You have a list of 250 expired domains, a budget for one purchase, and an idea for a camping website. Several names look promising. One has thousands of backlinks. Another has an impressive Domain Authority score. Which deserves your attention?
This is where DomDetailer becomes useful. It brings together Moz, Majestic and its own Pretty dataset, helping you compare domain metrics without checking every candidate separately across different services.
The aim is not to find the biggest number and buy the domain beside it. It is to turn an overwhelming list into a manageable shortlist, then investigate the strongest candidates properly.
The scenario: You want a memorable domain for original camping guides and equipment advice, ideally with a relevant backlink history. This walkthrough uses an imagined shortlist and illustrative figures, not live domain checks or claimed purchase results.
1. Load your candidates into DomDetailer
Start with domains you have already found through auction listings, expired-domain searches or your own research. Remove obvious mismatches first. A name you would never use does not need a detailed analysis simply because it appears on a list.
For this walkthrough, use DomDetailer’s browser-based Domain Stats Tool. Sign in or enter your API key, then paste your domains, one per line. You can also import a TXT or CSV file. Click Fetch stats to build a results table that you can sort, filter and export.
A domain-metrics lookup costs one credit, so checking 250 unique candidates uses 250 credits. You do not need separate Moz and Majestic subscriptions, and unused DomDetailer credits do not expire.
2. Compare the metrics, not just the headline score
Begin with Moz Domain Authority, Majestic Trust Flow, Citation Flow and referring domains. Domain Authority is a comparative prediction, not a promise of rankings. Trust Flow provides a quality-oriented link signal, while Citation Flow reflects link influence with more emphasis on quantity.
Read Trust Flow and Citation Flow together. A large gap deserves investigation, but it is not an automatic rejection. Likewise, a high backlink count needs context: thousands of links from a handful of websites tell a different story from links spread across many independent sources.
Check Topical Trust Flow for clues about subject relevance. For our camping project, outdoor-related categories would justify a closer look. Unrelated categories would prompt questions about the domain’s previous use.
Use these comparisons to decide what to inspect first. Avoid inventing a universal rule such as “anything above DA 30 is worth buying”. Your project still determines what makes a domain useful.
When the first screen still leaves too many candidates, try a loose working filter such as TF 15 or above, then revisit any particularly good names it excludes. Treat that threshold as a way to organise this exercise, not a rule about domain quality.
3. Put three candidates side by side
To see why cross-checking matters, compare three imagined candidates from the original list:
| Metric | Candidate A | Candidate B | Candidate C |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moz DA | 43 | 26 | 31 |
| Majestic TF | 6 | 22 | 16 |
| Majestic CF | 41 | 28 | 24 |
| Backlinks | 38,000 | 760 | 1,100 |
| Referring domains | 14 | 94 | 68 |
Candidate A wins on headline numbers: the highest DA and far more backlinks. However, those links come from only 14 domains, and Trust Flow sits well below Citation Flow. Investigate the concentration before treating that link total as a selling point.
Candidate B moves to the front of the inspection queue. Its lower DA is accompanied by stronger Trust Flow and more referring domains. Candidate C remains worth reviewing, particularly if its name and previous subject fit your plans better.
None is a confirmed winner. DomDetailer has helped you prioritise the next checks, not replaced them.
4. Look at the backlinks behind the numbers
For your remaining candidates, open DomDetailer’s Backlinks Tool. It returns up to 5,000 backlinks from the Pretty index, including anchor text, source pages, target URLs and follow status. A backlinks lookup is a separate request costing one credit.
Inspect a sample of source pages. For our camping website, look for links that make sense in context: a walking club recommending a campsite guide, for example. Check whether the linking page still exists and whether the link remains present.
Read the anchors rather than just counting them. Repeated unrelated commercial phrases deserve investigation. Branded names and descriptive references can help you understand what people originally valued about the website.
Also check where the links point. When useful links lead to old camping articles, record those addresses and consider whether you could create genuinely relevant, original resources for those topics.
Remember that Pretty, Moz and Majestic use different datasets. Their totals need not match, and a backlink list is not a guarantee that every recorded link is still live.
5. Export a shortlist you can actually act on
Export the candidates you want to keep, then add your own notes in a spreadsheet: intended use, relevant backlinks, concerns, asking price and maximum budget. Record the check date so you know when the figures were collected.
Before bidding or registering, review archived versions of the website and confirm current availability, purchase terms and renewal costs separately. Do not treat a favourable metrics report as proof of clean history or future search performance.
Give each finalist a simple status: investigate, reject or consider buying. Add one sentence explaining why. For example, Candidate B might remain under investigation until you have checked its main linking pages and historical content. This makes the next research session easier than reopening a spreadsheet full of unexplained numbers.
The useful outcome is a decision you can explain: “This domain fits the project, its links make sense, and its price fits the budget.”
That is the practical value of DomDetailer: bulk-check the long list, compare the evidence and reserve your manual research for the domains that deserve it.