Verisign raised .COM wholesale prices on November 1, which got me thinking about all those side projects that never made it past the domain and a landing page. If you've got a few unfinished websites, how many years do you keep the names before calling it quits? Is there a particular sign that makes you renew again, like traffic, a working prototype or a plan to actually build the site?
For me the test is whether I've touched the project at all in the last year. If the only thing that happened was the renewal, the domain isn't what's holding it back, and a decent name is easy enough to find once the idea comes back for real.
I give it two renewals. If nothing was built in that time I let it go, unless the name is short or brandable enough to resell. Keeping a simple list with the idea, the renewal date and what I paid helps a lot when the renewal emails come in.
Definitely. I'd suggest considering whether you've made any progress on the project over the past year. If the domain is the only thing you've kept up with, it might be worth thinking about whether you still need it.
I'd also want to know if the domain was ever shared publicly, even if the project never launched. Old social profiles, landing pages or emails might still point to it, which is a different case from a name that never left the idea stage.
Good point. If the name was ever used publicly, I would check old backlinks and any email addresses on it before letting it go, someone could pick it up and receive mail meant for you.
And not just mail, any account you signed up for with an address on that domain. Whoever registers it later can hit "forgot password" and get in, so it's worth moving those logins to another email before the name drops.
Exactly, password resets are the scary part. Before dropping a domain I would go through the password manager and move every account that uses an address on it to a different email first.