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How do you manage domains?

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Rohit Lakhotia

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I saw many people have 50+ domains on their domain portfolio.
I was just curious about how people manage their domain?
Use excel to keep track of their domains?
 
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Depends how many times you need to look at them now imagine your focus at 500 or 5000 on a one man show.
 
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Depends how many times you need to look at them now imagine your focus at 500 or 5000 on a one man show.
Yeah make sense.
BTW how do you manage your domains?
 
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Export portfolios from accounts but i try to keep most of my names listed on my websites and adjust what is pointing where with dns. If my site is up to date or close enough i use that and my own tools.
 
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I have less than 100 domains I came to the conclusion that the easiest way to manage them is using a list on Excel.

I have a file that has two tabs.

Tab1: the list of domain and has four columns

Domain Name - Registrar - Category - Expiry Date

(Category can be: Brandable, Work hack, Dictionary..etc)


Tab2 is for the log. it includes every transaction I do with my domains.
This has four columns
Date - Domain name - note
Example:
30/10/2019 hiptin.com offered to someone on namepros for 400

upload_2020-7-29_19-6-22.png
 
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I have less than 100 domains I came to the conclusion that the easiest way to manage them is using a list on Excel.

I have a file that has two tabs.

Tab1: the list of domain and has four columns

Domain Name - Registrar - Category - Expiry Date

(Category can be: Brandable, Work hack, Dictionary..etc)


Tab2 is for the log. it includes every transaction I do with my domains.
This has four columns
Date - Domain name - note
Example:
30/10/2019 hiptin.com offered to someone on namepros for 400

Show attachment 162454
I really liked your way.
 
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I imagine almost everyone uses either a spreadsheet or an off the shelf management software. I having a background in web development am building my own web app to manage my names, still a WIP, in the meantime my fallback is a good ole spreadsheet.

Capture.PNG
 
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I imagine almost everyone uses either a spreadsheet or an off the shelf management software. I having a background in web development am building my own web app to manage my names, still a WIP, in the meantime my fallback is a good ole spreadsheet.

Show attachment 162466
That looks good.
 
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Great thread, thank you,
 
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I don't own that many domains and there are all registered at the same registrar. I use my own website to keep track and an excel spreadsheet.
 
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I manage, market and monetize my domains with DNHat.
It's natural.
 
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I use Numbers on MacOS, Excel like.

I have one main spreadsheet that I track everything I currently have active, including columns for name, extension, type (e.g. 1 word, acronym, 2 word etc.), registrar, current expiry, first registered, columns for reach marketplace I use (Afternic, Sedo, DAN, Epik, Namecheap, NameSilo, Dynadot, etc.) with an O for offer, F for fast transfer, B for Buy-It-Now price etc., the total price I have paid up to now (i.e. acquisition and all renewals), my BIN price, automated appraisals for GoDaddy, Estibot and NameWorth if available, and a notes text section for various comments.

I can order that by say expiration date to see what is coming up, or extension, or most of the time just name.

I have separate spreadsheet "pages", for sold domain names and names I let expire. I keep less information on those, but for sold as well as name I have where it sold, date, gross, commission, net and notes.

Separate from all of this I have a huge Wish List spreadsheet with a page for each extension I have considered carefully domains in and a line for each domain name. Mainly name, status, automated appraisals, notes on things like TLDs, Google search. Open Corporate businesses with that name, search volume, advertiser stats like CPC, related TM if any, past history, etc. It is in a very condensed code that probably only means anything to me.

28 TLDs, com fs $12k .net av, 4 dr; 122 ac OC; 45M res " " 98k; 8.7k ex $0.65; 1.2M br $1.31; 2 ad; .org sold $900

That all means that the exact name is registered in 28 different extensions
The com of it is for sale at $12,000, while the .net is currently available
Name has dropped 4 times in past according to HosterStats or DTs
There are 122 active company listings on Open Corporates for the term
Google simple search on term has 45 million results, but when I put it in quotes it is 98,000
There are 8700 exact search with $0.65 CPC, but 1.2 million broad at $1.31 CPC with Estibot showing 2 ads
The .org of the same name has a sale at $900 on record.

Probably TMI. :xf.wink: It keeps me busy so I don't register too many domains I should not!

Bob

PS I also am very old school and when I buy or sell or renew a name I write the brief particulars in a physical notebook. I know, so old fashioned!
 
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I have one main spreadsheet that I track everything I currently have active, including columns for name, extension, type (e.g. 1 word, acronym, 2 word etc.), registrar, current expiry, first registered, columns for reach marketplace I use (Afternic, Sedo, DAN, Epik, Namecheap, NameSilo, Dynadot, etc.) with an O for offer, F for fast transfer, B for Buy-It-Now price etc., the total price I have paid up to now (i.e. acquisition and all renewals), my BIN price, automated appraisals for GoDaddy, Estibot and NameWorth if available, and a notes text section for various comments.

Wow... fascinating. You’re a genius :) How many hours do/did you spend to have everything in order?

I'm still with an old version of Microsoft Access (2003 or 2007, lol) - it works offline, good for database management purposes (much better than any excel or opensource "tables" software from openoffice/libreoffice). Moreover, such an outdated MS Access is something that 100% works under emulators (or virtualbox/vmware) on a linux laptop. I wish I had time to add and maintain all the extra data like @Bob Hawkes ! It would at least help to stop bidding on or backordering domains I myself dropped recently, or years ago... :)
 
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I don't have too many domains so simple google sheets does the work
 
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I imagine almost everyone uses either a spreadsheet or an off the shelf management software. I having a background in web development am building my own web app to manage my names, still a WIP, in the meantime my fallback is a good ole spreadsheet.

Show attachment 162466
this screenshot blew mind! is this your work? will you make the web app available for public? please share us the url when its available!
 
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I use Excel to manage my portfolio
and here is a screenshot:
portfolio-screenshot.png
 
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this screenshot blew mind! is this your work? will you make the web app available for public? please share us the url when its available!

The look and feel is based on the open source template called AdminLTE. But I've had to customize it for showing domain details, as well as am completely building out the backend functionality based on a PHP framework called Laravel. It also has a website connected to it for my own portfolio site which is a part of it. Once it is finished and launched I will be sharing a link to get any feedback on the portfolio site.

It is really heavily customized to my needs and not really designed for public release. But if there was enough interest I could maybe look into making a version for others to use. My biggest concern with making it public is is includes API connections to registrars. And I really don't want to be responsible for keeping others API credentials to registrar accounts.
 
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By using a webapp. Most is automated.
 
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can you please let us know what web app do you use?

All self build. There's no real solutions out there that satisfies my needs and is able to serve both the interest for investment portfolios and development/enduser portfolios.

It's not an easy task. I've been working on it for a couple of years. If I count all hours put in by me and my dev team we're probably still in the red :)
 
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Like several here I've been working on my own solution for awhile now and at some point will release it or a version of it to the public.

I'm working out the details on how to release it as I go but it's an add-on to my main tool, which is a large collection of useful domainer tools which includes the usual stuff plus a logo maker, landers and management system. Can't give all of the details just yet other than to say I think it's pretty cool.

Yes, it's a bit ambitious but that's how I roll and of course the danger is never releasing it Ugh! Even if I never release it I'm still benefiting a lot just by coding it and using it myself.

I may do a poll at some point to get feedback on wanted features and the name, which I think I've picked already well maybe :) I'll need to figure out the proper way to do that pretty soon. Maybe something like what @Rob Monster did for his projects???

About the API's, I'll likely have each user add their code and they can deal with any payment. If there's enough interest, I'll get an enterprise license and start charging users for access but I'm hoping to keep it Freemium but will have to see.
 
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Wow... fascinating. You’re a genius :) How many hours do/did you spend to have everything in order?
Definitely NOT a genius and I just kept adding more columns and stuff as I went along. It is a very patched together one-person solution. And much of the time I spend on wish list is for naught, as the vast majority I will never own. The structure did not take long, even if redone from scratch. I continue to refine what I do when I consider a name, but adding some shorthand notes does not take long. I probably spend about 6-10 minutes checking a bunch of things and making the shorthand notation for a domain name (i.e. both the evaluation and the notes). I usually do at least a few every single day, but often not many more. Re the ones of names I hold, I move some information over from the wish list when I get them. I need to better handle performance measures to help me at renew time.

It would at least help to stop bidding on or backordering domains I myself dropped recently, or years ago..
Yes indeed, once I got past 50 domain names I find I no longer always remember which I had and which I used to have. I thought a few weeks ago I had missed out on registering an idea I had until after saying it was unavailable Epik kindly added "You own this domain.":xf.grin:

I had an Efty subscription for awhile, and it is a great way to manage your domains. I remember it felt like magic just entering the name and all the fields like registrar, expiration, etc. got filled in automatically.

I think what our industry really needs is a service to manage marketplace listings - or is it already available? That is I tell it to take down all of my listings for a name and it will, or it tells me where a name is currently listed and whether BIN, offer, payment option, minimums, etc. all in one place (Dofo come close, but you need do it domain by domain name). Or I have a new domain name and it automatically places it on the places I want with the sequence I want - like make offer with minimum at place A, fast transfer at B, etc.

I think for most, except those who subscribe to services, spreadsheets are probably the most flexible way to deal with them. I have used Excel more in past than now (and VBA made it powerful), but prefer the Numbers and nice that it is free with both MacOS and iOS It is what I use for the analysis and colour graphs I do for NamePros articles as well.

Bob
 
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I think what our industry really needs is a service to manage marketplace listings - or is it already available? That is I tell it to take down all of my listings for a name and it will, or it tells me where a name is currently listed and whether BIN, offer, payment option, minimums, etc. all in one place (Dofo come close, but you need do it domain by domain name). Or I have a new domain name and it automatically places it on the places I want with the sequence I want - like make offer with minimum at place A, fast transfer at B, etc.

That's actually a feature I'm bulking into my own tool. Of course Epik Marketplace listings are manageable with their API, but there are some limitations such as you cannot configure payment plans from the API. Dan.com has an undocumented API if you ask. I was told it's intended for users with > 10k names but they still granted me access on my account with way less names.

Then there's Sedo, you also have to ask for access to their API, last time i tried i was rejected so for now I'm not using them. Afternic is still stuck in the 20th century, no API, Joe had specifically said he had no intention to add one either. But getting into the registrar path is too important IMO (yes there is Sedo MLS but I believe the AN network is bigger, or at least Godaddy is on AN only so it seems that way). I have resigned myself to letting my app generate a csv file on a regular basis/as needed for me to manually upload to Afternic.

The biggest problem with something like this being public is you have to trust it with API credentials. If the operation isn't trustworthy or if the credentials get hacked someone could connect, lower the BIN on a name and buy it, this would be particularly problematic on Sedo or Afternic with MLS/Fast Transfer.
 
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I have created a database long ago
would be lost w/o

php
mysql

its no a huge task
 
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