Showing posts with label registrars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label registrars. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Little Savings Add Up


There are many aspects to success as a domain name investor, one is saving money on your costs. Tools like TLD-list and DomComp can help you find the best rates for registration, transfer and renewal of domain names. As well as using comparator tools, it also makes sense to watch out for limited time specials. We point out a limited time opportunity on right now, but you have to act fast! While saving a couple of dollars might not seem like much, if you have a hundred domains or more, those savings can add up!

Namecheap Birthday Celebration


Namecheap is the world's second largest retail registrar, with over 10 million domains under management. Particularly in the new domain extensions, they are a huge presence offering excellent rates for both registration and renewals.  They are celebrating their 18th anniversary, and are offering customers deals on both renewals and .com registrations.  The renewal deal is 18% off almost all of the extensions, and it can be applied whether your  domains are currently up for renewal or not.  The deal stops at midnight (Eastern time zone) tonight (Oct 17) though, so act fast.

To add renewal of a domain name at Namecheap do the following;
  1. Log into your  Namecheap account and go to the Dashboard.
  2. Select Domains from the list at the left, then find the domain you want to renew early. 
  3. For that domain click on the Manage icon, and  then select Add Years.
  4. This will bring up a page with one year the default setting. Make sure that under the price it shows B-Day for special price.
  5. If you want to renew for more than one year, just select it from the pull down menu. The discount applies to multiple year periods, and you will see the cost for each option.
  6. If you change your mind simply take the renewal out of your shopping cart using the x.
  7. Confirm by choosing your source of funds.  
  8. The new registration expiry date will instantly show up in your domain list.

I've been a long term customer of Namecheap, with the majority of my domains registered there.  They offer a cost effective solution and have speedy and courteous customer response if you ever need it. Note  that this promotion while applying to almost all extensions, only makes a difference for those extensions not at some current  promotion renewal price.  For example, for my .science domain names there is no advantage to this promotion. 

Namecheap also have a deal on new registrations of .com domain names which you may find attractive, although also look at options at other registrars.

Discussion


So why not head over to Namecheap in the next few hours and pick up savings on renewals. As pointed out in a previous post, renewing in advance simplifies your life and locks in costs at good rates. Deciding what to renew encourages you to take a critical look at your entire portfolio.  Also, having the domain name registered for multiple years make it more worthwhile to develop a mini-site or other long term promotion plans.

It always makes good sense to compare your renewal rate with what options you have if you transfer to another registrar. This is easy using sites like TLD-list and DomComp that compare current pricing at multiple registrars. Do keep in mind, however, that when you transfer your domain name to a new registrar their will normally be a 60 day ICANN lock on further transfer of ownership.

Congratulations to Namecheap, and looking forward to the next decade.  They hint on their blog that some big things are in the not too distant future. By the way, they also have a contest to win $1000 (one winner).  No purchase is necessary, but you will need to outline your case on how the funding could help your business or individual plans.

If you decide to renew some domain names under this promotion, why not share in the comments section the names or extensions and your thinking in selecting those.



Original post Oct 17, 2018.

Fine Print

This post is offered for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be considered domain name investment advice. While an attempt has been made to be accurate, there is no implied or explicit warranty, and you are responsible for verifying any information of importance to you. You also accept full responsibility for any domain investing decisions you may make. I have no association with the folks who maintain NameBio. I acknowledge the makers of these for the valuable products that they make freely available to the domain name community. 

I am not connected to Namecheap and have not been encouraged or paid to make this post.  The screen capture used here is from Namecheap who own the rights to it, and is used here for review illustration purposes only.  I am a customer of Namecheap, and also have an affiliate relationship with them, which is used in one or more links in this post.  That does not alter the price that you pay for any services from Namecheap.

I try to be fair, balanced and objective in my analysis.  If you feel this post does not meet that standard, please express your concerns to me.  I never accept compensation to provide favourable review of any particular service or product.

The text of this posting is ©R Hawkes, all rights reserved. However, you may, without permission, use reasonable length portions of the post as long as a link to this post is also provided. If you wish to use the complete contents of a post, please request permission. I am normally open to reprinting, but will consider each request individually. 

Saturday, August 25, 2018

Great Domain Investing Link Site

Through NamePros I learned about a fantastic one-stop starting point for domain name investors.  Let me briefly lead you through some of the features, but it is so user friendly you may prefer to just directly head over to www.domlinks.com and see for yourself!

Sections


The image above shows the sections currently at the site, and they include the most visited resources for domain name investors.  For example, there are links to most of the main registrars, marketplaces, backorder/expiring sites, statistics/analysis tools, brokerage and escrow services.

By clicking on the appropriate button at DomLinks you are taken to an expanded view of links for that  topic.  For example, I show the top part of the Marketplaces.  I really liked the clean alphabetical listing and that he includes icons with each.   That makes it easy to find a link if you are looking for something you already know. The marketplace list is pretty complete, although note that Tough Domains is listed under domain management (with Efty) although in my mind it should also be included as a marketplace.


The bottom part of the Marketplaces is a subsection of brandable sites, that those who invest in that niche will find very useful. Along with BrandBucket and Brandpa, it also lists Brandroot, DNBX and Namerific.

One of the most comprehensive and useful sections is Research Tools.  Of course sites like NameBio, nTLDstats and ICANNWhois are listed, along with many others, some of which perhaps you, like I, had overlooked. Under Research Tools, certainly NameStat should be added.  I would also have included the W3Techs site. A really nice feature in the Research Tools section is that a few words indicate what you find at each site (example: for DomComp it  says 'Compare registration prices').

Remarks


I wish I had found this resource early in my domain investing career!  Most experienced domain investors will have already started using  many of these resources, but it is helpful to have them all attractively organized in one place. While there are other sites that do one or two of these topics, such as marketplace listings, I don't know of another site aa comprehensive as this one.

i found a couple of the sections not complete.  For example the Hosting section does not include such major hosting services as GoDaddy, HostPapa and Namecheap (although the GoDaddy and Namecheap do list in registrars, of course, so thee is a link somewhere on the site for  them).  Somewhat surprisingly, when I reviewed the site although Estibot is listed in the Research Tools section GoDaddy GoValue is not.

While any list of domain blogs is of course subjective, I think an excellent selection is made in that section. New domain investors would be wise starting with the ones here. I have under development a  future blog posts specifically on this topic.

I like the FreeLancer section at the bottom.  Even though it currently has only 3 linked sites, they are the big ones in this developing area.  I think many domain investors use some sort of additional related activity to even out the ups and downs of domain sales returns.

I realize that even the current DonLinks site is a lot of work, but it would be great to have a section dedicated to educational resources such as books, courses and educational videos. Another possible topic would be options for website security certificates, both the commercial alternatives and LetsEncrypt.

The contact page at the DomLinks site allows you to make suggestions for additions.  I see that one I submitted via NamePros has already been added.  It also states that there are no affiliate links directly on the site (of course a number of the linked sites have their own affiliate links).  This truly is a generous contribution to the domain community by the site developer!

DomLinks is a great site that will save you time and introduce you to resources you might have missed. Go visit it! It even has a great domain name and logo!


Note:

I reviewed the site on Aug 24,2018.  Quite likely it would have been further refined by the time you check it, so some of the proposed additions may well have already been implemented. 

Links:


Original post Aug 25, 2018.

Fine Print

This post is offered for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be considered domain name investment advice. While an attempt has been made to be accurate, there is no implied or explicit warranty, and you are responsible for verifying any information of importance to you. You also accept full responsibility for any domain investing decisions you may make that use data from this post.

I try to be fair, balanced and objective in my analysis.  If you feel this post does not meet that standard, please express your concerns to me.  

In a very few cases there may be affiliate links on my blog. This means I receive a small amount if users visit or make purchases via the link. You do not pay any additional charge due to using an affiliate link, and in some cases your cost will be below the normal price. I receive no identifying information about who clicks, or does not click, any link. I never accept compensation to provide favourable review of any particular service or product.

The text of this posting is ©R Hawkes, all rights reserved. However, you may, without permission, use reasonable length portions of the post as long as a link to this post is also provided. If you wish to use the complete contents of a post, please request permission. I am normally open to reprinting, but will consider each request individually. 

The images used are either those associated with a product or service, my own images, or Pixabay images believed to be available for use without attribution. If you see any image that you believe is problematic, please let us know and we will immediately correct the situation.



Wednesday, August 22, 2018

The Long Term View

Over the past week I spent some time evaluating my domain portfolio, and deciding which names I wanted to invest in for a longer time horizon. My main reason for doing that is I expected a significant and irreversible price increase in a few of the extensions in my portfolio based on this information from Kevin Murphy. I had alerted others through NamePros to the anticipated price increase in case they wanted to register new names or extend registrations.  My main registrar (Namecheap) had for some time offered great 5 year renewal rates on a number of extensions, although as of Aug 20, 2018 they are gone due to changes in the management of the former Famous Four registries.

Why Register for Multiple Years


I think it is accurate to say that many domain investors generally only register domains one year at a time.  Naturally, being optimistic, most hope to sell their names quickly, and registering a domain name for multiple years could be seen as either negative thinking (It won't sell in year one) or wasteful (I sold it so those extra years were of no value for me).  I don't agree.  Let us consider some of the reasons you should consider multiple-year renewals on domain names in your portfolio.
  1. You lock in future costs at known rates.  
  2. You take advantage of promotions and savings. 
  3. With the luxury of future years registrations prepaid, you will be more confident in asking good prices.
  4. The additional years will make your domain names more valuable to potential end users, and give them more confidence about long term costs.
  5. Deciding which names warrant renewal for multiple years will force you to critically evaluate your portfolio and emphasize quality over quantity. 
  6. The long term approach saves you time that can be put into other domain portfolio priorities.
While reasons (1) and (2) were the dominant ones for my recent renewals (and a couple of new multi-year registrations), really all of these factors played a role. My pricing is always value oriented,  but I now feel more confident asking reasonable prices for quality domains (3). I think uncertainty in future renewal prices has made some end users leery of new domain extensions, and purchasing a domain name with multiple future years of registration prepaid does add value for the new owner (4). It is a good feeling that I have a longer term window to set up attractive sales pages for the domains, and to facilitate getting offers.

It was also a good exercise for me over the past week to literally look at almost every domain name I hold and rank them in categories of definitely hold for multiple years, possibly hold for an extended period, or definitely keep only a single year if no interest. For a few domain names I am currently undecided, and that prioritizes where future research is needed. As I limit my entire domain liability, I had specified a total amount I had available to spend, and the exercise of forced me to prioritize which domain names to focus on.

Concluding Remarks


I offer the following points in conclusion.
  • Following authoritative news from the domain field will be financially beneficial at times.  Had I not read Kevin's posts, I would not have known about the impending price increases, as my registrar did not inform me. This is one reason to be on social media and  to read NamePros regularly.
  • Your domain portfolio business plan should have at least a several year time horizon both for both costs and projected revenue. Renewal costs are a major part of the overall plan.
  • It is better to focus on fewer names of higher quality, and over extended periods, rather than a lot of domains you only plan to hold one year. 
  • Note I am not saying you should always register for multiple years. It is often a good move to test drive a domain name for a year, see if you get any inquiries, and then review whether you want to keep it. 
  • I wish that registrars and registries more frequently offered multi-year discounts. I think the stability would be good both for the industry and for domain name investors.  I was encouraged to see this week that Namecheap now has a 3 years of the .online extension promotion (see  if it is still on should it be of interest to you). 
  • Always shop around for the best renewal prices using a tool like TLD-list.  Remember that it may not show all multiple year discounts though, so also do your research and  be alert to time limited promotions.  If your main registrars have blogs read them, and use social media and online domain communities to stay up to date.
  • Your business plan and personal branding statement should make it clear which domain names are congruent with your operation and you should make  sure that  your long term acquisitions in particular are a good fit.
Many of the points mentioned here are congruent with the overall advice to domain investors I offered in an earlier post.  One good place to learn about promotions is NamePros - if not already a member, you should be!

By having some of your domains registered for five years in the future, it will help you keep going during down times, knowing that you are in this for the long run.  I guess that is me!

PS

In case you are wondering what I decided to renew for 5 additional years, most were science extension single words and acronyms that I think will be more important in a few years compared to now.  I also have  registered for 5 to 10 years a few that I have development plans, including my main domain website NamesThat.win. I forget who told  me this, but it is good advice to focus on those domain names that you would develop if you had  time.  This tells  you two things: it is a topic with current interest (so development is worthwhile) and that you have expertise in that niche (we sell best what we know best).

Links:


Original post Aug 21, 2018.

Disclosure: I have no association with any of the companies or individuals mentioned in this post, except that I have a number (somewhat over 50% currently) of my portfolio of domain names registered at Namecheap, and I am a member of their affiliate program.  I also have domain names registered at Alpnames, NameSilo, CanReg, GoDaddy and Web Hosting Canada.

Fine Print

This post is offered for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be considered domain name investment advice. While an attempt has been made to be accurate, there is no implied or explicit warranty, and you are responsible for verifying any information of importance to you. You also accept full responsibility for any domain investing decisions you may make that use data from this post.

I try to be fair, balanced and objective in my analysis.  If you feel this post does not meet that standard, please express your concerns to me.  

In a very few cases there may be affiliate links on this blog. This means I receive a small amount if users visit or make purchases via the link. You do not pay any additional charge due to using an affiliate link, and in some cases your cost will be below the normal price. I receive no identifying information about who clicks, or does not click, any link. I never accept compensation to provide favourable review of any particular service or product.

The text of this posting is ©R Hawkes, all rights reserved. However, you may, without permission, use reasonable length portions of the post as long as a link to this post is also provided. If you wish to use the complete contents of a post, please request permission. I am normally open to reprinting, but will consider each request individually. 

The images used are either those associated with a product or service, my own images, or Pixabay images believed to be available for use without attribution. If you see any image that you believe is problematic, please let us know and we will immediately correct the situation.

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