Just a few days ago, I conducted a poll to see how many domains you owned that were just laying dormant. That is, domains you purchased but simply were not doing anything with. So far, the results point to most people having between 1-5 dormant domains just laying around. I have a few domains myself that I don’t want to pay for anymore but instead of letting them go gracefully, here are a few ideas for putting those domains to good use.
- Use As A Prize – Hold a contest and use your domains as prizes. Domain transfers are usually a painless process
- Flip Them – Domain Flipping is the process of buying a domain or website, fixing it up and selling it for a profit. So if you have a somewhat good domain name, slap on a CMS, add some relevant content for a niche and then try to sell the site.
- Auction It Off – Domain registrars such as GoDaddy have an entire auctioning system for auctioning off domains. Let the domain go to the bidder with the highest amount.
- Outright Sell It – If you know a friend who could use a domain name or if its relevant to their niche, offer to sell it to them for a discount price. This is how I obtained a domain which so far, I’ve put to good use.
- Redirect Them – Instead of having the domains publish a parking page from the registrar, configure the domain to redirect to another domain of your choosing.
- Park And Monetize – Create your own HTML parking page with your own advertising on it such as AdSense and monetize the domain.
- Aggregator – You can use plugins such as FeedWordPress which will update your blog through RSS Feeds essentially creating an autoblog or an aggregator. However, this method requires caution as you certainly don’t want to be looked upon as a splogger.
- Just Keep The Domain And Do Nothing – If you can afford to keep paying the registration fee, you can always keep the domain in safekeeping until an idea hits you in the face
- Lifestreaming – Almost the same as creating an autoblog but this time, the content that you aggregate onto the site is yours. You can aggregate your Twitter account, Facebook, or anything that has an RSS feed into this site to create a one stop shop of your activity on the web.
Domain Auctioning/Selling Services:
Moniker
Sedo
GoDaddy Auction House
Bido
SitePoint Marketplace
Webhosting Talk Advertising Forum
Conclusion:
The ideas and list of resources doesn’t have to end here. Add your thoughts and ideas to the comments below. I’m particularly interested in hearing about your experience in selling domains through any one of the services I mentioned above.
12 thoughts on “9 Ideas For Your Dormant Domains”
Nice tips to make use of simply lying domains and earn from them.
Very nice post so please carry on to share such nice posts.
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I’ve got a couple of these laying around right now. I’ll have to check out the auction sites, per your suggestion. Thanks again.
Thank you for the list “Domain Auctioning”!
Hi, guys! I’m literally envious because I didn’t have even one domain that’s remaining dormant maybe because I still have more time to own more. lol. Anyway, I like the idea of giving dormant domains as prizes. So I’ll be on the look-out for any contests. Thank you for sharing such great ideas.
Glad to see that the ideas post is helping out and igniting other ideas. That is exactly what I wanted
Jeff,
Your post “9 Ideas for Your Dormant Domains” comes on the heels of Alan Dunn’s tongue-in-cheek statement “It’s time to quit domaining” (published on DomainInformer.com) and a split second after Build It or Park It: Domain Monetization Strategies of the Overworked or Underpaid.
I had never given thought to my portfolio as “dormant” until I read your post.
The very fact that I used the word “portfolio” to refer to my dust-collecting domain names speaks volumes. But when I considered that it costs me more to own them than to drop them, the only way I can look at them now is DORMANT!
Of your 9 ideas, my favorite is to use a domain name as a prize or a giveaway.
I’m familiar with development; it’s my favorite strategy for monetizing a domain name. Development, though, takes time – while one domain is in development, another hundred or so are still dormant!
Parking a domain is also possible but, frankly, for the majority of domains, parking is not profitable. As an aside, Google’s AdSense for Domains is providing more revenue for me than any other parking service I’ve tried. But unless things improve, ownership of my “portfolio” is still putting me in the red.
But giving a domain name away… now that’s appealing. That’s like taking a piece of furniture that I’m not even using, can’t find the time to refurbish and probably never will… and donating it. It just feels good. Couple this giveaway with a contest or use it as a fundraiser for a school or local charity and “win/win” could happen all around.
Excellent ideas. Thank you!
Val
Wow, that’s funny you mention that. I have about 80 domains that are just basically sitting there (I use about 8/88). So these ideas will go a long way to changing that fact.
I really do need to just sell some of them off.
Another one: create a CMS theme or a template and name it as your domain name, then use the domain as the “official” website and demo for that theme, style or template. I’ve seen http://icanwatchmovies.com/ doing this.
The ideas that you have put forth are excellent and easy to follow with some patience and a little bit of initiative. Congratulations. Keep it up.
Gopal.G
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