Domain investing tips, strategies, and industry insights
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A few weeks ago I launched NotRenewing.com , and I'll be honest. I wasn't totally sure what I was going to get. The premise is simple enough. Every domain investor has names they're not going to renew. That doesn't automatically make those names worthless. Sometimes they don't fit the portfolio anymore. Sometimes the timing's off. Sometimes you're just tired of carrying them.
Patience gets a lot of credit in this industry. You hear it constantly. Hold long enough and the right buyer will come. Good names take time. The best sales are years in the making. And honestly, that's not wrong. Some of the best outcomes I've seen, including ones I've had, came from holding longer than felt comfortable. But I've also held names that had no business being in my portfolio for as long as they were.
Some domain names support a business. Others become the business. That is what makes the journey of David Timmis especially interesting. He founded the company that would become Leasing.com in 2000 and spent years building real traction on the long, descriptive domain ContractHireAndLeasing.com . The business grew, the market matured, and eventually the name caught up with the ambition.
I should know better. And yet I still catch myself making the same mistake. I buy a name that feels right. Clean. Logical. Real industry. Nothing embarrassing about it. I'd show it to another investor and they'd probably nod and say that's a good name. And then it sits. Not because it's bad. Because it's mismatched. That's the thing nobody really talks about when they're honest about their portfolio.
People ask this question constantly. They paste a domain into an appraisal tool, see a number, and assume that settles it. It does not. I have been investing in domains since 2006 and I still cannot give you a clean formula. What I can tell you is that the tools most people rely on are often wrong, the signals that actually matter are learnable, and the honest answer for most domains is somewhere between "not much" and "it depends on who wants it."
There is a version of domaining that can make you look smarter than you are. I have been there. You get an inbound. Then another one a few weeks later. Maybe something closes. You start telling yourself your instincts are working, your pricing is solid, your portfolio is stronger than you thought. And maybe that is true. But sometimes the name is just doing the work and you are mostly staying out of the way. That took me a while to admit.
The country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Anguilla that has become extremely popular for artificial intelligence companies and projects.
A generic top-level domain (gTLD) operated by Google, designed for mobile applications and app developers.
A generic top-level domain for communities, organizations, and membership-based groups.
A generic top-level domain suitable for any internet-based business or presence.
A generic top-level domain designed for e-commerce and retail businesses.
A generic top-level domain targeting the technology sector.