Many domainers will collapse as their renewals bury them in debt. Desperation will set in when they find it next to impossible to sell what they have. Why? Worthless domains don’t sell well during times like this. You bought SWAMPLAND and the gators are about to eat you for dinner.
The statement above is from none other than Rick Schwartz. I completely agree with Rick. I have now been involved with the domain industry for a full year. Over the last year I have been sent tons of emails saying I am going out of business and selling my domains. Of course being the entrepreneur I am I purchased a few.
Now is the time to buy if you have money!
Now the topic of discussion is domain renewals. Personally I have about 600 domain names that are up for renewal within a 120 day window. To date I have dropped 244 of them and have plans to drop at least another 100. You may ask why have I not tried selling them on the forums or through my own site. Well, I’m not into selling domain names for $1 to $5. The time involved to manage a $1 to $5 sale is not worth my time. Even at that price point there is no guarantee someone will purchase the names. And to be honest, some of the names are not even worth that.
When I first got into domaining I purchased some real crap. I even let myself get sucked into the four letter domain buzz buying a couple hundred at peak prices. For myself, I learn by doing. For me to buy x,xxx amount of domain names and letting some drop is part of education. An expensive education, but that is how I learn. I now know what to look for when buying a good domain name.
Fun Fact: My largest drop was a $400 purchase of a dot ws domain name. My first, only and last dot ws purchase.
On the flip side I have sold hundreds of domain names and done very well. No large sales over $2,500 to brag about, but many hand registered domain names sold between $25-$250.
I will leave you with this…
Purchasing a domain name is an investment. Treat it as such, do not fall in love with a name and realize at some point you will need to cut your losses. You do not want to put good money into bad.
UPDATE
This comic strip came to mind with domain names dropping.
Feel your pain, that how we learn!!!
This is like the rite of passage to stardom.
We’ve got 80+ we’re letting drop without renewing in the next 2 weeks. Feels good.
I hear ya, of course I have nowhere near the amount of domains that you have, but it is indeed a learning experience. taking a few lumps along the way is all part of the growing process.
Want to buy a few llll.com’s? hehehe
Nice article Chef.
You know what those big drops mean? Reading between the lines it tells me that parking doesn’t work.
I assume you parked all or most of the domains you’re going to drop. Most likely, they were parked at the services you suggested in past articles in which you touted parking services.
If all those parking services came through with enough hits to pay the nut, you wouldn’t drop all those puppies.
Parking is the opium of the newbie domainer.
New York Dude,
Yes the majority of my domains are parked. Just parking a domain name does not make it money. Unfortunately parking is not a magical service. It can only work as well as the domain name and the accuracy of the keywords.
Some names brought in little or nothing so why renew? I’m not going to renew a domain name that brings in $1 over 12 months.
If you read the article I said that I purchased a lot of crap names. A crap name just can’t make money, again parking is not a magical service
If you are doing nothing with your domain names then park them. You have nothing to lose! In fact you have everything to gain, either money or valuable stats.
Excellent advice Patrick. I liked the part about the .ws domain
A lot of domainers fool themselves into believing that so long as they keep renewing their domains, the loss isn’t real.
Some people thought I was “burnt” (badly) when I blogged about dropping thousands of domains. Well it is better to be burnt now than later.
It is refreshing to see domainers being honest about their portfolio. Soon we will have less headache when sifting through domain marketplaces, as there will be more quality domain names than crappy ones.
If you can’t sell it, brand it or monetize it, drop it.
Too bad registrars will pick up all the good drops and keep them for themselves…
We let names drop everyday.
Everyone normally registers crap first then learns more about domaining and gets great names.
Your doing the right thing not wasting your time on trying to sell small domains for no profit.
Drop them and forget about them.
$400 for .ws unlucky
Regards,
Rob
>Too bad registrars will pick up all the good drops and keep them for themselves…
I’ll get ‘em thanks… lol
I’ve dropped a lot of names too. I did manage to sell all my bad quality LLLL.com at peak prices and I sold most of my prem. LLLL.net to BuyDomains before *their* fall. I am however letting a lot of NNNNN.com go. That’s where I got bit =(
Trial by fire, I suppose. I am a lot more careful and conscious of the names I reg these days…
I know so many domainers who are out of pocket for domains they thought would make hundreds, if not thousands per sale. It’s very rare that you could simply buy a product of any sort, and sell it for 10x’s what you paid for it. Like any other business though, sometimes your first failures (like the .ws domain you mentioned) lead to greater successes. At the very least, you know not to repeat actions like that again!
I remember advicing a dude in discussnames against registering too many LLLL.net but he will not listen. I know he is biting his fingers now wherever he is. I kept telling him just because something is rare does not make it valuable. It could just mean it is one hell of a mistake.
As for me, I have been droping names without remorse. If it is not paying its away and I cannot remember why I bought it, then it must go.
yeah, the only LLLL.net I have that I like is a hack for my first name: jaso.net
Nice, Jaso.net lol.
I have only bought two quad premium LLLL.net’s before, sold them the same week for a few dollar profit. Don’t even know why I bought them.
I do have a bunch of LLLL.com’s if anyone wants them for cheap
Chef, I admire your honesty and remember you around LLLL.com circles.
Right now is the time to be very tough with portfolios, keep what pays and sell off or drop everything else. Personally I expect to drop maybe a thousand domains (have already dropped maybe 500) and have sold some aswell.
Agree with Snoopy.
Have sold a couple hundred domains, planning on getting rid of another few hundred.
I’ve been improving my keywords through the years but having never cleaned house, and now is a great opertunity to do so.
I have learned the hard way also, I intend to let the bad ones drop. Thanks for another great post.
Brian
“You bought SWAMPLAND and the gators are about to eat you for dinner.”
Great analogy! Yet painfully real. I admit I’m letting a couple go this year that I no longer have plans for.
I got into domaining by reading namepros and followed the advice to nubes not to register anything for the first three months of study – i still bought a lot of crap in the next three
after that though I have only bought quality. My first six months are dropping now so if anyone wants gems like kidneys-for-sale.com you are in for a treat!
I can feel the pain.
So far have allowed 1,200 names to drop but the pruning is getting tougher now.
Made many errors too over the years. The best and perhaps only good way to learn this business is from experience.
And what happens to those dreadful dropped name? They get swooped up by a newer, fresher domainer from a drop site! I would personally wish any such freshman good luck with any that we have dropped.
I know, it appears most of the domains which I let expire lately get picked-up on the drop. Actually getting a bit paranoid about it and always thinking why did I let it drop if it has value to others?
The odd thing about it is the vast majority of my dropped domains had little if any traffic or income during their time with me so it makes me wonder of I am missing something.
actually selling domains on forums for like $1 or $2 doesnt make any sense unless selling as bulk. actually last month i sold a domain which i droped for $750 for a enduser
it was in the redemption period when i got the inquiry for sale, then paid sort of $80 to redeem the domain back from the registry which i paid from the buyers advance
@DNfer, same just happened to me. Renewing at Godaddy after expiration is much less expensive though
Most the coupons still work…