I had my head up my ass.
That’s the short version. The longer version starts with two old spreadsheets I found this week while digging through registration records. One from 2009 with 165 names on it. One from 2010 with 438. So I dumped all 603 into GoDaddy’s bulk search to see where they ended up.
I figured a lot of them would be available. I didn’t figure on this many.
From the 2009 list, 126 can be registered right now at regular reg fee. Sixteen come up as premium listings and 23 are taken.
2010 isn’t any prettier. Out of 438 names, 320 are sitting there available, 57 are premium listings, 60 are taken and one is at auction.
Add it up and 446 of the 603 domains I registered in those two years can be hand registered today. Almost 74%.
That number sent me back through the lists a little slower the second time.
FixMyRotatorCuff.com. I know exactly why I bought it. I’d torn my rotator cuff, people search for shoulder injuries, and back then I thought exact-match and descriptive names were where the money was. Fine. But was anybody ever going to pay me real money for it? I don’t think I asked. I’m pretty sure I just hit the button.
Then there’s ClassOf11.com. That one came with an expiration date built right into the name and I bought it anyway. And 3DUltrasoundPhotos.com. I did sell a hand registered “ultrasound” name at some point, but I can’t tell you if that was the one. Either way, it’s available to reg today.
I was trying a lot of niches back then, chasing keywords that looked like they had commercial value. Some of the ideas were reasonable. Some weren’t. It’s a lot easier to tell which is which now than it was when I was loading up the cart.
A few names have come back around as premium listings. FastShades.com, BananaFlavor.com and AnnulmentAttorney.com are in that group. FresnoCustomHomes.com is listed at $2,950.
Interesting, but I wouldn’t read much into it. A premium listing means somebody put a price on the name. It doesn’t mean there’s a buyer at that price. I’ve put plenty of numbers on plenty of domains. Getting paid the number is the hard part.
The taken names need some context too. SullysBlog.com is on the 2009 list, and obviously I’m still using that one. The rest? Some I may have sold. Some probably expired and got picked up by somebody else. Some might still be in my portfolio. The spreadsheets don’t say, so I’m not going to call the taken ones winners or the available ones losers without knowing what I made on them along the way.
What I can see is how differently I bought back then. If I could picture a website on a name, that was good enough for me. Now I want to know who’d buy it, what they’d do with it, and whether there are enough of those people to make it worth the renewals. I’d call that progress. It only cost me a few hundred reg fees to get here.
If you’ve got your own lists from 2009 or 2010, run them. How many of your names are available again today? And how many would you register a second time?