Unsuccessful project ideas, thoughtless domain structure, or domains purposely bought for temporary projects/testing might all be reasons to let the domain names expire.
How many have you let expire and what were the reasons?
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Top comments (16)
I really just have one domain. For various side projects I host them under subdomains. If it ever grows into something bigger I can always buy a dedicated domain and add a permanent redirect to the old subdomain.
That's some great forward-thinking 👍
I have a web site with ".com" as the publicized domain. Many years ago, before they started expanding TLDs a lot, I had registered the matching .net, .org, .info, .ws and a couple of others to "protect" the name (some people had a bad habit of using a very similar name for similar content). All the domains did was redirect to .com. But renewal costs kept climbing and that got expensive (also influenced by the fluctuations of the Canadian dollar, that cost could swing up 20-30% sometimes), so eventually I dropped them as I was trying to get my expenses down. Note that the site doesn't generate any revenue.
Just a few days ago I got a cold call in the middle of the day from someone offering to design a web site for my unused domain name. It was one of those TLDs I dropped years ago, so I was surprised that they'd contact me about it. I assumed they were working off an old list or something. It must be the fourth or fifth time I get a call like this, but as the years go by it's increasingly weird.
Props for a real-life scenario 💯👍
65536.cn (2006-2014)
It used to be my blog, but I consolidated the blog onto yoursunny.com/t/ , and the domain became excess.
iloveu4ever.cn (2006-2008)
I wanted to provide free subdomains to lovers, but my school has no lovers because >90% are boys.
openxml.asia (2008-2009)
I got excited on the new TLD and registered this for "investment" purpose, but nobody wanted to buy it.
ext.so (2011-2013)
I don't know why I registered that.
520bus.site (2017-2018)
This is registered with a coupon from a hackathon sponsor.
Using their domain qualifies me for a potential prize.
I didn't win the prize, and renewal is very expensive.
heimerdinger.top (2021-2021)
Somebody on the forum was auctioning off his unwanted domain but nobody was bidding, so I pledged 7 push-ups for JasperNL and got the domain, but I wouldn't pay for renewal.
+ countless .TK free domains
I've thought of using .tk and others too, tho afaik the provider still holds all the rights of shutting it down or do whatever they want while you are using it. Plus they are bad for SEO, etc... Great for testing or learning purposes, for sure 😉
Thanks for the expanded list, I see a variety of TLDs there 😉👀
I registered my first four domains in the late 90s. I have one of them still - kodekrash.com. I let two of them expire, and finally auctioned one of them off a couple years ago - badsyntax.com (for way less than it cost me to keep for 18 years). I've had dozens of domains that I've registered/renewed for years, then let go, kind of a "If it doesn't make you happy, let it go" type thing. At one point years ago, I was having a hard time and let a number of domains go because of cost. I regret one of those to this day. snewp.com was a project I built with a friend back in 2001-2003. It was written about in at least two books, but I let the domain go, and it's been "investor squatted" ever since. :(
I used to think up domain names as part of my consulting business, so for years, I had a number of paper notebooks with domain ideas (including constantly checking the registry status of the various TLDs). I never made it digital to protect the "intellectual property". I did that for about 6 years, but held on to the books for at least another decade. Finally burned the notebooks a couple of years ago.
Even after rounds of cleaning, I still have about 30 domains -- some of which have been registered for more than 15 years.
When I was a graduate student I thought to create an online store, that was looking pretty easy, but when I realize that's not easy I left that domain.
Again I thought I will run an online tourism platform I have worked on that but also i left that domain.
Lastly, I purchased another domain mcqser.com that's running till now.
None I don't like stockpiling domains unless I am 100% sure that I will use it. 😅
Discontinued projects due to time and costs.
Vercel, Netlify, Heroku, etc subdomains for the rescue, so you can still include them in portfolio 😀😀
at this point, I have cancelled 2 domain
In once let my premium domain clajj.com expire and got it back almost instantly. Now it's for sale
At this point i have cancelled 6 domains but there's stil 3 just floating around because 'I'll finish the project eventually'
I think maybe 10 or 20. Most of them were bought with steep discounts, i.e. $1, and they were mostly for joke websites.
I always feel bad about those 😁 I'm currently holding about 15 domains and I don't really need most of them 😅