Expired domain names may look abandoned, but many are quickly registered again,and their history can make them surprisingly valuable.
New research from Infoblox Threat Intelligence found that roughly 50,000 previously registered generic domains are re-registered each day. When country-code domains are included, that figure rises to around 65,000 per day.
Infoblox estimates that nearly one in five newly observed domain registrations has actually been registered before.
Why Old Domains Can Be Valuable
A previously used domain may still have years of history attached to it, including backlinks, web traffic, email connections, search-engine visibility, and references on other websites.
That history can make an expired domain more attractive than a completely new one.
Most people buying expired domains are not criminals. Investors purchase them for resale, companies recover forgotten assets, and security researchers sometimes register them defensively.
But attackers can take advantage of the same leftover trust.
Infoblox says threat actors may acquire expired domains to inherit existing traffic, receive messages intended for previous owners, exploit forgotten DNS configurations, or redirect visitors toward scams and malware.
In one case highlighted by the researchers, an expired domain previously used by a marketing service remained embedded on major websites for years. After it was eventually registered by a new owner in 2026, visitors were reportedly redirected toward malicious content.
Infoblox’s research is a reminder that a domain’s registration may expire, but the trust and connections associated with it can remain long afterward.
For organizations, that makes domain management more than an administrative task. Forgotten or accidentally abandoned domains can become a cybersecurity risk long after a website has disappeared.
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