Who this case is for
Property developers, and any business that has someone else manage its domain and website without knowing when the domain expires.
This case shows that the biggest SEO problem is sometimes not about SEO at all, and that a beautifully designed website can still fail to rank if its basics were left unfinished on the day it was built.
There is a 5-minute checklist at the end that business owners can run themselves.
We do not name the company, its projects, the district-level location or prices.
1. A townhome and villa developer asked us for a free website audit
The company develops several townhome and villa projects in a tourist province on the Andaman coast, from mid-range to luxury, for both Thai and foreign buyers.
These buyers search for homes on Google before deciding to visit a project. So the website is the company’s most important storefront. Its web address is printed on brochures, the Facebook page and project signs.
The old site was built with Next.js, in 2 languages (Thai and English), with about 9 pages per language.
We checked it from 4 sources:
- RDAP: domain registry data showing the registration date, expiry date and current status
- Public DNS: where the domain points
- Ahrefs, Thai market: keywords, links and the difficulty of the main terms
- Internet Archive: snapshots of the website saved in Oct 2024, because on audit day the live site could no longer be opened
2. What we found
First, not SEO: the domain was slipping away
When the site would not load, we checked the domain registry first, and found that this was more urgent than anything else in the report.
Pending delete status means most domain registrars can no longer renew it. The only way forward is to contact the original registrar immediately and be ready to re-register the moment the domain is released.
Losing this name would reach far beyond the website:
- Every link ever handed out, on brochures, the Facebook page and project signs, would send buyers to someone else’s website
- Email on this domain would stop working
- The brand name could end up with someone who waits for expired domains to resell them
This needs no SEO knowledge at all, but it happens often to businesses that let an agency or freelancer register the domain when the site was built, and then nobody takes responsibility for renewing it.
Even before the site went down, it was not ranking
684 domains sounds like a lot, but looking at the actual list, even the ones Ahrefs did not class as spam were newly created link-selling network sites from April–July 2026, with no visitors and all links nofollow. Sites like these pull domain names from public databases and link to them automatically. The company did not buy them, but the result is that the site still has no links from quality sources.
Good design, but SEO basics left unfinished since the site was built
From the Internet Archive snapshots, the overall design looks good and fits the brand: a project slider, project cards with starting prices, a registration form for special offers, and company information. So we recommended keeping this design as the base. The work that needs doing is underneath.
The report ranked 10 issues by urgency. Issue 1 was checked from the current status; issues 2–10 were checked from the saved pages.
| # | Issue | Urgency | Business impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Domain expired and queued for deletion | Critical | Site will not load, email stops, and the brand name is at risk |
| 2 | Every page’s meta description is the site builder’s default text, “Generated by create next app” | Critical | Google may show this text under the site name, so buyers cannot tell what homes are sold or where |
| 3 | The homepage has no H1 or H2 | High | Google cannot tell that the page is about houses or villas, or in which province |
| 4 | The homepage title is “Home” followed by the company name | High | No chance to rank for terms like “บ้าน (house) + province name” or “villa for sale + province name” |
| 5 | 30 of 30 images have no alt text | High | Missed traffic from Google Images, which matters a lot for house and villa businesses |
| 6 | No hreflang between the Thai and English pages | High | Foreign buyers may see Thai pages, and the two languages compete against each other |
| 7 | No canonical and no language declared in the code | Medium | Google has to guess which URL is the main one |
| 8 | Internal links mix URLs with and without a language prefix | Medium | Creates duplicate URLs or redirect chains |
| 9 | No Structured Data or Open Graph | Medium | Links shared on Facebook or LINE show no project image |
| 10 | No tap-to-call link, and only about 400 words on the homepage | Medium | Mobile users cannot tap to call, and there is not enough content to rank |
Issue 2 is the most telling. “Generated by create next app” is the default text that comes with every new project, which means the site was handed over without anyone ever coming back to change it. Most of issues 2–10 are configuration work in the Next.js code that can be finished fairly quickly.
What was already done well
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Bilingual website | Serves both Thai and foreign buyers, a key group in the villa market of a tourist province |
| Readable URLs | Project names used as URLs |
| Clear sales information | Each project shows location, starting price and status (new project / sold out) |
| Automatic image resizing | Uses the Next.js image system to serve the right size for each screen |
The search market is still open
| Search term | Monthly searches | Difficulty (KD) |
|---|---|---|
| villa for sale + province name | 600 | 0–2 |
| บ้าน (house) + province name | 450 | 0–2 |
The main terms in both languages have KD 0–2 according to Ahrefs. If the site comes back with its basics in place, it has a chance to rank quickly. The English term also matches foreign buyers of high-end villas, a group with high value per buyer.
Proposed order of work
| Stage | Work |
|---|---|
| This week | Recover the domain first: contact the original registrar and be ready to re-register the moment it is released. Everything else depends on this |
| When the site is back | Fix issues 2–10 in the existing code, set up multi-year auto-renewal for the domain, and submit a new sitemap to Google |
| After that | Page titles and H1s on every page in both languages, a keyword plan for each project, analysis of property competitors in the province, and real links from property media |
3. Expected results
This Mini Audit does not set target numbers. This is all the report expects, and none of it has happened yet:
- If the domain is recovered, the links already printed on brochures, the page and project signs will work again, with no need to reprint anything
- If the 9 basic issues are fixed, the site will start to be eligible to compete for house and villa terms in the province, which are still low in difficulty
- If the domain is lost, the company will have to start a new domain from zero and chase down the links in every piece of marketing material
This report was just delivered. We will update this case once we know what happens with the domain.
5-minute checklist for business owners with a website
You can check this yourself, no SEO knowledge needed.
Domain and accounts
- You know the date your domain expires (search the domain name in whois or RDAP)
- Auto-renewal is on, and the card linked to it has not expired
- The domain registrar account is in the company’s name, not a freelancer’s or a former employee’s
- Someone still reads the email address that receives renewal reminders
Website
- When you search your company name on Google, the text under your site name says what you sell
- Your homepage title is not “Home”
- Sharing your website link on LINE shows an image
- On mobile, tapping your phone number starts a call right away
If you cannot tick even one domain item, fix that today before anything else.
Questions property businesses often ask us
Our domain has expired. Can we still get it back? It depends on the stage. Right after expiry it can be renewed as normal. In the next stage it can still be recovered through a redemption process. Once it enters pending delete status, most registrars can no longer renew it, and you have to wait for it to be released and race to re-register it. The sooner you notice, the more options you have.
Our website looks great. Why is it not ranking? Design makes visitors want to stay, but Google looks at page titles, headings, meta descriptions and the text on the page. If those are still default settings, the site will not rank, no matter how good it looks.
Hundreds of domains link to us. Why is our DR still almost zero? Because almost all of those links come from automated network sites with no visitors, and they are nofollow, so they pass no strength to your site. The links that really help property businesses come from property media, listing portals and local partners.
What extra setup does a bilingual website need? At minimum, hreflang to tell Google which pages are language pairs, a language declared in the code of every page, and internal links that always point to URLs with a language prefix. Otherwise foreign buyers may land on Thai pages.
We audit websites for property businesses like this
If you develop property projects and want to know whether your website is ready to win customers from Google, start with a free website audit. We check your domain status every time. Or see another case in the same field: a pool villa project website.