After owning more than 100 domain names, and running about 50 websites, time constraints have warranted a more practical approach. I have slowly let domains owned fall by the wayside. Some have been great short dot com and dot net domains, that are much more of a rarity these days. No doubt, an effort to sell these domains would have garnered some profits, but the effort, and time requirements, just aren’t there.
At least a couple of my remaining domains will also be remnants of the past. My long-time company, ACME Writing, LLC, will be phased out and the website will disappear in favor of a newly branded company as a part of changes slated for this year. For that reason, the ACMEWriting.com website will be a thing of the past. Another website, PhotoEscape.com, which has served as a showcase for some of my photography over many years, will finally be allowed to expire, and will no doubt be bought up quickly by someone else. At one time, that website got up to 10,000 unique visitors every month. It was my most visited website, without a doubt.
The hope is, that a project I have had in mothballs for several years, will replace Photo Escape with those big numbers. The Blog Image Store has been in development for a long time and has a long way to go. The site will provide an inexpensive outlet for original images for blogs and websites. Every image will be one I photographed myself. Those images will include photographs from Hawaii, Arizona, Japan, Georgia, the Atlantic coast, California and its coastline and many other locals. That website is the BlogImageStore.com.
On the online store front, I have operated Pilewire.com, Flatgadget.com and TabletBug.com. All sell consumer electronics. Pilewire enjoyed the most success in the past, but I let the domain expire last month. Eight character, dot come domain names are not that plentiful these days, so it’s not one many people would allow to expire. Although online affiliate sales websites are time-consuming, I will concentrate my future efforts on Flat Gadget because the name is just too good. Tablet Bug may get a makeover and update also.
To bring the good news of Jesus Christ to people who may be looking to improve their lives and find a deep-seated happiness, there is the website News of Joy ( NewsofJoy.com ), which I have owned for a long time. The hope always is that there will be people who just happen to find it and commit their lives to Jesus as a result. While I’m not good at bringing this message to people face-to-face, the website has a mission to help its visitors find God and eternal life.
All of my websites about the history of America and it’s founding are now gone. That’s a shame, since they all were based on historic facts and not a revisionist, politically-correct version of history.
With a smaller portfolio of website properties, there is more opportunity to keep all updated, current and productive. Some of the domain names I own, like CanadianBakers.com, Malvilla.com and Austria4Fun.com are just investments and are for sale. If you know of a company in Canada that is in the baked goods business or a travel company in Austria that needs the perfect domain name, these are winners.
One can only hope that domain name investing is more profitable than the stock market. The Internet has become such an integral part of people’s lives that domain names, that provide some organic improvement in search results, are worth their weight in gold. The stock market, on the other hand, is for those who are interested in losing money by the truckload. Take it from someone who knows firsthand.
