Web site domain name renewals 

Unless explicitly requested we have all names set to auto-renew and have two different payment mechanisms set up such that should one fail the payment should be taken using the other.

There are some additional protections in place should a domain name renewal be overlooked.  The name will cease to function and the owner will find the website inaccessible and emails no longer arrive.  As long as that is noticed the name can be recovered, perhaps for a higher than usual renewal fee.

Any names that are allowed to lapse are often snapped up by speculators, competitors, scammers or fraudsters.  The annual cost of a name is small so our advice is usually to retain duplicate or obsolete names unless you’re absolutely certain they are of no future value to you and that their release poses no risk.

We do know that a consortium of Eastern European speculators bought up many of the bare .uk names that thousands of .co.uk name holders chose not to buy (the owner of a name like example.co.uk had a 5 year window of opportunity to buy example.uk).

In 2020 the UK Government let Helptobuy.org.uk expire for a saving of a few pounds since that scheme had ended. Someone promptly bought the name for a few pounds and resold it for £40,000. The name was linked to from thousands of high quality web sites so the buyer inherited those links resulting in a Google premium listing.

Can I sell my “surplus” names?

Yes but it is usually something of a buyer’s market, that’s to say unless you hold a premium name the valuation will be low.  Broadly speaking premium names are short, relevant, single dictionary word or proper noun, ending .com or .co.uk Those can attract stratospheric prices.  The HelpToBuy example was an exception, the name had been heavily promoted by UK Government scheme it related to and so “known” to the public and linked to from thousands of other web sites. Recently a client’s two-word name for a now abandoned project attracted an offer of $7500, not bad for something he no longer wanted but I proposed holding out.  The buyer increased his offer twice and had specified a deadline for his new web site to go live.  If he couldn’t secure this domain he’d have to use something different, we held out. At the very last minute he raised to a very acceptable $30,000.

With less engaging names it’s a gamble.  If there’s someone who’s set his heart on the name then the price can be negotiated, it’s a balancing act, the cost of holding on to the name is trivial so you are under no compunction to sell but if you get too greedy the prospective buyer will drop out.  I declined an unsolicited offer of £2000 for a two word hyphenated .co.uk name, only to receive a sequence of higher offers culminating in an “absolute final offer” of £4000.  I didn’t respond and the purchaser went quiet only to return a month later with an offer of £6000.  Had I been in the position of wanting or needing to sell the name a realistic asking price would have been a few hundred pounds.

Non-premium names with an income generating web site and business do have a value but largely as part of an overall business sale agreement.  Non-premium names associated with busy but non-income generating sites can also have a good market value.  A few years ago the owner of an extremely popular poetry related “hobbyist” website inadvertently overlooked the renewal and found a speculator had acqired the name, created a copy of the original site but heavily laced with revenue generating adverts. There was