Domain leasing and lease-to-own: worth it for sellers?
He stopped paying and didn’t notice until his website went down. What lease-to-own on Afternic costs both sides, and the step sellers forget.
Web, domains, tech, and everything in between.
Blogging with regular irregularity since the 2000s.
Domain leasing and lease-to-own: worth it for sellers?
He stopped paying and didn't notice until his website went down. What lease-to-own on Afternic costs both sides, and the step sellers forget.
Nov 11, 2026 · 5 min readLatest articles
Archive ›
Domain name valuation: the framework I actually use
How I value a domain name: extension, length, the likely buyer, comparable sales, demand signals, trademarks, and the holding-cost math appraisal tools skip.
How to find who owns a domain (and reach them when WHOIS is private)
Most WHOIS records hide the owner now. Here’s what a lookup still shows, how each big registrar passes your message on, and what GoDaddy’s form actually sends.
Can you transfer an expired domain? Yes, but don’t renew it first
Yes, you can transfer a domain after it expires. Here’s how, the renewal trap to avoid, and what to do when a registrar won’t hand over the auth code.
If Google can answer it, nobody clicks: what my sites’ data shows
Data from 11 of my sites shows a simple pattern: if Google can answer the question itself, people don’t click. If they need the actual thing, they still do.
The WordPress plugins I install on every site, and the ones I removed
The lean set of WordPress plugins I install on every site: what each one does, what I removed, and what I don’t need a plugin for at all.
How I decide whether to renew a domain or let it drop
Every month, domains come up for renewal. Here are the questions I ask before I pay for another year or let a name go.
The slow death of my blog (and why I’m resuscitating it)
I found a 1.33GB backup of the blog I started in 2003, and it brought back two decades of memories. Here’s how metahead slowly faded out, and why I’m bringing it back.
Canadian online stores that accept PayPal
Here’s a list of all Canadian online retailers that are accepting PayPal payments.
ON ONLINE #4733 charge on your credit card bill?
I saw a credit card charge for $72 from ON ONLINE #433. It looked suspicious so I decided to look into it.