DNAccess

08/04/2026

If you hold a portfolio, you already know what happened to parking. What I haven't seen written down anywhere is what to do about it, option by option, with the numbers attached.

So I've published it. Eighteen strategies for a domain you own — park, RSOC, lander, forward, hold, email-only, marketplace listing, let it drop, and on the active side develop, EMD, lease, lease-to-own, sell, brandable listing, broker, auction, tool site, local lead-gen.

Each profile covers the mechanics, the 2026 costs and returns, the effect on resale value and inbound inquiries, and when it's the wrong call. Every commission figure is checked against the platform's own published rates, not repeated from a blog post.
Three things I'll flag because they cut against what usually gets sold:

The site does not claim that developing a domain makes it sell for more. I looked for the dataset. There isn't one, and several well-regarded investors argue the reverse — that a live site suppresses the inbound inquiries a for-sale page would have attracted. That argument is in there at full strength.

"Let it drop" gets a full profile, same as the rest. For most of a portfolio it's the correct answer.

The carrying cost calculator will tell you things you may not want to know. .com wholesale goes from $10.26 to $10.97 on 1 November 2026, and the ICANN fee is now $0.20.

https://www.developeddomains.com — free, no signup, no email capture.

07/13/2026

A web designer told me today that he has "won UDRP cases" because his clients sign an agreement letting him keep their domain name until they pay him.

I checked. Here's what I found — and why it matters to every business owner who has ever hired someone to build their website.

The setup is common. A business hires a developer. The developer registers the company's domain — the exact-match domain built around the business's own name — and is listed as the registrant. Later, there's a dispute over money. The developer responds by seizing the domain, moving it into an account the business can't reach, and refusing to release it until a demand is paid.

The belief behind this practice is that a signed "pay me or I keep the domain" clause makes it legitimate. It does not.

I searched the published UDRP decisions from WIPO and the Forum, the two providers that decide these cases in the United States. I could not find a single decision in which a developer who held a client's domain hostage over nonpayment actually won on that theory. Not one.

The precedent runs the other way, consistently:

In Alaska Health Fair v. Jacobson, a developer held a client's domain over an unpaid invoice. The panel ordered it returned, ruling that using a client's domain as leverage is bad-faith use — no matter how he first came to control it.

In DSPT International v. Nahum, the Ninth Circuit upheld a roughly $152,000 judgment against a developer who did the same thing, holding that "using a domain name to get leverage in a business dispute" violates the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.

And Kremen v. Cohen established that a domain name is property — which means taking one that isn't yours starts to look a great deal like theft.

The key is separating two questions that hostage-takers love to blur. Whether money is owed is a contract question, resolved with invoices and, if necessary, a courtroom. Who owns the domain is a separate question, answered by the WHOIS record and its history. A real debt never creates a right to seize someone else's domain.

There is also a criminal dimension. Transferring or changing the registrant of a domain without authorization can implicate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, federal wire fraud statutes, and state theft and extortion laws. That is why a police report is a legitimate step, not an empty threat.

I wrote the full breakdown — the specific decisions, the relevant law, a prevention checklist for business owners, and exactly what to do if your domain is being held hostage — on my blog:

A web developer holding your domain name hostage over an unpaid invoice is not a valid defense. UDRP panels and courts order the domain returned — here's why.

07/06/2026

Just updated CombineWords.com (which has been running since 2004).

Added new functionality to the main tool, but added a 3-word list combiner tool and a domain name generator tool as well: https://www.combinewords.com/domain-name-generator.php See less

Send a message to learn more

04/13/2026

A web designer (who also calls himself an SEO) literally stole the domain names of a non-profit that helps veterans and victims of domestic violence.

There's so much wrong with this. Not to mention the fact that it makes web designers and SEOs look bad. We generally don't steal domain names of our clients.

Filing a UDRP (domain name dispute) to get the domain names back is costly.

The non-profit has more of a right to the domain names than the current registrant does, especially because the non-profit was using the names for over 10 years.

Let's show the non-profits everywhere and small biz that what this domain thief and extortionist was not right (he wants $5k to "give the domains back").

Can you spare $5-10 to help pay for the non-profit's legal expenses?

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-make-a-home

If not, that's okay... a Like or a Share would be great :)

The Make a Home Foundation 27-2932637 is a small but powerful n… Meg McCormick needs your support for Help Recover Stolen Domain for Veteran Focused Nonprofit

04/07/2026

A non-profit right here in Middlebury, Make a Home CT, recently had its domain names taken by its own web designer. Stealing an internet domain name is a cyber crime.

Let that sink in.

This isn’t just a technical issue. It’s a loss of identity, credibility, and the ability to serve the community they were built to support.

We’re stepping in to help recover those domain names through the proper legal channels, including a UDRP (Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy) filing. That process isn’t free, and legal costs add up quickly.

We’ve launched a fundraiser to help cover those expenses and give them a fighting chance to get their digital assets back where they belong.

If you’ve ever worked with domain names, you already know: control of the domain is control of the brand. And if you lose your domain name, then your website goes down and you lose all access to email, as well.

Any support—donations, shares, or even just raising awareness—makes a difference.

The Make a Home Foundation 27-2932637 is a small but powerful n… Meg McCormick needs your support for Help Recover Stolen Domain for Veteran Focused Nonprofit

04/07/2026

Domain Industry Giants Quietly Gather in Fort Lauderdale: Conversations Were Worth Millions
https://www.billhartzer.com/domain-names/domain-industry-giants-south-florida-domainers/

Top domain investors gathered in Fort Lauderdale for a high-level meetup focused on deals, AI trends, and the future of domain investing.

04/02/2026

I've been helping a non-profit organization that helps Veterans and victims of domestic violence recover their stolen domain names.

We've literally tried just about everything possible. I've actually spoken to the domain thief several times. He's US-based. But won't give them back.

Now, we're trying to help raise enough funds to cover the legal costs to recover the domains, which includes UDRP domain name dispute filing fees.

Whatever you can donate would be great. If you can't, then even sharing this on social would be a great help!

The Make a Home Foundation 27-2932637 is a small but powerful… Meg McCormick needs your support for Help Recover Stolen Domain Names for a Vet-Focused Nonprofit

02/20/2026

Have a domain name that's a personal site, private, hobby, or family website? Then best if you transfer your domain name away from GoDaddy. At the end of Section 1 of GoDaddy's Terms of Service, it states that its services “are not intended for private, personal or household use.” A prominent domain attorney is advising that you move it from GoDaddy if your domain name is used for a personal site, private, hobby, or family website.

GoDaddy’s New Terms Quietly Reclassify Personal Domain Owners as Businesses

GoDaddy’s updated terms say its services aren’t for personal use, raising concerns about privacy, arbitration, and domain ownership rights.

02/12/2026

Expired domain names don’t get indexed quickly because they have “authority.” They get indexed quickly because Google can rediscover them. In a recent indexing test, the domains that showed up fast shared one trait: real crawl pathways still existed in Google’s link graph.

-- Prioritize unique referring domains over total backlink count.
-- Look for link diversity (many sites, many sources), not link concentration.
-- Favor contextual, topic-relevant links that still appear to be on active pages.
-- Use trust/quality metrics as a filter, not the decision-maker.
-- Ignore nofollow ratios as a primary predictor of indexing speed.
-- Always validate with a live test: publish a page and wait for reality.

More details in my latest post:

Learn what backlink signals help expired domain names get indexed quickly by Google, plus a practical checklist you can use before you buy.

02/03/2026

Is it normal to transfer a domain to a dev?

Absolutely not. Once you transfer the domain name to the dev, that's going to be an issue 99 percent of the time. You'll lose the domain name to the dev, and they'll now, technically. own your domain name and won't give it back to you.

One of our services is a stolen domain name recovery service and I can tell you that's the majority of the calls and emails we get, asking for help recovering the domain for a client. Company transfers domain to dev or web designer. When the site is ready to go live, all of a sudden company owes $5k more (as an example) or they won't give the domain back. That's usually when the company comes to us.

At that point, we step in, contact the dev or web designer, and they refuse to return the domain. So, at that point they've potentially committed a cybercrime and/or extortion and we instruct the company to file a police report. Sometimes that's enough for them to get it back.

You're not going to get any help from any domain name registrar because it's now a civil issue: you transferred the domain to the dev or web designer. You know who stole the domain name. The domain registrar will not have any thing to do with it anymore.

So, your options at that point are to file a UDRP (costs $1500 to do it yourself and $3k-5k with a domain attorney), or you can file a lawsuit against the dev or web designer.

Whatever you do, do NOT transfer a domain name to a dev or web designer. Way too risky, even if you 'trust them' to do the right thing.

Some registrars have a system where you can delegate access to someone to make some changes. But you'd better off using Cloudflare for the DNS and allowing the dev to access Cloudflare (you can share the account with them). Then you will not lose your domain name.

This is the equivalent of you signing over the title of your vehicle to your mechanic because they need to work on your car. They'll then sign over the title back to you when they're finished fixing your car. Uh, no.

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