What to do with domains collecting dust?

[anon123]

I've started to build a nice little domain portfolio of random good domain names, but I just have them parked with a for sale sign in the hopes of getting a few ad clicks, or that someone would eventually want to buy them.

Does anyone else have quite a bit of domains? What do you do with them?

Should I build quick little site set up with Amazon affiliate links?

What do you do with your domains?

[mcavic]

Several months ago I received a $20 payment from my parking service. It was for 4 years worth of clicks.

[tangor]

The unused ones? I dump them. I am in the minority, of course. Life is too short and if I don't have the time to develop then I don't need to keep spending funds. Just me...

[HuskyPup]

I've started letting some lapse, last month 40 domains, this month I haven't checked yet however there will be several.

Like Tangor I simply don't have the time and definitely can't be bothered to wait until someone asks me if any of my widget trade names are for sale...good luck to whomsoever decides to do something with them.

[anon123]

What is a better alternative to parking and letting it collect dust?

I found some scripts that basically build an Amazon site for you. Is this a good idea?

Maybe a quick little site rather than just a parking page?

Sounds like most people don't do anything with there domains, but I think I want to do something.

I know some people have 200+ domains in their portfolio. What do you do with these if you don't build a site for each one?

[HuskyPup]

Maybe a quick little site rather than just a parking page?

I do actually have company splash pages with AdSense on many sites awaiting full build however not one of them has ever earned enough to even pay for a name renewal which is why I've decided to cull many of the more speculative widget trade names I have.

[maximillianos]

I'm slowly letting the bulk of my late night business idea registrations expire. Funny part is the minimal investment to secure a potential great idea far out weighs the risk of not having the name if you need it. But then we all pretty much walk away from the lemons a few years later.

Those few that made lemonade make it all worth it. ;-)

[robho]

I found some scripts that basically build an Amazon site for you. Is this a good idea?

I've tried that for about 20 names over the past year. Has earned a little bit in Amazon vouchers but hasn't paid for the time involved (even at 15 minutes per domain).

And it's been getting worse, for example February was 400 clicks, 3 items ordered, $5 in revenue (that's across all 20 domains, not each). March was 340 clicks, 1 order, $0.96 revenue!

In short, not worth bothering with. At least with a parked domain there is a possibility of adding a "for sale" link.

[wheel]

I think you need to decide if you want to monetize them, or just keep them from losing value.

If you want to monetize them, then I suspect you have to be an in-the-know parking service to make any money off them easily. Other than that, everything involves you actually spending some time on the domains. I don't think there's an easy route to monetization.

I've got a bunch of domains, and I know rarely let any expire. I put them on cheap hosting,throw up a wordpress site and have my daughter write a half dozen blog posts on the subject. Then I park them.

[abrankov]

its hard to maintain alot of domains. My suggestion is to sort out the useless and give attention to the one you want to work on .And you will gain much bigger income than if you are not doing anything with all of the sites.

[driller41]

Interesting post - the conclusion seems to be these late night buying sprees are rather a waste of time.

In short the seductive quick 'n' easy method of buying a cheap domain, then spun, duplicate, amazon or whatever else we bang up there is not bringing in a decent return.

Dare I say that fighting against google's quality based algorithm with low end content is pointless ?

[maximillianos]

Driller you are pretty much right on. If you are not going to make a fully committed effort, don't even bother these days.