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I was about to share this in one of the reg of the day threads, but I feel like this deserved its own post. You may not find it as awesome as me, but here goes..
Late last night in this trending thread about "the death of keyword domains", I was reminded of a case study I did over a decade ago on my agency website (which also happened to be my NP username for 13 years) when new TLDs had just became a thing. To this day it's easily the most backlinked piece of content I'd ever created and was very relevant to the discussion at hand.
While I was searching to find it I was once again reminded how upset I was that I didn't keep the domain of my first online business ever...something I have thought about several times over the years. I sold it for a measly $2k which later in my life the nostalgia factor of it alone is worth more than that to me. For anyone out there building their first project or business, learn from me now, and do not sell it! (unless the offer is that good of course..)
Anyways, I clicked on the website and it didn't even dawn on me until almost an hour later that the lander page said it was expired - not parked like it had been for years prior. Which I edited to note in my post in that thread linked above last night once I made that realization.
I immediately went to backorder it and was already uneasy about the upcoming bidding war in-store. I decided to try checking old emails and found the 2015 email where I made the sale and sent a longshot email asking if I could pay the renewal/transfer costs and have him send me the name.
Sure enough, not only was it still an active email, he replied back immediately at 2am and 1am respectively in our time zones, and within minutes the name was no longer expired...
Fast forward to about 15 mins ago...I officially took receipt of totalwebsites/com - my very first online business and very first "premium" domain name.
I'm so excited, and I hope you at least enjoyed the story a fraction of how much I have! If there is anything else to take away from this, when you see a great domain name about to expire on the drop lists, go throw a hail mary and see how it works out. I'd bet tons of people that registered back in the early days of the internet would love to hear that someone will give them some money for a domain name they are otherwise about to just let drop straight to an auction houses pocket!
Cheers and gl out there everyone.
Late last night in this trending thread about "the death of keyword domains", I was reminded of a case study I did over a decade ago on my agency website (which also happened to be my NP username for 13 years) when new TLDs had just became a thing. To this day it's easily the most backlinked piece of content I'd ever created and was very relevant to the discussion at hand.
While I was searching to find it I was once again reminded how upset I was that I didn't keep the domain of my first online business ever...something I have thought about several times over the years. I sold it for a measly $2k which later in my life the nostalgia factor of it alone is worth more than that to me. For anyone out there building their first project or business, learn from me now, and do not sell it! (unless the offer is that good of course..)
Anyways, I clicked on the website and it didn't even dawn on me until almost an hour later that the lander page said it was expired - not parked like it had been for years prior. Which I edited to note in my post in that thread linked above last night once I made that realization.
I immediately went to backorder it and was already uneasy about the upcoming bidding war in-store. I decided to try checking old emails and found the 2015 email where I made the sale and sent a longshot email asking if I could pay the renewal/transfer costs and have him send me the name.
Sure enough, not only was it still an active email, he replied back immediately at 2am and 1am respectively in our time zones, and within minutes the name was no longer expired...
Fast forward to about 15 mins ago...I officially took receipt of totalwebsites/com - my very first online business and very first "premium" domain name.
I'm so excited, and I hope you at least enjoyed the story a fraction of how much I have! If there is anything else to take away from this, when you see a great domain name about to expire on the drop lists, go throw a hail mary and see how it works out. I'd bet tons of people that registered back in the early days of the internet would love to hear that someone will give them some money for a domain name they are otherwise about to just let drop straight to an auction houses pocket!
Cheers and gl out there everyone.
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