Posted by If you are a tech person and were around when the internet was just getting started, you probably registered a few domain names and created a website or two. I currently have 3 domains and hosting accounts that require maintenance. In the early days, things were far less complicated. Now, for example, cPanel has 12 different versions of PHP to choose from. You can apply a different version to each sub-domain. This is handy if you find that a newer version breaks your code. Periodically, the web server will reset the default version and apply it to your domains without warning. This of course can stop your code from working. When custom code stops working there is usually no explanation of what changed to make things break. Most of the PHP version changes appear to be the result of security issues. It is a never-ending battle to make a website secure. If you create a website with custom code, within a few months something will need to be fixed.
Directories and files you didn’t create can suddenly appear overnight. Traffic to files that shouldn’t have direct access are being opened and viewed. If you are on a shared server, this type of hacking can be difficult to stop because you don’t know if the hack came from your domain or someone else who uses the same server. Some time ago it became difficult to keep up with the level of expertise required to maintain a website. To me, it was when SSL (Secure Socket Layer) protocols became the standard. At first you needed to pay extra for this extra level of security. Now, most web hosts include SSL. When I got my web design certificate, there wasn’t much discussion about security. It was all about learning HTML and JavaScript. I learned PHP on my own and experimented with JavaScript controls, but designing a website for multiple browsers with multiple software versions was taking all of the fun out of web development.
Then you have Google Analytics and AdSense constantly changing the rules about how to track a website and what code was needed to generate ad revenue. My ad revenue steadily dropped from dollars to pennies per month. I heard some content creators were getting good income writing blogs, so I tried that. Analytics showed that 99% of visitors were search bots and none of my blogs are generating income. Why spend the time to design a website that no one will visit? Why keep posting when no one reads what you write? With that said, I have decided to sell poetlady.com and machineshoplist.com to the highest bidder. Two options that I know of for selling a domain are Afternic.com (Godaddy) and Flippa.com. These are websites that allow people to buy and sell domains. Unfortunately, a domain’s worth is determined by the visitor traffic and income it generates per month. The question is, what is the value of a domain that has few visitors and generates no income?