What domain names are you holding on to?

#watercooler #discuss

Whether or not you are making any use of them...

Latest comments (50)

zakwillis • Apr 11 '22

Hi Ben.

cryptostatto.com - it will be a cryptocurrency analytics platform, but with a very different perspective on how the YouTubers market their stuff (not hating). Certainly, this is an exciting effort, but only so many hours in the day.

My web data platform has launched my Limited Company website Info Rhino and property platform findigl. The underlying tech can deliver a cryptocurrency metrics platform too.

Jakub T. Jankiewicz • Apr 8 '22

The best generic one that I can share is hacking.cafe. I also have cool generic Polish domain just.net.pl and ale.marketing (ale is Polish WoW or But).

Peter Hoffmann • Mar 31 '22 • Edited

So there are two that I think are particular interesting:
destroy-club.de was my Counter Strike clan that is no longer active (for more than 20 years now?) I just have the name and can't let go.
gruppensexpornos.eu one the other hand (apologies for whom the name is offensive) has a more interesting story: In Germany in general you have freedom of speech but there are some limits to pay attention to. The "Bundeszentrale für Kinder- und Jugendmedienschutz" (until 2003 Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien: Federal Review Board for Media Harmful to Minors, there was no update on the english name) is in charge of checking all media for content inappropriate for minors. For "telemedia" (homepages) the "Index" is by law confidential and only hashes of the domain names are distributed to institutions in charge of filters, mostly search engines like Google and Bing but also manufacturers of home routers. If your domain is on that Index it will not appear in internet searches - independent from your age. But in 2014 the current list was published and reverse engineered anyways. Of that ~3000 URLs that where resolved only 50-60% still contained unsuitable content like pornographie, animal or child abuse, suicide or anorexia advocacy and glorification of national socialism. So yes, there is dangerous and sordid content on the internet, no one would/should deny that.
To get on the index there is a very bureaucratic review process. But once on that list you will stay there for 25 years. You can take actions in court against that decision but this might be expensive and takes time. For the operators of such (especially porn) domains the names abruptly lose their value (and they will notice due to the drop in traffic) and will discarded them instantly. Probably they'll be replaced by another domain with a slightly different name containing the exact same content only a few days later, keeping the review board bussy. A perfect real world Whac-A-Mole game.
One day I grabbed myself one of such dirty domains once containing unsuitable images and videos as a silent protest and example of how helpless and absurd this blockading is. The block on my domain is now a shallow cocoon around a now perfectly boring empty space that will stay a hidden corner of the internet for the foreseeable future. If you can search for that domain outside of Germany or the EU is a question not answered yet. If you want to check, search for the Regennassetagtraumruine (a word currently only used on this page in the internet).

Daniel Sitnik • Apr 3 '22

Searching from Brazil, the word "Regennassetagtraumruine" now shows a search result linking to this post. 😂

Eric Bae • Mar 30 '22

I'm a bit of a domain junky... I've purchased ~60 domains over the past few years. I know it's not as big as some serious professional domainers, but I bought them thinking that they will become one day.. you know.. unicorns.. 😎 they are more like... donkeys at the moment.. if at all.

But! I did have an idea about a year ago where I didn't want these domains to go unused and idle. I also didn't have time to develop and maintain them, so I created a little tool called Newsy.

newsy.co

It turns your unused domain names into a content aggregator automatically. It self-updates, self-maintains and self-runs! Over the last few months, I've added quite a few features like membership, voting features, SSL, monetization etc.

If anyone is interested, I'd happy for you to try it out!

Michael M • Mar 30 '22

I used to have a company and I registered a domain in 1999. Sentimental reasons or probably a hidden hope that it might resurrect one day. I am also holding it because of SEO, back then google liked old domains, not sure nowadays.