I got an email from a startup founder I’ve been friends with for years this morning. Their company has raised over $30M, they’re kicking ass and taking names, growing like crazy and making their clients and investors happy…and like most startup founders, they don’t know too much about domain names.
They are interested in buying a domain and asked me the following question.
“We want to buy a domain name, and luckily when we looked it up it turns out the owner is going to let it go and it’s going to expire this year, where is the best place to buy it to make sure we’re the first to get it?”
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this confusion, it’s easily the 30th time. Many people have no idea that people only register domains for a year and then set them to auto-renew. They think that if a WHOIS search shows a domain is going to expire, that means the owner has decided to let it go.
Of course I explained to them how domains work and that while some people register domains for multiple years, most people register for a year and just let it auto-renew. This made me think, I wonder what the impact of registering a domain name for longer has on the number of offers it gets?
If someone sees a domain registered for multiple years are they more likely to reach out? My guess is there’s probably little-to-no impact but I do know in this case that my friend was planning to wait until the expiry date and then make a move. Whenever someone waits, things can change and a seller can lose a deal.
So I thought I’d turn it over to you, my readers and hear what you think. Does registering a domain for longer increase your changes of getting an offer? Like I said, I don’t think it does, but hey – what do I know?
I want to hear from you, comment and let your voice be heard!
I’ve thought about this a few times especially if there are deals where you get discounts for multi-year renewals.
On the one hand, to some, having a domain with an expiry date 10 years from now may take the air out of their sails and leave them resigned to the fact that if they want it they have to pay up. No waiting until it expires and that the seller can more reasonably justify that “It was purchased for a big project, but make me an offer big enough…!”
On the other hand, some folks might just move on and think that there is less chance that it is for sale – they may find another domain. Also they may be missing out on the emotional cycle a whois onlooker goes through, thinking the domain is going to be released, getting excited, then it’s renewed for another year – this experience may make them want it more and reach out.
When I was more involved in the drops and catching .co.uk domains, from memory they’d drop 92 days after expiring. Registrants (usually those with Nominet membership) would wait until 91 days and then renew. You’d be watching amazing names in expired status for 3 months just for them to be renewed at the last minute. Part of this was free advertising to folks watching the drops and part of it was to distract other catchers, dangling these amazing names so we’d waste EPP/DAC quota trying to catch domains that were renewed a few hours earlier while the guy running that strategy would have a better shot at catching other domains that were being released (focusing their DAC/EPP requests/allowance on domains that were really being released). Really couldn’t believe that registrants of premium .co.uk domains probably valued at £20k+ would “risk” leaving them in expired status to renew them at the last minute. Those were fun days.
The year by year renewals also help with cashflow, especially for bigger portfolio holders and it means that additional years renewals are not needlessly paid for.
All in all I think one year at a time is a better net game plan.