How many domains should you own?

For most projects, one main domain, plus a small number of defensive ones, is plenty. Each extra name adds a yearly bill, a renewal to track and a DNS zone to look after.

The temptation runs the other way. Domains are cheap, registration is instant, and every new idea seems to deserve its own name. A year later the portfolio is thirty names, half of them parked, and nobody remembers which ones matter. The cost is small each year but the clutter is real, and so is the risk of a forgotten renewal on the one that counts.

Good reasons to hold more than one

Good reasons to hold more: your main name on the endings your customers might try, the common misspelling, and a domain you plan to use soon. Those three cover most real cases.

The endings matter if your market guesses. A business that trades mainly in one country benefits from that country's ending alongside .com. The misspelling matters if your name is hard to spell and people already get it wrong, which you can tell from mail that bounces or from search queries. The planned domain matters because losing it to someone else between plan and launch is annoying, though a plan with no date after two years is a hobby.

A fourth reason deserves a mention: a name that someone else could use to impersonate you. If your brand is attractive to scammers, a look-alike held by you is cheaper than the clean-up after they hold it.

Poor reasons

Poor reasons: fifty variants bought in a rush of enthusiasm. The typical list includes every ending the registrar offers, in case someone else wants them, and every possible phrase you could ever rank for. Nobody is waiting to pounce on most of those names, and the ones that attract squatters tend to be famous brands, not small businesses.

Another bad reason is a new domain for every campaign. Campaign pages work well as paths or subdomains on the main name, which keep the trust and links you have already built. A separate domain starts from nothing.

What each extra name costs

The registration fee is the visible part. The rest is attention. Every domain needs a renewal that is paid, contact details that are current, DNS records that are checked, and a redirect or parking page that still works. Any of them can be the one that lapses, gets spoofed or is left with a dangling record.

Use the redirect generator for the permanent redirects, and set the redirect before announcing anything.

Where the extra names should live

Put all of them at one registrar if you can, with auto-renew switched on and one payment method that you check. Split across three registrars, a portfolio of six names becomes three logins, three card details and three sets of reminder emails, and that is how names get forgotten.

For the defensive ones, keep the DNS minimal: the redirect, plus an SPF record saying that no mail is sent from the name. A parked domain with no mail policy is a favourite for spoofing.

example.net.  TXT  "v=spf1 -all"

Keep the list

Keep a list of every domain you own, where it is registered, when it renews and what it points to. A spreadsheet is enough.

domain,registrar,renews,points_to,purpose,owner
example.com,Registrar A,2027-03-14,web host,main,ops
example.net,Registrar A,2027-03-14,redirect,defensive,ops

Review it once a year, ideally when the bills arrive. Delete the ones that do nothing. Keeping all domains at one registrar, with the same renewal month, makes the list shorter and the review a single sitting.

Commands worth running

• List the domains in each registrar account you have ever used, including the one from the old job.
• Run whois on each to confirm the registrant and the expiry date.
• Run dig +short NS and check that each name goes somewhere on purpose.
• Visit each one in a browser and check that the redirect works over HTTPS.