If you’re running a business that’s significantly slowed down, you may be thinking of throwing in the towel, even temporarily. If that’s your situation DO NOT let your domain expire. We’re talking about a $10 investment here, so keep it up.
Why? Search engines give you big points for a domain that’s older–the older, the better. Once your domain hits 3 months, Google and other engines start taking it more seriously. As it ages, that value only grows.
So, keep your domains. (And, you might even want to register them right now for some extra time.)
While you’re at it, keep up your site, too (even if you put up a page that says, “Hey, we’ve chickened out because of the economy and we’re not currently accepting your money.”) because keeping your site active will help you keep your search engine rankings you’ve worked so hard for.
Why would you throw away all that work you’ve put in? All the money and time you’ve invested?
So, don’t. It’s such a tiny investment now that you’ve done the hard work and to let it all go would just be foolish.
I hadn’t thought about it like this – and I nearly threw away my domain at beplayful.org!
A domain is only $10, but if you’re paying for hosting that’s an extra $100 a year.
My secret (I don’t know why it was such a secret, but it took me ages to discover) was to keep my domain, but move my blog to free hosting at wordpress.com.
Comment by David | beplayful — February 3, 2009 @ 4:02 am
That’s a fantastic suggestion to use WordPress.com, David. Thank you for sharing it. And I’m glad that you had decided to keep beplayful.org.
Comment by Jessica — February 3, 2009 @ 6:00 pm