Indie hacker workflow

Practical domain workflows: registering, transferring, connecting email and hosting, recovering expired names, and handling disputes.

• The naming brief: what to fill in before you generate names

  A naming brief pins down audience, tone, exclusions, decision-makers, and clearance before any names exist — so your shortlist survives client contact.

• Buying a domain on a payment plan: what you're actually agreeing to

  You can spread the cost — but you don't own the domain until the last payment, longer terms carry a published fee, and default forfeits everything paid.

• Custom domain or platform subdomain? When the free address stops being enough

  Should you buy a custom domain or stay on your platform's free subdomain? An honest guide to redirects, email, cost — and when free is the right call.

• How to check domain availability inside ChatGPT and Claude

  MCP connectors from GoDaddy, Squarespace, Instant Domain Search and others let ChatGPT and Claude run live availability checks. How to enable them.

• How much should you pay for a domain?

  The median aftermarket domain sold for $818 in 2026 — not headline millions. What normal buyers pay, tier by tier, and when the median doesn't apply.

• Rebrand without losing your SEO: the domain-migration playbook

  Yes — 1:1 301 redirects, the Change of Address tool, and redirects kept a year or more. The exact migration order, straight from Google's own docs.

• Selling, parking, or dropping domains you no longer need

  Parking is effectively dead, expiry auctions pay you nothing, and dropping is free. How to pick the right exit for a domain you no longer need.

• You bought a business — now take over its domain, email, and handles

  Share vs asset deals, the 60-day registrant lock, email tenants that can't change owners, and which social handles can actually move with the business.

• Who should own the domain — you or your web agency?

  The business should be the registrant and hold the registrar account; the agency gets delegated access. How to check, fix, and write it into the contract.

• Check a domain's history before you buy it (Wayback, blacklists, spam backlinks)

  Run five free checks — Wayback Machine, blacklists, spam backlinks, WHOIS, trademarks — before buying a used domain, so you don't inherit its past.

• Do you actually need to register a trademark? EUIPO vs USPTO filing for founders

  No — use alone creates limited rights. What USPTO and EUIPO filings cost, how fast each moves, and why EU founders can DIY an EUTM but not a US mark.

• How to stop your domain from being stolen: registrar lock, 2FA, DNSSEC & auth codes

  Domains get stolen via hacked registrar accounts, leaked auth codes, and lapsed renewals. The fixes — 2FA, transfer locks, DNSSEC — take minutes.

• You got a trademark cease-and-desist over your domain: triage before you panic

  A cease-and-desist is a demand, not a court order. How to triage the claim — registration, territory, class, confusion — before you cave or ignore it.

• Your domain expired — can you still get it back? A stage-by-stage recovery guide

  Usually yes — if you move fast. What each expiry stage costs, from grace-period renewal to redemption fees to the drop, and when a name is truly gone.

• Someone registered your business name as a domain: your options (and what UDRP actually costs)

  Buy it, file a UDRP, sue under the ACPA, or use a country registry's own process? What each route costs, what it can win you, and when buying is smarter.

• How to connect your domain to your website (any host)

  Point your domain at any host two ways — switch nameservers or add DNS records. Walkthroughs for Vercel, Netlify, and Shopify, plus free HTTPS.

• Your domain says 'suspended': what clientHold means and how to fix it

  Your site and email went dark and WHOIS shows clientHold? What the status means, the most common causes from benign to serious, and how to fix it fast.

• The pre-registration domain checklist: what to verify before you buy

  The last-five-minutes checklist before you register a domain — trademark, brandability, TLD, renewal price, registrar, and first-hour setup.

• How to set up email on your domain

  Point MX records at a provider, then choose: free forwarding into your current inbox, or a real hosted mailbox. Costs, records, and trade-offs.

• How to transfer a domain to another registrar

  Unlock the domain, get the auth code, start the transfer, approve — about five days. Plus costs, the 60-day locks, and when a registrar can refuse.

• How to buy a domain that's already taken

  A practical playbook for buying a taken domain: find the owner, use broker and escrow services, negotiate well — and know when to walk away.

• Should you register multiple domains for one brand?

  Which extra domain registrations actually protect your brand, and which are checkout upsells. A simple decision framework for defensive domains.

• Subdomain or new domain? Where your next project should live

  Subdomain of your existing brand, or a fresh registration? A clear decision guide for where your next project should actually live.

• Why isn't my domain working yet? DNS propagation, explained

  Your new domain or DNS change isn't loading yet? That's normal. Here's why propagation and caching cause the delay, plus a calm checklist to fix it.

• The best registrars for indie hackers

  There is no one best registrar. A trade-off guide for indie hackers: honest pricing, free WHOIS privacy, DNS flexibility, and EU data locality.

• Do EU customers care where your startup is hosted?

  An honest look at when EU customers care about hosting location — GDPR, regulated sectors, B2B procurement — and when they genuinely don't.

• Domain strategy for serial builders

  How serial builders keep a growing domain collection under control: inventory everything, consolidate registrars, auto-renew the live, lapse the dead.

• What to do in the first hour after registering a domain

  A practical first-hour checklist for a new domain: 2FA, auto-renew, transfer locks, WHOIS privacy, anti-spoofing DNS, and what happens if it expires.

• GDPR, WHOIS privacy, and your domain: what EU founders should know

  How GDPR redacted WHOIS data, why NIS-2 is putting company data back in public, and whether paid WHOIS privacy is still worth buying in 2026.

• Naming for validation: a landing page before the product

  You don't need the perfect name to validate. A good-enough available domain plus a landing page tests demand this week — upgrade later, with evidence.

• The 1-hour naming sprint

  A time-boxed 60-minute protocol that takes you from blank page to two or three available, say-able names — volume plus hard filters, then a decision.