Domaining is becoming harder and domainers are feeling squeezed (1.Viewing)

Gone are the days when you could just forward your domain to a page and go about your business of selling domains. Things are getting harder and more complex and every scenario I look at has it's negatives leaving me at a loss of what to do.

So here I will list some of my peeves and possible solutions...

I have thousands of domains spread out over multiple registrars with hundreds of domains coming due in January alone and selling them has become troublesome creating hundreds of hours of work.

The main thing causing me issues is that I like to sell and negotiate my own deals. I prefer to deal with the end client myself but how to direct that client to me is becoming more and more difficult with Google enforcing https redirects. It's impossible to add thousands of domains to a hosting package to get https and if one skips it the client gets a https error notice or worse yet if the domain is punched in with an https prefix it will show as not active.

So what are the solutions?

Well I guess a market place like GoDaddy will work if you want to give them 30% of your profits. I hear domainers say they don't mind that but I bet they never factor in holding times and renewals which would probably bring them closer to 40 of 50% costs. You have not even factored in if you spent 10k acquiring a domain GoDaddy can take 30% of that before you ever make a dime.

Then there are the discount marketplaces like saw at 9% but that is basic self directed and they still struggle with https certificates. That said they give you all the customer information which is definitely a bonus.

Then there are the newcomers like DomainEasy who promise 0% but we know from experience this is only a hook and the 10-15% is probably on the horizon sooner than later. Also the fact they give none of the client information makes me uneasy. Why do I want to use a service that keeps MY customer information away from me? Well the short answer is they do https certificates the best, they are instant, the second the domain DNS propagates it has an https certificate.

So currently I have to choose my own marketplace with a certificate error or a Marketplace that keeps my customer information with a certificate.

How do I get around that? Well whenever someone makes an offer over 5k I respond back saying....

Thank you for your offer & inquiry.
To help us determine that this is a valid offer please fill out the form at: mapledots.ca/inquiry/?domain=red.ca and we will contact you.

This allows me to get my client information and has worked for me so far but again it is only a stop gap measure because DomainEasy does not allow hyperlinks, the client has to copy and paste.

The best solution for me is an https certificates for forwards and so far only Porkbun and WebNames has them. Porkbun is in USD and Webnames is too expensive.

As a domainers I am at a crossroads and am seriously thinking of dropping a few thousand domains and focusing only on my top picks. It has become too time consuming managing a super large portfolio and it is taking time away from my other businesses.

What is on my wish list AS FAST AS I CAN GET IT?

https forwards or a registrar supplied https landing page with a form where I can collect customer data.

@CanSpace @DynaDot @FM @PorkBun @FullHost @ms23 @bmetal

The first one that implements this in CAD will get my renewals for January and every month thereafter.

I'm feeling the squeeze, who will be the first registrar/host to offer https forwarding in CAD?

We're definitely working on this! Let's Encrypt limits make this extremely challenging but we're actively looking for ways around this.

CanSpace said:

We're definitely working on this! Let's Encrypt limits make this extremely challenging but we're actively looking for ways around this.

Click to expand...

Yes SAW struggles with this as well but DomainEasy seems to do it in seconds.

Maybe registrars should register a domain at Webnames and Porkbun to see how they do it so efficiently.

It's in the works here to. We already offer free AutoSSL on some of our hosting plans, but the expected volume does make things challenging.

The problem is renewals are coming up and https forwards loom large, I visit other domainers sites and see https errors everywhere.

Https forwards are now the single most important thing (plus price of course) in my decision of where to renew. I dislike being forced to marketplace for certificates, I prefer to handle my own deals.

Adding hundreds of domains on to a hosting package does not work either and it takes hours to add domains, verify certificate, set up redirects etc, you can do nothing in bulk.

SSL for the forwarding system has pretty much been the top of my todo list for the last couple weeks. I've been cleaning up the code base and making the old test suites work before I start making significant changes. But yes, certificate management is the main challenge, and there are slew of reasons why it is hard. Will it be ready for January? I certainly hope so.