$70 to Register a Domain Name Oh MY!

18 replies
Hi everyone,

I was cleaning out my basement when I came across my very first domain registration from 1998. I paid $70 dollars to Network solutions to register Officeheadhunter.com for two years. My plan was to have the best job search site ever but Headhunter.com had better advertising so I fizzled out.

Honestly the real reason I fizzled out back then is because I had to do everything myself. I burned out. There was no Guru.com or Fivver to help you with your outsourcing and since the web was still so new to the average Joe, skilled outsourcers were rare and you paid for it. Premium rates like $100 per hour.

I was a newlywed back then so a $100 bucks an hour was not available. If I needed a program guess what? I learned cgi (no PHP just yet) . Needed a graphic? I learned photoshop. Oh yeah did I mention that I was doing all this via dial-up? These youngsters just don't know how good they have it.
By the time it was over I just became an outsourcer.

Any ideas of what I can do with a 13 year old domain? It's certainly seasoned however I don't want to sell it as it's as much a part of my family as my 13 year old cat who would sit by my feet as I worked on this thing. A lot a people love to talk about how long they've been around, I have a little proof.

#$70 #domain #registration
  • Profile picture of the author website12
    Banned
    It is cool how you have kept the domains so long and and have done im for so long.
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  • Profile picture of the author Shazia Mirza
    It is cool how you have kept the domains so long and and have done im for so long.
    Yup, OP sounds like a wise master of IM.
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    • Profile picture of the author premiumplr
      Originally Posted by IMReview View Post

      Yup, OP sounds like a wise master of IM.
      LOL! I appreciate the compliment but I'm far from wise. Diligent perhaps. A pack rat definitely. As of right now though the domain is just sitting. I'll bring it back to life soon.
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  • Profile picture of the author seasoned
    13 years? 2011-13=1998! 1999 was about the time network solutions was SUED and the other registrars opened up! Prior to 1999, it was about $70 for 2 years, and you could NOT register for only 1 year. If it hasn't been actve the whole time, it isn't so seasoned, and is STALE! BTW I got MY domain around the same time! At least I admit that mine has been stale for a year or two.

    And I STILL remember a friend of a friend calling me a liar, in 1999, and asking how **I** could sell a domain name for one year for $12 and STILL make a profit!

    Steve
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    • Profile picture of the author premiumplr
      Originally Posted by seasoned View Post

      ... it was about $70 for 2 years, and you could NOT register for only 1 year. If it hasn't been actve the whole time, it isn't so seasoned, and is STALE! BTW I got MY domain around the same time! At least I admit that mine has been stale for a year or two.

      And I STILL remember a friend of a friend calling me a liar, in 1999, and asking how **I** could sell a domain name for one year for $12 and STILL make a profit!

      Steve
      No it hasn't been inactive the whole time, only about 2 years now and it was not about $70 it was $70 exactly . After the suit and the market opened up I switched to godaddy in 2001. I couldn't believe how much cheaper it was. Godaddy was $19.95 I think.
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    • Profile picture of the author enterpryzman
      Originally Posted by seasoned View Post

      13 years? 2011-13=1998! 1999 was about the time network solutions was SUED and the other registrars opened up! Prior to 1999, it was about $70 for 2 years, and you could NOT register for only 1 year. If it hasn't been actve the whole time, it isn't so seasoned, and is STALE! BTW I got MY domain around the same time! At least I admit that mine has been stale for a year or two.

      And I STILL remember a friend of a friend calling me a liar, in 1999, and asking how **I** could sell a domain name for one year for $12 and STILL make a profit!

      Steve


      That is when I started and I never figured out how to buy for only a year, my old order emails all say $ 140 each name. I picked up 15 names that year and sold a couple to pay for them all on the old ( and much better than now ) Afternic site in the chat room mostly directing buyers to my auctions.

      I have lasting relationships with 2 of those who I met back then in my start and have jumped on a plane to meet and brainstorm with them. It was a big deal when I got a broadband and they still had 28.8 connections and domain dropping was a treat, I would grab the names and we would split. It was great when a domain had links and they would not fall off for a long time........ahhhh, the days.

      Oh well, sorry to ramble but you took me down memory lane a bit with you NS story....when I bouht my first domain at domainmonger for 17 bucks, I thought it had to be a fake registrar or something....LOL

      Enterpryzman
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  • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
    Originally Posted by premiumplr View Post

    I was cleaning out my basement when I came across my very first domain registration from 1998.
    Yeah, I registered darklock.com in 1997... remember how it sometimes took months to actually get your site online? Completely blows me away that I can go from idea to working website in about eight minutes now.
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    "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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    • Profile picture of the author premiumplr
      Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

      Yeah, I registered darklock.com in 1997... remember how it sometimes took months to actually get your site online? Completely blows me away that I can go from idea to working website in about eight minutes now.
      Oh yeah and you really thought long and hard about a domain name before registering. At $70 bucks a pop there was very little bulk registering. You'd register then they'd send an invoice and then you had to wait and wait. Not to mention you could only have one domain per hosting account. At least at hypermart where I registered at first.

      Now you can register a site and have it up and running during your nighttime bathroom break. Sometimes change is a good thing.
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      • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
        Originally Posted by premiumplr View Post

        Not to mention you could only have one domain per hosting account.
        Well, who in their right mind would own more than one domain?

        Just registered domain #55 a couple hours ago. Had an idea, went to GoDaddy, and a dozen clicks later the .com is mine. I love that.
        Signature
        "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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        • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
          Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

          Well, who in their right mind would own more than one domain?
          I did.

          Still have some of them. A few I lost when I thought I had renewed them and hadn't. Some I managed to get back--of course they no longer reflect the initial registration date--but others I've lost forever.
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    • Profile picture of the author enterpryzman
      Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

      Yeah, I registered darklock.com in 1997... remember how it sometimes took months to actually get your site online? Completely blows me away that I can go from idea to working website in about eight minutes now.


      LOL, I remember going to my designers office and watching him build my first site, a page with 6 or 8 banners on it and then waiting more than a day for it to resolve.....I kept calling him and thinking he did something wrong.

      Enterpryzman
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  • Profile picture of the author Victoria Gates
    I think my oldest domain is 6 years old now.. 13 wow!
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    Victoria Gates - Digital Marketing Specialist

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  • Profile picture of the author JamesGw
    You could always use it for its intended purpose. Might run into TM issues with the old owners of headhunter.com, though.
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  • Profile picture of the author Model2Web
    Either load it up with Google Adsense or sell it on Ebay or GoDaddy or Sedo and move on - it's just collecting dust for you.
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  • Profile picture of the author DavidG
    Dayum. One way is having adsense on it. Obviously you can do better but just a simple idea.


    regZ
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  • Profile picture of the author Andrea Wilson
    You will do better with that 13 year old domain! Wooow. I would love to see what you will come up with your old domain.

    Andrea
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    • Profile picture of the author WritingMadwoman
      LOL! This thread brings back some good memories. I registered my first domain in 1999 through Network Solutions also. Then proceeded to create the website with Microsoft WORD of all things...hahaha

      Shortly afterwards I started learning HTML.

      That original site is still online (several makeovers later, not using Word anymore) and it does quite well for traffic compared to some of my newer sites.

      (And yes, domains are a hell of a lot cheaper now! )

      Wendy
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      • Profile picture of the author King Louie
        This brings back the memories. I was too poor back then to register a domain name. I think it was 1999 and I was still a freshman in college. I wanted to create a website so I registered with Hypermart. I also went to Tripod, Geocities, Angelfire and Xoom. I hated having a subdomain so I ordered a domain name from Network Solutions. Indeed, they sent me a mail all the way to the Philippines. It was too expensive for me so I didn't proceed with my order. I can only smile every time I remember those days. Those days were fun and setting up a website was a lot of work.
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