Every Domain You Own, Listed Once

Why nobody has this list

Domains get registered one at a time, over years, by different people, for reasons that made sense at the time.

The main one, a misspelling bought defensively, a campaign name from 2019, the .ca and the .com, one somebody registered before a rebrand that never happened.

Each was a small decision and none of them produced a record.

The result is a set of renewals leaving your account annually for things nobody can identify.

How to find them all

• Search your email for renewal notices.
• Search card statements for registrar names.
• Log into every registrar you recognise.
• Ask your web designer.
• Ask anybody who has worked on the site.

The second finds the ones the first misses, since a renewal notice sent to an address nobody reads still produces a charge somebody can see. Twelve months of statements catches almost everything, because almost every domain renews annually.

What to record for each

Which is five columns and no more.

The domain itself.

Which registrar it is with.

The expiry date.

Who it is registered to, meaning the name in the registrant field rather than whose card pays.

And what it currently does: the main site, redirects to the main site, points at nothing, or is used for email.

That last column is what lets you decide which to keep, and it is the one nobody knows without checking.

A worked example

A business believed they had two domains.

Searching a year of card statements found charges from three different registrars.

They had seven: the main one, the .ca, two misspellings, one from a campaign four years earlier, one registered before a rebrand that was abandoned, and one nobody could explain at all.

Two were registered in a former employee's name.

They kept four, let two lapse deliberately, and moved the ownership on the two that were wrong.

The whole exercise took about ninety minutes and the annual saving roughly paid for it.

Check what each one actually does

Before deciding anything about it.

Type it into a browser and see what happens.

A domain that loads your site, redirects to it, shows a registrar parking page, or times out entirely are four different situations.

A parking page is worth knowing about, since it is showing advertisements under your business name to anybody who types it.

And a domain used for email addresses cannot be dropped whatever else you conclude, which is the mistake worth avoiding.

Check that specifically before letting anything lapse.

An email address on a dropped domain stops working without any warning at all.

Then decide what to keep

Which the list makes possible.

Keep the main domain, the obvious variant people type, and anything carrying email.

Keep a misspelling only if it is one people genuinely make, which you can tell from your own experience of saying the name aloud.

Let go of campaign domains, abandoned rebrands, and anything nobody can explain, provided nothing points at them.

Before dropping any, check it is not linked from anywhere you care about, since a domain that other sites link to still carries value.

Four or five is a normal number for a small business, and eleven is an accumulation nobody decided on.

Getting there costs a few renewals you simply stop paying, plus one afternoon of work.

Put the list where the business keeps things

On the same terms as everything else.

Not buried in one person's email, and not in a registrar account that only one person can reach.

Alongside the hosting details, the analytics notes, and the accessibility log.

Add every renewal date to a shared calendar while you are in there, which takes about five minutes and prevents much the most common failure.

Then review it annually, when it takes ten minutes rather than ninety.

The second pass is mostly confirming nothing changed, which is the point of having done the first one properly.

Do it before you need it

Which is the argument for doing it at all.

The moments this list matters are all bad ones: a domain lapsing, somebody leaving, a supplier relationship ending, or a sale of the business.

In each case, the work of assembling it is the same and the time available is not.

A business that can produce this list in five minutes handles all four situations calmly.

One that cannot spends a week on it under pressure, at the worst possible moment.

The list is cheap insurance against a situation you cannot schedule.

Note which ones you would fight for

A column worth adding once the rest of the list exists.

Losing your main domain would stop the business, losing a misspelling would cost nothing, and there is usually one in between that carries email or a printed reference.

Marking each as critical, useful, or expendable takes two minutes and tells you where the protective effort belongs.

Only the critical ones need the locking, the ownership check, and the multiple contacts, which keeps the following weeks' work proportionate.

It also means anybody looking at the renewals in future knows which line not to cancel to save money.

The counter-case

Some businesses genuinely have one domain.

A newer business with a single registration has nothing to inventory and can skip this entirely.

The exercise also occasionally finds nothing worth acting on, which is a fine outcome and still worth the record.

And dropping a domain is effectively irreversible once somebody else takes it, so the temptation to tidy aggressively should be resisted.

Where you are unsure, keep it another year and decide with better information.

Search a year of statements, list five columns per domain, check what each one does, and store it with your other records.

The ninety minutes

1. Search email for renewal notices.
2. Search a year of card statements.
3. Log into each registrar.
4. List five columns per domain.
5. Type each one into a browser.
6. Check none carries email before dropping.
7. Add renewal dates to a calendar.

Step two is what finds the forgotten ones, since a renewal notice going to an address nobody reads still produces a charge that appears on a statement somebody looks at.

The campaign domain case is covered in a domain you bought for a campaign.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.