Opinions

Will you be able to pay for domain name renewals?

As we are in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic the next couple of months will be difficult for everyone worldwide.

It will be especially difficult for people that don’t have a steady income and/or savings.

I think the economy will bounce back but it will take at least 3 months. This is the times that people with a lot of money will make even more money in the stock market. Little guys will lose a lot because of panic.

In our small community of domainers, people need to pay for domain name renewals. Domain renewals don’t know about any virus or global recession.

Same goes for hosting, cloud services, certificates and other subscription based services used to run websites. So that will affect many small websites around the world.

The question here is:

Will you be able to pay for domain name renewals?

Will you be dropping more domains than usual? Will you renew your better domains first and then wait and see? Will you stop most of your acquisitions?

I know I am good for renewals for the next few months but after that I am not sure what will happen if I don’t make any sales. Of course I have already renewed my top 100+ domains for multiple (5+) years so that is something…

Will any of the big domain name registries (Verisign, PIR, Afilias, Neustar, Donuts, MMX) help registrants by delaying renewals? I highly doubt it. I don’t expect much from registrars as they are simply the middle man.

And if people with smaller portfolios are going to be affected what will happen to people with big domain name portfolios?

Of course this would be a good time to buy cheap if you have the funds.

I am watching closely and domain name auctions (GoDaddy, DropCatch, Namejet) don’t seem to have taken a hit. Prices are still very high.

This is a good time to sell some niche domains that apply in this situation we are in. Online/digital eduction and medical/clinical domains seem to be doing very good these days. (e.g. My RemoteTraining.com and ClinicalStudy.com pop to mind.)

Thoughts?

P.S. Wash your hands!!! I don’t know why we have to say this… I wash my hands before and after I go to the toilet, I wash my hands every time I come home, I wash my hands before I cook or eat, I wash my hands before I help my daughter do anything,  I wash my hands all the time! I used to wash my hands 20-25 times a day when I was in Las Vegas for NamesCon and we had no coronavirus. Wash your damn hands!

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About Konstantinos Zournas

I studied Computer Engineering and Computer Science in London, UK and I am now living in Athens, Greece. I went online in 1995, started coding in 1996 and began buying domain names and creating websites in 2000. I started the OnlineDomain.com blog in 2012.

21 comments

  1. It is better some Registrars should come forward to give loan to renew the domain names at a low interests.

  2. Maybe registers will give 45 days grace as they allowed, oh wait they won’t they are all greedy bastards.

  3. 100% sure, Domain Renewals some difficult. In feature, if Corona Continuing, and i am also wash my hand 25 to 30 every day from before Corona issue

  4. I have also renewed my best names for several years in advance. I might have to drop some of my other names, but actually that might not be a bad things. There are some names that I probably should have let go years ago…

    I actually think it will take much longer than three months for the economy to recover, at least here in Northern Europe. Pretty scary times ahead.

  5. Cash is KING!!!
    Once this virus fiasco is over which we all hope will end soon, the market will bounce back stronger and more resilient.
    Lesson Learned.

    All we can do is just stay healthy,stay positive, and keep an eye out for each other.

    • I agree with you BS man given you are in Seattle also, the world will change more people will work from home, the social distance aspect will always be present within our minds, but the economy is still wanting roar back, and things will come back quick once the worst of it is over.

      Don’t give you domainer, and don’t sell cheap, inquiries still coming. Many internet companies are lifting bandwidth limits as online time is reaching record levels, more ideas, more innovation, more domain sales hopefully coming.

      As stated the auction venues are still selling for top dollar, not sure where that money is coming from, maybe Turncommerce forgot to turn off their bot. Don’t get caught overpaying right now, there are plenty of domain names to buy if you need to wait a few weeks.

      Try to sell your doomsday’s domains if you can now.

      Shelter, emergency, warning, flu etc…

  6. Ethos Capital has already told everyone what it will do to help out nonprofits and individuals with registrant and renewal fees.

    They will only impose price increases by up to 10% a year on the millions of dot org registrants, in keeping with the spirit of historical price increases as allowed by ICANN. Sheesh, isn’t that enough generosity?

    Also, as of spring 2019, ICANN also allows PIR to charge whatever it wants for dot org domains, because ICANN went out of business…er, is no longer in the business of being a regulator. Or something like that. At least Ethos has apparently sacrificed that disastrous (for everyone) option for the next 8 years.

    Thankfully all us who love domains and the domain industry and have supported it over the years, keeping registries and registrars alike afloat with our hard earned money, have benevolent entities Ethos and ICANN who appreciate us and are looking out for our wellbeing!

  7. I always renew out my most important domain names. 🙂

  8. Greetings,

    There is a lifecycle for everything. It is an opportunity for us to grab high quality domains now and review our portfolios to dump some of the crappy ones. Added to a strategy of lowering sales prices for endusers and domain resellers.

    An output of the mutual benefits always is to have a shared responsibility. I do highly recommend that registrars push towards lowering with icann their renewal prices by %20 on all domain extensions to help businesses, investors, and newbies in the market overcome an upcoming heavy situation for the rest of 2020 and they send a warn that an increase is coming in 2021

  9. We each have different monthly incomes.

    Renewal and dropping is the same as a year ago, not changing anything, the Coronavirus not only affects people’s health and not this domain market,

    I believe that the coronavirus is a pandemic that has been allowed to go through various channels until it reaches all the people on this planet earth.
    Here, leave us very important information so that everyone can learn more about this virus.
    https://www.dictionary.com/browse/coronavirus?s=t
    ORIGIN OF CORONAVIRUS.
    First recorded in 1965–70; so called from the coronalike array of spikes projecting from the capsid
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus
    Outbreaks of coronavirus-related diseases
    Outbreaks of coronavirus types of relatively high mortality are as follows:
    Outbreak Virus type Deaths
    2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak SARS-CoV 774 [40]
    2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak MERS-CoV Over 400 [41]
    2015 Middle East respiratory syndrome outbreak in South unKorea MERS-CoV 36 [42]
    2018 Middle East respiratory syndrome outbreak MERS-CoV 41 [43]
    2019–20 pandemic SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus At least 5,833 [44] r

    After reading this I do not change, being the same as always because I know that nothing is new everything has a beginning what we never know is its end

  10. Will be dropping more. Important to keep lean in times like this, domain market will be weak for a couple of years.

  11. A few comments:

    – Regardless of any epidemiological data, the fearmongering has put things in motion with shutdowns and supply chain disruptions that will have lasting impacts. It is a classic “black swan”, an “unknown unknown”.

    – I expect this is going to be rough, e.g. 1-2 years of liquidity challenges across many industries. I don’t rule out bank failures, e.g. Yes bank failed in India last week and we have not even had a run on banks yet.

    – The digital economy is going to be about as promising a category to be in, possibly followed by health care. My wife is a physician but many competing clinics are shutting down, some permanently.

    As for what Epik is doing, we have a few things:

    – We have a grace period — default is 15 days but up to 35 days upon request. It is a good conversation to have since more grace period usually is just a band-aid.

    – We do renewals at cost for pro domainers, e.g. $8.49 for all-in .COM. We have been doing $6.99 .com transfers. We’ll keep that open as often as possible, budget permitting.

    – We introduced NameLiquidate.com for helping folks monetize their own expiry stream. This is a really solid solution to a critical problem as most people don’t monetize their own expiry stream which is crazy.

    – We do offer interest-free domain loans for up to 1 year. The demand for this sometimes exceeds the supply but it is an option for folks who are at risk of losing domains that they should be keeping.

    – We operate a service called Masterbucks. If the banking climate gets really stupid, this service may play a larger role in providing peer to peer liquidity for domainers. Stay tuned.

    – I have brokered some larger domain loans for customers and will advise where possible. There are loans available for people, notably those with premium domains.

    – We are working to fast-track a domain lending service called DomainEquity, based entirely on peer to peer domain lending. You can see a preview here:

    https://www.loom.com/share/7d549a62be354c17953adbdbcdaf17d8

    Personally, when it comes to tapping capital markets, I think Godaddy should step up in a big way. I am not confident that they will but they should. Related discussion here:

    https://www.namepros.com/threads/my-question-to-godaddys-ceo-at-namescon-domain-liquidity-for-the-industry.1175795/

    • Konstantinos Zournas

      Hope summer helps to keep down the virus cause from late April (early May at the latest) there is no way even the army can stop people from going to work.

      I will take you up on the 35 grace period and possibly NameLiquidate.com after I check that out.

      Sorry about your namepros link but I stopped reading after I saw Shane. There is only so much someone can take right now.

      • Grace period on your account adjusted to 35 days.

        As for Corona, two thoughts:

        1. In 1918-20 pandemic, caregivers found that putting folks outdoors in the sun with fresh air was highly effective. So, your hope has some basis.

        2. Psalm 91:6, says “pestilence that walketh in darkness”. Per that wisdom: (1) if the sun is shining get outside, or sit on a sunny balcony, (2) be home at night.

        As for the larger landscape of what we are dealing with, most folks might not be ready for what is coming. Three anecdotes from today:

        (1) Speaking with Epik’s country manager in India today. Top 10 bank, Yes bank collapsed last week. Maximum withdrawals set to $650/month.

        (2) I started planting the garden today. Home Depot and Lowes were slow and was well-stocked. It appears most folks here likely don’t garden.

        (3) Neighbor was out of toilet paper. We had extra so hooked her up. Husband and wife are both doctors but had basically zero preps but have 3 young kids.

        As for that NP thread, the subsequent discussion had some meat. In retrospect, the timing of course is interesting.

        Blessings to you and yours!

      • Konstantinos Zournas

        Thanks for the adjustment.

        (1) That could be a coincidence. We’ll see.
        (2) I wish I could do this.
        (3) I went to the supermarket today and the only thing that the supermarket was low was toilet paper. Go figure…

    • India is in the dark on corona virus
      , virtually no testing, and a real demographic issue on how to get information out there. Could be one of the hardest hit just given how open, and public the lifestyle is.

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