Ask HN: Do you wish you could rent URLs? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you wish you could rent URLs?

4 pointsJamieHarris9 comments

I'm testing a number of startup ideas, and for each one, I need to either:

1. Buy a new domain 2. Use one I currently own.

Both options suck. I don't want to buy 50-100 domains, nor do I want to cycle through the same few that I own.

What I want is to pay like $10 a month to rent domains. I don't care if they have been used before, as I'm just testing out ideas. If I find an idea sticks, I should be able to either buy the one that I'm renting, or just redirect traffic to a URL that I subsequently purchase.

Does anyone else have this problem too? Do you wish you could rent URLs?

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No I have no wish whatsoever to 'rent' urls. Anything that makes urls more impermanent than they already are is, in my opinion, a very bad thing.

This is actually a GREAT idea. I'd LOVE to rent domains because any traffic from the old visitors gives me free advertising. When my business is done I'll pass it off to the next person and they'll get the left over visitors from my old site.

To people saying they don't want to RENT urls. Think about it. How many of us have 60+ domains registered thinking "Oh I'm going to turn this into the next facebook one day". Like that'll ever happen. Our startups and projects last only 1-3 years anyway. Most startups fail anyway. After that we hold on to the domain for 7+ years thinking we'll hit the jackpot if some VC funded startup picks up our domain. What a load of BS. They won't. Why would they spend thousands or millions on a domain name when you can just give their startup some weird African name like Zazzuu, tikitituka, bamzoo, wasuzu, etc...

The perfect solution is to rent with the option of buying at the end. Very nice idea. I like it.

I've heard of startups leasing domains with the option to buy. Then, when enough funding roles in, they pay for it in full.

Mint.com did something similar. They gave equity for the domain which was owned by some hedge fund. More info in this article on that story and the whole subject:

http://foundersblock.com/articles/the-founders-guide-to-buyi...

Here's what I would do. Get a [myfancyname]labs.com ... any new startup ideas goes under [myfancyname]labs.com/idea1, [myfancyname]labs.com/idea2, etc...

This is much more cost effective, when the idea take off, I will consider getting a proper domain with all its extensions.

Or if you know a few domainers, you could consider renting it from them for a x period of time. But it's not going to be cheap.

Sorry, but I don't get this.

I don't see the case where you need a domain (especially what appears to be a semi-poor/random name) to test a startup idea.

With a wholesale account you can register a domain for less than $8/year. What would the market be for renting them? Also, how would you deal with domains that might have been essentially blacklisted by Google for crappy SEO practices?

Why exactly must each idea have a domain name? How about prioritizing your ideas some more to cut down on them? You can't possible have 50 equally good ideas.

Also, you can get .INFO domains for $1.99 so even if you have 50-100 domains that's fairly affordable. Can't imagine you would be able to rent a domain cheaper than that.

A lot of domain owners would happily lease you domains, but at the $10 range, you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel. What's your opposition to buying 50-100 domains versus renting? You'd save a fortune just buying them yourself.

You can rent domains for around $8/year from any domain registrar.

Buy one domain, then use one subdomain for each idea.

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