In the SEO world, maybe the least fun day of our professional lives is when a credit card expires and we have to go update card information across a gazillion web hosts. Seriously, I’d rather do The Amazing Race partnered with Hillary Clinton than navigate all the stupid hosting panels in my portfolio.
Now, I’ve run into the domain name equivalent. As I’ve tripled the number of domain names under the umbrella over the last year, it’s no longer an Excel spreadsheet kind of operation and end-of-year administrative minutiae is pretty gnarly.
I guess I’m looking for something that automates much of the following (or at least creates a more efficient dashboard):
* Domain
* Purchase date
* Cost basis
* Revenue (parking, affiliate, Adsense, etc)
* Domain sales
* Tax events
* Registrar
* Renewal date
* Traffic
* Age
* Inbound links
My question to those reading this is, “What are you other domainers using?” I imagine those of you with domain portfolios numbering in the five- and six-figures are using custom solutions. I’m not afraid of going that route, but if there are products on the market now that handle a large swath of these actions across my meager four-figure inventory, I’d love to use that as an interim solution while I’m building out a custom back-end. A little time behind the wheel(s) of off the shelf products never hurts when trying to spec out a project to developers.
Back to sifting through my Outlook, NameJet, Pool, and SnapNames for all the crap I bought this year…
Thanks in advance for helping me with this addiction. You all are enablers.
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6 Responses to “Domain Name Software: Domainers What Are You Using?”
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I have a very small herd of domains (about 300+) and, until recently was using a variety of archaic methods to list/track them.
The only software I’m aware of is Domainer. Although it does cover the basics, it doesn’t allow you to customize the layout (like add columns) so you can add other information. The other thing I find annoying is that, for a desktop app, it’s pretty dang slow to load, save, and update information. But even with it’s down-sides, at least all my info is in one place.
I’d really like to hear suggestions for how everyone tracks their domains.
Hey,
I was waiting to see other comments before I replied but I was wondering if you managed to find anything suitable? I’ve been looking for a while.
Nick,
So far the consensus from offline conversations is that I’ll be needing to go custom.
BP
I was just waiting for a notice to come via email for the ones that don’t go anywhere but then I realized I have changed my email address since I started buying domains.
Also some of mine have just renewed on their own and suddenly I have a charge on my credit card.
I recently realized that when I bought some of the domains I own I had set up a reminder in my calendar to renew my domains.
So now I’ve got a running list that I add to as I remember or discover the list of the ones I own. I’ll hae to create some kind of system for keeping them all up to date.
I also sometimes get solicitation via snail mail as some of my domains come close the expiring so that has helped me gather the list.
What a headache either way.
Brian, I suggest giving DNZoom a try (http://www.dnzoom.com) to help automate your domain portfolio.
Not every feature you listed has been included yet, but the development team encourages suggestions and pushes out new features fairly regularly.
Beats plugging numbers into Excel!
Brian,
Just found something that may be what you are looking for. Looks like it is in beta but is getting rave reviews by some biggy domainers: DNZoom.com.