Over the last 25 years, I have had a collection of domains (maybe 60+), but then I realized I have become a domain hoarder.
Almost 110%, our mind, feels like at that point:
- This domain can be a product
- This is a great name
- This is a short name - might have resale value
- This might be able to sell in 5 years time
- I will build some ideas with it, even though I have not thought of the idea in detail
Unfortunately though, this is a wild theory.
Once some time has passed, that delicious domain is no longer in view, but spending, for example, 15 USD per year on average. Now, if I have like 20 of these. It would be 15 * 20=300 USD per year.
Now, if I renew them for 10 years, that would be 300 * 10=3000 USD.
Imagine if you did not do that; you could have used the 3000 for a better purpose.
Sometimes, these realizations come much later, as they keep getting renewed without having an actual impact or purpose.
Sometimes, we just need to put our foot down and do a solid cleanup.
Previously, we had excuses. We could not measure without spending an excessive amount of time. But now you have tools on your hand to measure the effectiveness of your domain names you are paying for.
How many domains have I discontinued this July 2026?
I have disabled renewal for 21 domains in July 2026. After a thorough analysis and measuring expenses over the last 12 years.
Needless to say, my average per domain was not 15/year; it was close to 18/year. At least 12 of them were from the last 5 years, and the rest were more than 12 years old.
I will let your mind wander on this.
Here are some tips
Multiple ways to go about it
- Use domain appraisal tools, they are not accurate, but they will give some moderate estimates. I will put down some sites I usually use - below.
- Use AI tools that are aware of domain industries; give them a prompt with a detailed context of your original thought of a domain you purchased 10 years back. Ask them to be a critic and give you educated pros and cons. This will help you filter.
- Google Trends / Keyword Planner - Measure term demand, commercial intent, and geographic relevance.
- Ahrefs Free Backlink Checker / Moz Link Explorer - Relevant when the domain has history, links, or existing authority.
- Wayback Machine - Check previous use, reputation, content history, and possible trademark problems.
Domain Appraisal Tools
- NameBio - Best for verified comparable sales. Gives you solid ideas on which types of domains are going for great prices.
- GoDaddy Appraisal - Useful automated baseline and broad-market comparison. They also provide domain sales services. Though, in other contexts, they did not have a good reputation over time, and I also moved out of GoDaddy domains since 2011. This is a separate issue, though.
- Dynadot Appraisal - Free automated estimate with comparable-sale suggestions. Generally ok for learning and measuring.
- ExpiredDomains.net - Useful for examining availability, extensions, backlinks, age, and market competition.
A Prompt to Seek Help from AI. Here is a baseline prompt
Initial feed prompt:
For this prompt to be effective, you must fill up the placeholders to the best of your knowledge.
Act as a pragmatic domain investment analyst. Evaluate the domain below as both a potential long-term digital asset and a practical business acquisition.
DOMAIN:
[DOMAIN_NAME]
MY ORIGINAL REASONS FOR CONSIDERING IT:
[ADD_YOUR_THOUGHTS_HERE]
MY INTENDED USE, IF ANY:
[PROJECT, BRAND, RESALE, CONTENT SITE, SAAS, COMMUNITY, SHORT LINK, DEFENSIVE REGISTRATION, OR UNKNOWN]
MY EXPECTED HOLDING PERIOD:
[1 YEAR / 3-5 YEARS / 5-10 YEARS / UNKNOWN]
PURCHASE PRICE:
[PRICE OR UNKNOWN]
ANNUAL RENEWAL COST:
[COST OR UNKNOWN]
TARGET MARKET OR COUNTRY:
[GLOBAL / COUNTRY / INDUSTRY / UNKNOWN]
Perform a critical, evidence-based domain valuation. Do not inflate the value, praise the domain unnecessarily, or rely only on automated appraisal tools. Clearly separate facts, assumptions, estimates, and speculation.
Use current web research where available. Check comparable domain sales, keyword demand, extension adoption, business usage, trademarks, historical usage, backlinks, search visibility, and likely buyer demand.
Structure the analysis as follows:
1. Executive verdict
Provide:
- Buy, negotiate, hold, develop, or avoid
- Confidence level from 1-10
- One-sentence explanation
- Maximum sensible purchase price
- Estimated wholesale value
- Estimated realistic retail value
- Estimated optimistic end-user value
- Expected holding difficulty: low, medium, or high
- Long-term eligibility: weak, reasonable, strong, or exceptional
2. Domain quality assessment
Evaluate:
- Extension quality and long-term adoption
- Number of words
- Character length
- Ease of spelling
- Ease of pronunciation
- Memorability
- Brandability
- Visual appearance
- Radio test
- Typing errors
- Singular versus plural quality
- Hyphens, numbers, abbreviations, or ambiguity
- International usability
- Mobile and voice-search usability
- Email credibility
- Risk of confusion with existing brands
Score each factor from 1-10 and explain briefly.
3. Commercial value
Analyze:
- Industries that could use the domain
- Types of businesses that may buy it
- Commercial intent of the keywords
- Size and purchasing power of the buyer pool
- Whether the name solves a real naming problem
- Whether companies already use similar names
- Whether the domain could support a serious company
- Potential business models
- Potential lead-generation value
- Potential affiliate, content, SaaS, marketplace, community, or ecommerce use
- Geographic limitations
- Whether the domain is primarily brandable, keyword-based, hybrid, defensive, or speculative
List the five most credible end-user profiles.
4. Search and keyword value
Evaluate:
- Exact-match and related keyword demand
- Search intent
- Advertiser competition
- Cost-per-click signals
- Trend direction
- Seasonality
- Geographic concentration
- Whether search demand is commercially useful or merely informational
- Whether the domain could realistically rank
- Whether the keyword value matters without an existing website
Do not treat search volume alone as proof of domain value.
5. Comparable sales analysis
Find and assess relevant historical domain sales.
Prioritize comparables with:
- The same extension
- Similar word count
- Similar character length
- Similar industry
- Similar keyword intent
- Similar brandability
- Similar buyer profile
- Recent sale dates
For each useful comparable, provide:
- Domain
- Sale price
- Sale date
- Marketplace
- Why it is relevant
- Why it may not be directly comparable
Explain whether the comparables support or weaken the valuation.
6. Extension analysis
Evaluate:
- Trust and recognition of the extension
- Registration growth or decline
- Renewal pricing stability
- Availability of stronger alternatives
- Whether users naturally default to .com
- Resale liquidity
- Corporate adoption
- Country or industry restrictions
- Registry risk
- Premium renewal risk
- Long-term relevance
Explain whether the extension strengthens or weakens the domain.
7. Competitive landscape
Check:
- The .com version
- Major alternative extensions
- Singular and plural variants
- Hyphenated versions
- Common misspellings
- Existing companies using the phrase
- Social-media username availability where relevant
- App-store or product-name conflicts
- Similar domains currently listed for sale
- Whether owning this domain creates a defensible position
Identify the biggest competitive weakness.
8. Legal and trademark risk
Check for:
- Registered trademarks
- Famous or established brands
- Industry-specific conflicts
- Geographic trademark conflicts
- Personal-name risks
- Typosquatting concerns
- UDRP risk
- Evidence of bad-faith registration risk
- Whether the intended use increases legal exposure
Classify risk as:
- Low
- Moderate
- High
- Unacceptable
Do not provide legal certainty. Clearly state when professional trademark advice is appropriate.
9. Historical and technical due diligence
Investigate:
- Previous website content
- Wayback Machine history
- Spam, adult, gambling, malware, piracy, or deceptive use
- Search-engine penalties
- Existing backlinks
- Backlink quality
- Anchor-text profile
- Domain age
- Previous ownership changes
- Email or blacklist reputation
- Existing traffic claims
- DNS history where useful
- Whether old authority is likely reusable
Flag anything that could reduce value or create risk.
10. Buyer and liquidity analysis
Estimate:
- Number of plausible end users
- Likelihood of inbound interest
- Ease of outbound selling
- Expected time to sell
- Investor liquidity
- End-user liquidity
- Whether the domain needs development to become valuable
- Whether the asking price leaves enough upside
- Probability of selling within 1, 3, and 5 years
Use realistic probability ranges rather than false precision.
11. Long-term holding assessment
Evaluate the domain over a 5-10 year horizon.
Consider:
- Whether the underlying term will remain relevant
- Whether the name depends on a temporary trend
- AI, technology, cultural, legal, or market changes
- Risk of terminology becoming outdated
- Extension durability
- Renewal-cost burden
- Opportunity cost
- Potential buyer growth
- Potential buyer decline
- Whether stronger alternatives may become available
- Whether development could materially improve value
Classify the domain as:
- Durable asset
- Development-dependent asset
- Trend-sensitive asset
- Low-liquidity speculation
- Defensive registration
- Poor long-term hold
12. Positive case
Present the strongest realistic reasons to acquire the domain.
Include:
- Best possible use
- Most credible buyer
- Strongest market trend
- Best branding advantage
- Development upside
- Conditions required for the investment to succeed
Do not create an unrealistic best-case scenario.
13. Critical case
Present the strongest reasons not to acquire it.
Include:
- Weak buyer demand
- Better alternative names
- Extension weakness
- Trademark risk
- Renewal burden
- Limited liquidity
- Overvaluation
- Trend dependency
- Development difficulty
- Opportunity cost
Be direct. Identify what could make the domain effectively worthless.
14. Scenario valuation
Estimate value under these scenarios:
- Immediate investor resale
- Patient investor hold
- Sale to a small business
- Sale to a funded company
- Developed content site
- Developed SaaS or product
- Defensive acquisition by an existing brand
For each scenario, provide:
- Estimated value range
- Probability
- Expected time horizon
- Main assumptions
15. Financial decision
Calculate where possible:
- Purchase cost
- Five-year renewal cost
- Ten-year renewal cost
- Total holding cost
- Suggested negotiation price
- Maximum walk-away price
- Required sale price to justify the risk
- Potential return at wholesale and retail values
- Whether the expected return compensates for illiquidity
If data is unavailable, state the missing input rather than inventing it.
16. Final scorecard
Score from 1-10:
- Brandability
- Commercial intent
- Buyer pool
- Extension strength
- Search value
- Legal safety
- Historical cleanliness
- Development potential
- Resale liquidity
- Long-term durability
- Price attractiveness
Then provide:
- Weighted overall score
- Strongest feature
- Biggest weakness
- Most likely outcome
- Best alternative strategy
- Final recommendation
17. Decision rules
End with clear conditions:
- Buy immediately if:
- Buy only below:
- Negotiate if:
- Develop if:
- Hold long term if:
- Avoid if:
- Reassess when:
Use concise language, tables where useful, and practical reasoning. Challenge my original assumptions where necessary. If my stated reasons for buying the domain are weak, emotional, biased, or unsupported, explain that directly.
Do not confuse:
- Asking price with market value
- Automated appraisal with actual value
- Search volume with buyer demand
- Age with quality
- Backlinks with usable authority
- Brandability with liquidity
- Possible use cases with real buyers
- Optimistic retail value with probable sale price
Finish with a one-line conclusion in this format:
FINAL VERDICT: [BUY / NEGOTIATE / HOLD / DEVELOP / AVOID] at no more than [MAXIMUM PRICE], because [PRIMARY REASON].
If you manage to read up until here.
- Do you have any other means of doing this?
- Have you tried the prompt?
Let me know. I am excited to learn!
Drop a comment below and say -hi.