It’s late Friday afternoon, you’re sitting in front of your computer thinking of new ‘quirky’ domains to purchase, when you realize that you have amassed a collection of domains so long, that it takes you 20 minutes to cycle through them. Okay … maybe that’s just me … but what started as a fun project has now become a £2,000 a year addiction.
Although many of you will assure me that I am an isolated case, a ‘one in a thousand’ outsider, it seems that several industry compatriots, when trawling through their domain lists began to realize that maybe they shared the same addiction.
One person in particular, worked out that although they were only paying a few hundred a month in renewals that their yearly fees came in at a staggering £4580!
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So what is the answer? Do you keep on buying new domains with aspirations of grandeur for them, or do you take a day out, sit down, and run through the everlasting catalogue of domains and see which ones are worth keeping and which ones are available to ‘drop.’ For me it was certainly a case of the latter. Referring to my own indiscretions, the .info sites that I bought back in 2009 may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but having never even put a landing page on them to increase their page rank or anything – they could afford to be discarded to make way for more current and relevant domains.
Of course, this is easier said than done. Domains that I bought like servingbeer.com which I have still not found a purpose for, but am obstinate that I will in the future, are an example of how hard this can be. Perhaps the easiest way to do it is to look at the domain from a different prospective. Plan what it will be, look at how many monthly searches the keywords you would target actually get, and above all – work out whether the cost of creating it is worth it. There have been many occasions where people have moaned to me about spending copious amounts of money on domains that never become profitable, and when you look at the name, the content and the way it is being designed – you can quickly understand why.
With a little foresight, it would be easy for us to work this out and not buy them in the first place, but having tried that several times over and still having managed to convince myself that domains with obscure names are ‘memorable’, (yes, yes … I know my main domain is a prime example) perhaps I am still in denial. So just remember that if you do make mistakes and buy them, just don’t tick the auto-renew button and maybe next year you might think differently.
About the Author
Daniel Laming spent over two years working as an affiliate manager for GTech and Red Interactive, but recently decided to pursue a role as a full-time affiliate working on website BigGainsNoPains with a team of five, focusing on Online Casino and Online Bingo offers.