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Bought a .xyz for $1, renewal wants $15—worth keeping?

Domain Names by pieter_rtm 29 replies 3.5K views
pieter_rtm

Member OP

#1

Bought a .xyz from Hetzner last June for €1. Renewal quote came: €15. To be honest, I used it for one Docker experiment, traffic is zero. As said, sunk cost is just $1, but I wonder if developed domains have hidden value I'm missing. Specs:

  • Domain: 12 characters, made-up word
  • Age: 1 year
  • Backlinks: none
  • Current use: parked

Trash it or develop? What's the actual development value of a random .xyz these days?

Containers before it was cool
EN

Member

#2

He I did this same thing my VPS it crashed and I lost the site but the domain he is still alive caramba! I pay $15 now for what? Nossa... more fast to buy new $1 domain than keep this he... but if you have project maybe worth?

olya

Member

Always Free

2 #3

Pro tip: development value depends entirely on your intent, not the TLD. Here's my framework:

1. Check if your made-up word has trademark conflicts (USPTO search, free)
2. Evaluate pronounceability: can someone say it on a podcast without spelling it?
3. Heads up: .xyz renewals rarely negotiate below $12 even in bulk

If all three fail, let it drop. If #2 passes, minimal viable landing page costs you $3/month on Oracle free tier compute. I've run 40+ domains this way. The $1 first year is a loss leader; registrars bank on your inertia. Don't feed it.

licensing is a suggestion
gaithrack

Member

SPARC collector

6 #4

olya said:
Oracle free tier compute

Oracle killed my free tier after 8 months with zero warning. Would not bet a domain on it. Hetzner's €4.51 CX11 is the actual floor for reliable compute, and that's in Falkenstein or Nuremberg from my latency tests in Oslo.

pieter_rtm

Member OP

#5

gaithrack said:
Hetzner's €4.51 CX11

That's where my VPS sits already, in Falkenstein. So the domain is just icing. €15/year is what, €1.25/month? Cheaper than the VPS but still feels wrong when the experiment died.

Containers before it was cool
uma

Member

99.99% or bust

#6

I ran a .xyz for a monitoring dashboard, age 3 years, zero SEO value, zero type-in traffic. Dropped it last month. The only metric that mattered was: did I feel a pang when I let it go? I did not. Your list says parked, no backlinks. That's your answer.

436 days. reboot is surrender.
olya

Member

Always Free

#7

uma said:
Did I feel a pang

Emotional domain hoarding is real. I have 23 domains. I use 4. The rest are "future projects." Future never comes. At least .xyz has no resale market so the decision is clean.

licensing is a suggestion
FlowSana

Member

SRE

#8

From an SRE perspective: undeveloped domains are technical debt. DNS records to maintain, registrar accounts to secure, expiry monitoring. I dropped 8 domains this year. My pager only cares about the ones with traffic.

It's always DNS. Always.
OwnerSeeker

Member

Small Biz

8 #9

I kept a .xyz for my bakery's loyalty program QR codes. $15 is nothing against 200 repeat customers scanning it monthly. But zero traffic? My accountant would laugh at me.

EN

Member

8 #10

OwnerSeeker said:
$15 is nothing

He in Brasil this is half week food money! Different world. I buy new $1 domain every year, move project, old one die. Is system.

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