorable address is easier to include in advertising and easier to find, while an email address on your own domain, such as [email protected], inspires more trust than a mailbox on a free email service.
Domains in traffic arbitrage
Affiliate marketers need their own domains when directing traffic to their own pages: landing pages, pre-landing pages and White Pages. Advertising networks keep track of domains and what has happened on them. If a domain was used to run traffic in violation of platform rules, the platform may block it, making it impossible to run ads using that address again. That's why affiliate marketers often need many domains: when one gets banned, they replace it with another.
Freshly registered domains and dropped domains
Based on their history, domains are divided into two types:
-
freshly registered domain — a new address that no one has registered before you. It's inexpensive, but it has no history, so it doesn't yet have any trust, meaning the confidence of advertising platforms;
-
dropped domain — an address that previously belonged to someone, but its owner didn't renew it. It has age and history, so it may have more trust. Dropped domains with a good history are sold on specialized marketplaces and auctions, but some of these addresses expire and become available for regular registration again.
That's why, even when registering an available domain name, you shouldn't immediately assume it's a freshly registered domain. You can find out whether an address had a previous owner by checking its domain history. You can check whether the address was used before through the Web Archive, which stores copies of websites from previous years. Whois history services provide more precise information: when the domain was first registered and whether its owners have changed.
Freshly registered domains are usually used for quick campaign launches in gray-hat verticals, where a domain may get banned quickly.
Dropped domains with a good history are valued for long-term white-hat campaigns and SEO, where search engine trust matters.
Important: a dropped domain can also have a bad history. It may have previously hosted spam, a fraudulent website or advertising that caused the address to be blocked on Facebook. Such a domain won't help — it will cause harm. That's why, before buying, you should check what was previously hosted on it, whether it's on any blacklists and whether it's banned by advertising networks.
