tips Why you should renew domains in advance

[AbdulBasit.com]

Hello everyone,

Today I wanted to share my point of view on why you should renew your domains in advance and the benefits of it.

So let’s check at how renewing your domains for a longer period than a year might prevent a big headache in the course of time.

1) If you've developed a website and worked hard for marketing your brand and receiving a great number of audience on your domain name, simply don’t let that site suddenly go dark because you forget to renew the domain on due time. So when your registration expires, any services associated with the domain (your website, email service, and so on) stops working. Sometimes the domain renewal alerts can easily get overlooked due to aggressive spam filters on your email account, an overflowing inbox, or any of life’s other distractions.

2) As it may happen with anyone and there are some situations happening around us which are not in our control like the current global situation regarding the virus and its impact to overall humanity. This may lead to weak financial condition, savings are needed to be used for some emergency and more important needs and last but not the least, the lack of domain sales can kill the cash flow in such tough times.

3) There are also some cases where investors tend to renew domains each and every month as the renewal comes for their large portfolio of domains but with any sudden death in family or the domain owner itself, hospitalization, any case of emergency, etc may put your domains at risk of expiring and ultimately to drop. So it's better to renew a lot in advance.

4) Another positive side of renewing the domain is like when any endusers or domain brokers find the domain is near to expiration, they may try to wait for the domain to drop and either hand register it or backorder to secure the domain. But when your domain is renewed in advance let's suppose for an addition of 3 or 5 years, chances are high that the interested party would try to contact and buy directly from you rather than waiting for years for the domain to expire.

So never give a slight hope to anyone that your good domains are going to drop anywhere in the near future. Give yourself peace of mind by renewing your domains far in advance so you don’t accidentally lose them.

As for my portfolio, when it was around 1,000 domains, it was quite easy for me to renew domains for at least a couple of years ahead of expiry. But with the portfolio growing and now little over 4,000 domains, it's difficult to renew that much in advance. But still I have all my domain keepers renewed for an additional 1 year.

Feel free to give your feedback about my strategy and share your own to let others know.

 

[VRDomainNames]

I see the benefit of both renewing in advance and waiting to the last minute. I've allowed domains to expire, renew them and list them for sale again, to have them sell right away. The fact that it expired brought attention to them.

I've also registered expired domains that I previously sold for x,xxx. Multiple times. I sold one a few years ago that I mistakenly renewed for many years. It won't expire for another 4 years. The buyer never did anything with it and has since retired or went out of business. Had I not renewed it so long, I could possibly get it again, but now I'm forced to wait.

On the other hand, I have a domain from 1996 that I keep renewed long-term.

 

[Compassion]

Another reason to do it is because of registrar price increases.

Back in the day with my enom reseller account, renewals for legacy names were fixed at $6.95....Then without warning they jumped.

 

[Brands.International]

Hello everyone,

Today I wanted to share my point of view on why you should renew your domains in advance and the benefits of it.

So let’s check at how renewing your domains for a longer period than a year might prevent a big headache in the course of time.

1) If you've developed a website and worked hard for marketing your brand and receiving a great number of audience on your domain name, simply don’t let that site suddenly go dark because you forget to renew the domain on due time. So when your registration expires, any services associated with the domain (your website, email service, and so on) stops working. Sometimes the domain renewal alerts can easily get overlooked due to aggressive spam filters on your email account, an overflowing inbox, or any of life’s other distractions.

2) As it may happen with anyone and there are some situations happening around us which are not in our control like the current global situation regarding the virus and its impact to overall humanity. This may lead to weak financial condition, savings are needed to be used for some emergency and more important needs and last but not the least, the lack of domain sales can kill the cash flow in such tough times.

3) There are also some cases where investors tend to renew domains each and every month as the renewal comes for their large portfolio of domains but with any sudden death in family or the domain owner itself, hospitalization, any case of emergency, etc may put your domains at risk of expiring and ultimately to drop. So it's better to renew a lot in advance.

4) Another positive side of renewing the domain is like when any endusers or domain brokers find the domain is near to expiration, they may try to wait for the domain to drop and either hand register it or backorder to secure the domain. But when your domain is renewed in advance let's suppose for an addition of 3 or 5 years, chances are high that the interested party would try to contact and buy directly from you rather than waiting for years for the domain to expire.

So never give a slight hope to anyone that your good domains are going to drop anywhere in the near future. Give yourself peace of mind by renewing your domains far in advance so you don’t accidentally lose them.

As for my portfolio, when it was around 1,000 domains, it was quite easy for me to renew domains for at least a couple of years ahead of expiry. But with the portfolio growing and now little over 4,000 domains, it's difficult to renew that much in advance. But still I have all my domain keepers renewed for an additional 1 year.

Feel free to give your feedback about my strategy and share your own to let others know.

Great advice, I totally agree.

In my opinion, renewing domains in advance give us the following advantages:

a) lot of negotiation power

b) protects us from low ball offers/other domain investors waiting for our names to drop

c) motivates us to take a really hard look into our portfolio, deciding what is worth to renew in advance and what is not

d) it makes sure we do not lose our domain names in case of some health accident, etc

e) sends a strong positive signal to potential buyers

f) in case of new gTLDs we can utilize various renewal promotions, thus saving a lot of money

1 disadvantage I see there - some people will say they can employ money to work harder in some other asset class. But if you are sure about your domain names, I do not see much better options really.

In new gTLDs, when renewal is $25 or less, I tend to renew a lot of years in advance, particularly when good renewal promotion is ingoing for a particular extension. So in .com, this should not be an issue with it's $10 or so renewal at average & when names are really good.

Then, some new gTLDs I have are for $120 and more, and here I am bit careful and freshly thinking each year whether to renew or not

 

[Windoms]

If the domain is good and theres a for sale lander, it makes sense to renew in advance. Sends a very strong message to buyers imo.
For example a xxx auctions purchase.

On xx closeouts, not so good idea.

 

[johnn]

So if you die unexpectedly the name will not expire.

 

[Abdullah Abdullah]

I sold a name this month after I moved 34 domains from one registrar and had it get renewed. It still had good time before expiry. The buyer bought it and even created an account and accepted push. So you dont know. So renew the ones you want to keep and wait for their sale.

 

[NameBuyer.com]

I'm not very good at this and often let my names go into redemption period. I'd blame it on the number of domains (8,000+), but I've always had the same bad habit even with 2,000 names and end up spending more on acquiring names rather than the renewals. I've been better about it lately, but still have some improving to do.

I've included couple more reasons why you should renew in advance:

1. If your domain expires, your Afternic listings will be flagged and pulled off the site, so you'll need to waste time resubmitting the listings. Plus, the 4 weeks that the domains are not listed could end up reducing your overall sales by 8% (1 month / 12 months in a year).
2. For your best domains, I always renew a year ahead of time now. About a year ago, I had 2 of my best domains (in my top 5%) go into the redemption period and I didn't get the proper notices and a software glitch (or something else) caused the domains to not be available to renew. The 2 domains cost me $2,500 originally, and I nearly lost them. So for any domains you really care about, take extra precautions, put them in a "top domains" folder and renew them early.

I'd also add, that you should audit your top 5%-10% of domains yearly (maybe at tax time), as these will be the domains most likely to be hijacked. All it takes is a rogue tech employee with an ill-intentioned plan, or even a software glitch. How many of us would notice 1 domain out of 1,000 or in my case 1 out of 8,000 missing? Might take a while.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

I recently did this with 100 domains to Namecheap (max). While I did save some money, at times it didn't feel worth the trouble. Sometimes registrars do offer deals like this with no limit.

Edit: If you get in contact with the right person at the registrar directly, he or she may be willing to offer you a bulk discount as well.

Thanks for the tip (regarding getting in contact with the right person at registrar directly).

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

All good points, seems like a no brainer when they're all listed together like that..I have forgotten about one or two at foreign registrars and had to pay extra fee to recover. Also was asked by sedo to renew a sold listing before transferring. Didn't realize they require sixty days or more left on expiry.

Do you mean if a domain is sold via Sedo and has less than 60 days left to expiry, Sedo asks to renew the domain before transferring? If yes, that's not fair. Didn't knew it by the way.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

How about "forever" registrations for the cream of the crop?

Has anyone dipped their feet into this renewal method yet?

I haven't tried this yet. I think Epik only offers that but I don't like that idea because the amount will be out of range for many if trying to go for renewing 100 around "forever" registrations.

But would like to see anyone has tried this and their experience.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Thanks for great post @AbdulBasit.com!

I agree entirely that names used for development should always be renewed well in advance.

I think a selection of valuable other domain names should also be renewed in advance. Not only might you get better rates, but as you point out the renewal places you in better bargaining position.

Clearly names that you are unsure about renewing might want to wait until near end.

Bob

Glad you like it Bob! You've summed it up well

That's exactly my point is. I mean one should prioritize the domains. Which one to keep for 2, 3, 5, 10 years of time, etc. Renew the most valuable one's for the maximum period and so on...

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

I see the benefit of both renewing in advance and waiting to the last minute. I've allowed domains to expire, renew them and list them for sale again, to have them sell right away. The fact that it expired brought attention to them.

I've also registered expired domains that I previously sold for x,xxx. Multiple times. I sold one a few years ago that I mistakenly renewed for many years. It won't expire for another 4 years. The buyer never did anything with it and has since retired or went out of business. Had I not renewed it so long, I could possibly get it again, but now I'm forced to wait.

On the other hand, I have a domain from 1996 that I keep renewed long-term.

I agree with you.

It depends on the quality of the domain. The best one's I tend to renew for longer period of time but your trick for letting the domains to expire and then to sell IMO works well for those domains which are of low quality one's. Working around the same way for top quality of domains is bit risky as well as doesn't give good impression IMO...

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Another reason to do it is because of registrar price increases.

Back in the day with my enom reseller account, renewals for legacy names were fixed at $6.95....Then without warning they jumped.

I wanted to add that reason but left out because I wasn't sure when the ICANN is going to exactly lift off the restrictions from Verisign to increase the wholesale .com prices. But yeah, that's another solid reason which should be considered for renewing domains on long term.

By the way, you were getting good price yeah back in old days

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Great advice, I totally agree.

In my opinion, renewing domains in advance give us the following advantages:

a) lot of negotiation power

b) protects us from low ball offers/other domain investors waiting for our names to drop

c) motivates us to take a really hard look into our portfolio, deciding what is worth to renew in advance and what is not

d) it makes sure we do not lose our domain names in case of some health accident, etc

e) sends a strong positive signal to potential buyers

f) in case of new gTLDs we can utilize various renewal promotions, thus saving a lot of money

1 disadvantage I see there - some people will say they can employ money to work harder in some other asset class. But if you are sure about your domain names, I do not see much better options really.

In new gTLDs, when renewal is $25 or less, I tend to renew a lot of years in advance, particularly when good renewal promotion is ingoing for a particular extension. So in .com, this should not be an issue with it's $10 or so renewal at average & when names are really good.

Then, some new gTLDs I have are for $120 and more, and here I am bit careful and freshly thinking each year whether to renew or not

Thanks for your feedback and some more points. Well said and I agree with you

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

So if you die unexpectedly the name will not expire.

If the domain is already renewed for multiple years at the time of sudden death, at least family/relatives or whoever has access will have ample of time to renew the domains well before the expiry comes nearby.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

I'm not very good at this and often let my names go into redemption period. I'd blame it on the number of domains (8,000+), but I've always had the same bad habit even with 2,000 names and end up spending more on acquiring names rather than the renewals. I've been better about it lately, but still have some improving to do.

I've included couple more reasons why you should renew in advance:

1. If your domain expires, your Afternic listings will be flagged and pulled off the site, so you'll need to waste time resubmitting the listings. Plus, the 4 weeks that the domains are not listed could end up reducing your overall sales by 8% (1 month / 12 months in a year).
2. For your best domains, I always renew a year ahead of time now. About a year ago, I had 2 of my best domains (in my top 5%) go into the redemption period and I didn't get the proper notices and a software glitch (or something else) caused the domains to not be available to renew. The 2 domains cost me $2,500 originally, and I nearly lost them. So for any domains you really care about, take extra precautions, put them in a "top domains" folder and renew them early.

I'd also add, that you should audit your top 5%-10% of domains yearly (maybe at tax time), as these will be the domains most likely to be hijacked. All it takes is a rogue tech employee with an ill-intentioned plan, or even a software glitch. How many of us would notice 1 domain out of 1,000 or in my case 1 out of 8,000 missing? Might take a while.

8,000 domains is simply wow!

Thanks for adding couple of other points and your first one is very important. I've noticed that happening for my expired domains but never thought of adding it while writing this post. So really a good point to remember and not let your domains to expire especially if the domains are listed with Afternic.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

I sold a name this month after I moved 34 domains from one registrar and had it get renewed. It still had good time before expiry. The buyer bought it and even created an account and accepted push. So you dont know. So renew the ones you want to keep and wait for their sale.

This happens... Before I used to think that I wasted money by renewing in advance and here goes the domain get sold. But later I realized that it's around $10 extra I paid for the sold domain which is very fair when I'm selling it for thousands of dollars. Because I believe that $10 is paying off well.

 

[Recons.Com]

This strategy works too but you've to consider other factors as well as mentioned in the initial post. To be on the safe side and have peace of mind.

May I suggest an experiment for you since you are already renewing some long term? Make the list of all names that need to be renewed within next 12 months. Use excel to randomly assign a value (0 or 1 for example). Renew those that have value of 1 for multiple years, while for the others just turn on auto-renewal. Then check if there was any considerable performance difference.

 

[Pazu]

Do you mean if a domain is sold via Sedo and has less than 60 days left to expiry, Sedo asks to renew the domain before transferring? If yes, that's not fair. Didn't knew it by the way.

Seems like a fair policy to me, especially since most buyers are not professional domainers. I was reminded of the following anecdote, for your consideration:

I once bought an ngTLD domain which was parked and registered to Uniregistry. I valued this domain for personal reasons and negotiated up to $3000 final offer. The broker kept trying to get a much higher price. After 10 months, I was notified that the buyer agreed to my price. I somewhat reluctantly sent my hard-earned cash and it was pushed to my Uniregistry account, only for me to find it was expiring IMMEDIATELY with $108 more due!

Being relatively new to domaining, I was far from enthused, feeling a bit stabbed in the back... like the seller failed to extract the desired maximum payment and was sticking me with his bill! I was unable to transfer it out with a 60 day lock and thinking I might lose my acquisition, I renewed it on Uniregistry and paid the renewal a second time when I transferred the domain out 60 days later.

I brought my disdain up to the broker who denied knowledge saying they couldn't tell if a domain was set to auto-renew or not and that he would bring it up at his next sales meeting.

SEDO probably doesn't want their clients feeling as I did, and I also have become rather generous in handing the following renewal requirement for my buyers.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

May I suggest an experiment for you since you are already renewing some long term? Make the list of all names that need to be renewed within next 12 months. Use excel to randomly assign a value (0 or 1 for example). Renew those that have value of 1 for multiple years, while for the others just turn on auto-renewal. Then check if there was any considerable performance difference.

Thanks for your suggestion.

I think then I'll have to select only those domains which are priced in same range like low-mid 4 figures. But then again I cannot have any concrete data to rely upon because each and every domain is unique.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Seems like a fair policy to me, especially since most buyers are not professional domainers. I was reminded of the following anecdote, for your consideration:

I once bought an ngTLD domain which was parked and registered to Uniregistry. I valued this domain for personal reasons and negotiated up to $3000 final offer. The broker kept trying to get a much higher price. After 10 months, I was notified that the buyer agreed to my price. I somewhat reluctantly sent my hard-earned cash and it was pushed to my Uniregistry account, only for me to find it was expiring IMMEDIATELY with $108 more due!

Being relatively new to domaining, I was far from enthused, feeling a bit stabbed in the back... like the seller failed to extract the desired maximum payment and was sticking me with his bill! I was unable to transfer it out with a 60 day lock and thinking I might lose my acquisition, I renewed it on Uniregistry and paid the renewal a second time when I transferred the domain out 60 days later.

I brought my disdain up to the broker who denied knowledge saying they couldn't tell if a domain was set to auto-renew or not and that he would bring it up at his next sales meeting.

SEDO probably doesn't want their clients feeling as I did, and I also have become rather generous in handing the following renewal requirement for my buyers.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Since I don't deal in ngTLDs, I didn't had the idea of such bad tricks some people play. Then it makes sense to implement what Sedo has done.

 

[Recons.Com]

Thanks for your suggestion.

I think then I'll have to select only those domains which are priced in same range like low-mid 4 figures. But then again I cannot have any concrete data to rely upon because each and every domain is unique.

you are welcome! yes, you could exclude the best ones and then assign the random values to the remainder. And then just compare 0 to 1.

 

[Rich]

Do you mean if a domain is sold via Sedo and has less than 60 days left to expiry, Sedo asks to renew the domain before transferring? If yes, that's not fair. Didn't knew it by the way.

Yes just happened with one domain, perhaps a customer request. Another cost to keep in mind, outside commission.

 

[karmaco]

I totally agree with you @AbdulBasit.com about renewing your best names or any for sure keepers in advance particularly with domain price hikes on the horizon for next year.

However, This is all dependent on sales and cashflow. Some should be set aside for renewals from any sale. Its all about budgeting. Another benefit to renewing early is if tough times do come you are safe and don’t have to sacrifice your better names.

I don’t judge anyone else’s decisions but for me it would just be unnecessary stress and time consuming to decide at last minute what I am keeping.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Yes just happened with one domain, perhaps a customer request. Another cost to keep in mind, outside commission.

Yes it also happened to me. I had not realized it either. So in pricing domains at Sedo near to expiry keep in mind you will have to pay a renewal. If it is $9 not a big deal, but if a higher renewal can be significant.
Bob