Audit your domain name portfolio
Practice good domain name portfolio hygiene.
I know I’m unusual for enjoying tedious tasks. I track my expenses in Quicken. I get satisfaction from updating Quickbooks data every month.
So maybe it’s a bit weird that I enjoy auditing my domain name portfolio. But since it has the added benefit of making sure I’m not leaving money on the table, it’s something I think everyone ought to do even if they don’t love stuff like auditing.
It’s a good idea to audit your domain name portfolio at least once a year. Here are the things to check for:
- Nameservers – this is a key one since you could be missing out on domain sales or parked domain revenue. Check the nameservers for all of your domains to make sure they’re pointing where you want them. Some might still be connected to registrar holding pages. Others might link to defunct parking firms.
- Contact info – the impetus for my latest audit was my move from Texas to Washington. Most of my domains still pointed to a post office box in Texas and I needed to update them. You ought to also check your email address to make sure it’s correct for all of your domains.
- Auto-renew status – make sure the domains you want on auto-renew are turned on. This is also a good time to think regarding domains you might not want to renew and switch auto-renew off so you aren’t charged for them again.
Auditing your portfolio is easier if the domains are at one domain name registrar, especially if that registrar makes it easy to download bulk data. GoDaddy’s “exported lists” feature is ideal for this. Any registrar that caters to domain name investors ought to have a feature to export all of your domain name data into a spreadsheet.
