Canceling Domain Names – Thinning The Herd With Domain Drops
Dropping Domain Names
As with many people over the past few years I have managed to acquire a collection of domain names that includes some that I plan on doing business development with, some domain names I plan to sell but many others that at the end of the day may have value but the return on my time invested to sell may not be worth the effort. Based on this, over the last year or so I have been thinning the domain herd that I have. Many of these domains have been acquired either through a transaction where I acquired several domains at once and they came as part of the package or were pickups I made myself through other means as individual domain names.
But, although they may be of some level of quality from an operational perspective they still can be a distraction and I would prefer to focus on a core set of domain and development investments to allow me to get the most bang for my buck/time. To give you an idea over the past year I have went from 1,300 names to somewhere around 650. Guess what, that is still too many. Over the next few months I am going to be moving to decrease the number of names even further. I preach against being a domain collector and for the most part I feel I have decreased the number of domain names that I had a few years back that I had continued to hold just based on emotional attachment (i.e. I bought it so it must be good....).
One thing that may surprise people though is I do not necessarily wait for the domain to expire. I prefer to simply cancel the name at whatever registrar it is held at and let it drop. Why not let it sit? Well as it sits it can end up being a distraction or for some reason I may decide that maybe I should keep just that one, well maybe two. I would prefer to limit the distractions and focus on the names that I feel can be developed or sold into something more profitable.
I recently sat down and did a bit of an informal review of what I had bought over the last several months compared to the few years before. Although I had managed to get some good pickups a few years back the better quality (as a percentage of names bought) really has come in the past year or so as the domain collecting stopped and domain investing and domain business development began. Sometimes you know what is right, you know the names are really worthless or not worth the effort required to sell it (50 dollar names), but it takes sometime to pull the trigger to get rid of them. What it takes is sitting down and determining what your real goals or, is it to be a profitable business or is it like baseball cards where you may have 10s of thousands that you collect but the real investment maybe in core few. Domain investing can be much like that if that is how you choose to do it, and to be honest that is ok if that is what you want. Personally I would like to focus on the profitable domains only.
Give me your thoughts, does it make sense to drop a distraction or just let them ride?
Love the picture!
Time for me to push a few of them off the cliff too (so to speak)
Aron
If you already paid for the name you might as well keep it for the length of the registration. Who knows you might get a bite on one of those names in that time. There are always absurd names that sell for insane prices everyday. As for it being a distraction, I believe that in order to be successful as a domainer you must have patience and know when to pull the trigger. I mean how distracting can a few bad names in your possession be? Time is money like you said and to cancel those names by hand it would take time.
Yes it does make sense to ‘drop the distractions’. I’m on the same course of downsizing also, and you’re right, you have to make the call on whether the name is a ‘distraction name’, or one with ‘above and beyond the others’ potential. Wasting the time trying to coax $50 or so, isn’t worth the year after year renewals until you’re ready to start the ‘coaxing’! Interesting your take/course on just canceling the name instead of waiting for it to expire, as those ‘remorse’ re-evaluations do lead to ‘one more year’ renewals, instead of expiring out. I’d like to look more into that course of action. Nice post.
You have hit the problem, many Domainers have. To many Domains !
I made exactly the same procedure, and reduced my portfolio, and still will reduce it.
I can feel your behavior in not renewing or cancelling, every Domain is like your baby
Yeah, I’m not sure I entirely agree here. Yes, focus is important, but why throw that collection of baseball cards away? Why not sell them in bulk at a major discount so that you recoup some of your investment. if you are talking about one or two, that’s fine, but if you are talking about dozens, then batch them up, put them on namepros for a few hundred bucks and have something to show for it. Or list them on bido and get at least 25 bucks on one out of 3 names or so that get listed.
It may be cathartic to let them drop or to explicitly cancel them – and if they are trademarked or typos, that’s probably appropriate. But I don’t see the value in dropping names that have value without at least attempting to make them available on the market
Drop em all except one. What more than MISSOURI.ME do you need to make a living. How many domains did Tony Hsieh need to own in order to build Zappos from Zero?
Actually Zappos owned at least one other domain – Clothes.com. And they were initially called ShoeSite.com, so that’s three names. I’m sure with a little digging you could find quite a few more.
I don’t disagree that you can make a living off of a single site, but I do disagree that all anyone ever needs is one.
Just had 150 cancellation emails from Godaddy in my inbox this morning so your post is timely.
I have been “trimming the fat” in my portfolio recently you might say, have gone from 500 to probably about 200-250. It feels good, like I have lost a bunch of weight=).
I still have been buying plenty as well but instead of buying 200 hand regs for 1400 I buy 1 premium domain for 1400. I have realized that I am actually making a lot more money using this process.
I wish I would have cut the fat sooner. Of course, I am excited to see everyone’s drops, I am hoping that I will see some value that others might not.
There are lots of things to do with domains that you intend to let drop… hint, hint…
Troy
FreeDomainNewsletter.com
@Owen – I love that comment:) Actually 25 names is what I need, the 25 state names I own:)
Thanks all for the comments, the trick is to have more quality, less average. That is the goal at the end of the day. Keep em coming, its great to hear everyones perspective on it.
Had a friend of mine email asking for one of the names he thinks I will drop:)
Disclaimer: No sheep were actually harmed in the writing of this blog post.
@theoretical
Meant to respond earlier, keep getting sidetracked. I understand that maybe selling in bulk would work or even selling at 25 dollars on Bido. But the time involved in managing that compared to where that time could be used elsewhere is why I consider the “operational” cost of selling names in that price range just not worth it.
Thinning the herd – painful but VERY cathartic! Like a very well known domainer friend of mine (and probably yours!) told me recently – “Don’t chase names! There’s better ones coming around every minute!”
So true……
Try putting all of your unwanted domains in a portfolio sale on eBay or forum. You would be surprised how many people will buy crap domains for $1-2 each just for experimentation purposes.
@LinkedBin
The problem with that is the time involved in managing all the push requests on those names. One dollar per name isn’t worth the effort. I do appreciate the tip though and I actually talk to people frequently that actually like doing the lower end deals and do ok with them but the time to dollar ratio just does not work in my favor on that:)
Thanks for the comment!
Bruce,
Good point about the time involved in all the pushes and it’s probably not worth the effort if you don’t have an account manager at your registrar. After a large sale I just send an email with the list of domains and new owner’s info to my account manager and she does the rest.
@Linked Bin – That is the issue, if its at one of the registrars I have lots of names thats one thing, but when the names in the bunch may also be spread around several other registrars things get a bit tougher.
Good point though.
Bruce