Plugin user guide: Features & Settings

Domain Sales HQ is a WordPress domain portfolio management and sales plugin. It lets domain owners manage their inventory, publish searchable domain listings, create individual domain-for-sale pages, accept offers and bids, track activity, and maintain portfolio information without creating a separate WordPress post for every domain.

1. Getting Started

After installing and activating Domain Sales HQ, look for Domain Sales HQ in the WordPress administration menu.

A typical setup is:

  1. Configure Settings.
  2. Add domains manually or import them from CSV.
  3. Create a WordPress page for your portfolio.
  4. Add shortcode [domain_sales_hq] to that page.
  5. Publish the page.
  6. Test an individual domain sales page.
  7. Configure marketplace links, inquiries, bidding and domain mapping as needed.

Your domains are stored in dedicated Domain Sales HQ database tables rather than being created as hundreds or thousands of WordPress posts.

2. Publishing Your Domain Portfolio

Create a normal WordPress page such as:

Domains For Sale

Add a WordPress Shortcode block containing:

[domain_sales_hq]

Publish the page.

Domain Sales HQ will automatically generate the portfolio listing from domains in its database that are eligible for public display.

This means you do not need to manually create a WordPress page for every domain.

Individual Domain Pages

Domain Sales HQ also generates individual sales pages dynamically.

For example:

example.com/domain/greatdomain.com/

The individual page can display information such as the domain name, tagline, description, asking price, offer controls and marketplace links.

3. Managing Domains

The Domains section is the main portfolio-management area.

Each domain can contain information such as:

Sales information: domain name, category, tagline, description, BIN price, sale price, minimum offer, sale method, public/private status, featured status and availability status.

Portfolio information: registrar, purchase price, purchase date, expiration date, renewal cost, auto-renew status, acquisition source and private notes.

Marketing information: image URL, lander template, external marketplace links, SEO title and SEO description.

Private administrative information is intended for portfolio management and is not automatically displayed to buyers.

4. Sale Methods

Domain Sales HQ supports several ways of offering a domain.

Buy Now

The domain is offered at a specified purchase price.

Make Offer

Visitors are invited to submit an offer rather than being shown only a fixed purchase option.

Buy Now or Make Offer

This is a useful default for many portfolios.

A buyer can see the asking price but still submit an alternative offer.

Auction

The domain can use bidding-related settings such as minimum bid, bid increment, reserve price and bid deadline.

Inquiry Only

Useful for premium domains where you don’t want to publish a price or explicitly solicit a numerical offer.

5. Pricing Fields

Domain Sales HQ distinguishes between several kinds of prices.

BIN Price is the normal Buy It Now asking price.

Sale Price can be used when temporarily offering the domain below its regular price.

Minimum Offer establishes the lowest offer you want the system to accept where applicable.

Auction domains can additionally use Minimum Bid, Bid Increment, Reserve Price, and Bid Deadline.

Avoid putting dollar signs or formatted text into numeric CSV price fields unless the importer specifically supports it. A value such as 2500 is preferable to $2,500.

6. CSV Import

For a large portfolio, CSV import is usually the fastest way to get started.

Domain Sales HQ includes a sample CSV that demonstrates the expected columns.

The importer supports three important workflows.

Add

Use this when importing new domains.

Existing matching domains should not be treated as new records.

Update

Use this when your CSV contains domains already in Domain Sales HQ and you want to update their information.

Synchronize

This is intended for maintaining Domain Sales HQ from a master portfolio file.

Because synchronization can make broader changes than a simple import, review the import preview carefully before proceeding.

Import Preview

Domain Sales HQ provides a preview so you can inspect what the importer intends to do before committing the changes.

This is especially important when importing hundreds or thousands of domains.

7. Import History and Undo

Domain Sales HQ records import information so an import can be reviewed and, where supported, undone.

This provides an important safety layer when making large portfolio changes.

Even with undo support, maintaining an external backup/export before major synchronization operations is recommended.

8. Exporting Your Portfolio

Domain Sales HQ can export domain information to CSV.

Exports are useful for:

  • backups
  • spreadsheet editing
  • bulk price changes
  • registrar reconciliation
  • moving data between installations
  • making large edits and reimporting them

For substantial portfolio changes, a useful workflow is:

Export → edit CSV → preview import → update/synchronize.

9. Bulk Editing

You do not have to edit domains individually.

The Domains screen provides bulk-management capabilities for common operations such as changing visibility, featured status, offer settings, status, category and pricing.

Pricing can also be adjusted across groups of domains using fixed or percentage changes where available.

This is particularly useful for large portfolios.

For example, you could filter a category and increase asking prices across that group rather than editing every domain separately.

10. Inline Editing

Common fields can be edited directly from the domain-management interface without opening the complete domain editor.

Use inline editing for quick changes such as price, status or category.

Use the full editor when changing descriptions, SEO information, acquisition details, marketplace links or other detailed settings.

11. Categories and Filters

Categories help organize large portfolios.

Examples might include:

Brandable, Technology, Finance, Automotive, Food & Beverage, Home Services, Domains, Media, Travel

The public portfolio also provides filtering/search functionality so buyers can narrow the inventory rather than scrolling through every domain.

Domain Sales HQ can additionally work with characteristics such as extension and domain length.

12. Featured Domains

Mark especially desirable domains as Featured.

Featured status can be used to distinguish selected inventory from the remainder of the portfolio.

Good candidates include premium domains, domains currently being promoted, new acquisitions or domains receiving special pricing.

13. External Marketplace Links

A domain can contain external sales links.

For example, you might link buyers to a marketplace or registrar where the transaction can be completed.

Each link consists of a destination and accompanying link text.

Domain Sales HQ can also track marketplace-link interactions so you can better understand buyer activity.

14. Inquiries and Offers

Visitors can contact the seller from individual domain pages where inquiries/offers are enabled.

Domain Sales HQ stores inquiry information in its own database and can send email notifications through WordPress.

Buyer confirmation messages can also be used.

The Inquiries administration area provides a centralized place to review incoming leads and their status.

Do not rely exclusively on email notifications. Periodically check the WordPress inquiry dashboard as well, particularly while testing mail delivery on a new server.

15. Auctions and Bidding

Domains using the Auction sale method can use bidding information including:

Minimum Bid — starting acceptable bid.

Bid Increment — minimum amount required above the previous bid.

Reserve Price — price that must be reached before the seller considers the auction successful.

Bid Deadline — ending date/time for bidding.

Bids are stored separately from ordinary inquiries so auction activity can be managed independently.

16. Analytics

Domain Sales HQ includes portfolio analytics for measuring activity around domain listings.

Rather than creating a huge raw database record for every page view, the system uses an efficient aggregated statistics design where appropriate.

Analytics can help identify domains receiving attention even when they haven’t yet generated an inquiry.

This can be useful when deciding which domains to feature, reprice, renew or promote elsewhere.

17. Favorites and Voting

Optional visitor-interaction features can allow users to favorite or vote on domains.

These features can be useful for portfolio discovery, market research and engagement.

If you don’t want this functionality on a conventional domain-sales site, it can remain disabled.

18. Lander Designs

Domain Sales HQ supports different presentation styles for individual domain sales pages.

A domain can use the site’s default design or an individual template selection.

This makes it possible, for example, to present a premium corporate domain differently from a playful brandable domain.

Appearance settings should normally be configured globally first, with individual overrides used only when necessary.

19. Theme vs. Standalone Landers

A domain lander can operate within the normal WordPress theme or use a more independent sales-page presentation.

Theme mode is useful when the domain listing is part of an established website.

Standalone mode is particularly useful when individual domains are mapped directly to their sales pages.

The standalone approach keeps unrelated WordPress navigation and site content from distracting a prospective buyer.

20. Domain Mapping

One of Domain Sales HQ’s more powerful features is domain mapping.

Instead of requiring visitors to access:

portfolio-site.com/domain/greatdomain.com/

you can configure an owned domain so that someone visiting:

greatdomain.com

sees its Domain Sales HQ lander while greatdomain.com remains in the browser address bar.

This requires more than simply changing a plugin setting. The domain’s DNS and your web hosting must also be configured so the hostname reaches the WordPress installation running Domain Sales HQ.

Test mapping with one non-critical domain before configuring a large portfolio.

21. SEO

Individual domains can contain an SEO Title and SEO Description.

For example:

SEO Title

GreatDomain.com - Domain For Sale

SEO Description

GreatDomain.com is a memorable premium domain available for acquisition.

Domain Sales HQ also provides a domain portfolio sitemap so publicly available domain pages can be discovered by search engines.

22. Saved Views

Large portfolio owners frequently use the same filters repeatedly.

Saved views can make it easier to return to useful subsets of the portfolio rather than recreating the filters each time.

Examples could include:

Expiring Soon

Featured Domains

Premium Domains

Make Offer Domains

Domains Under $5,000

.com Domains

23. Settings Backup and Restore

Domain Sales HQ settings can be exported to JSON and restored later.

This is useful when:

  • moving to another WordPress installation
  • testing different configurations
  • maintaining multiple portfolio sites
  • backing up configuration before substantial changes

This settings file is separate from the actual domain portfolio CSV.

Think of them as:

CSV = portfolio data

JSON settings export = Domain Sales HQ configuration

24. Email Delivery

Domain Sales HQ uses WordPress mail functionality for notifications.

Whether messages actually reach an inbox depends on the WordPress installation and hosting mail configuration.

For a production sales site, reliable SMTP or transactional email delivery is preferable to assuming the server’s default PHP mail configuration will always deliver inquiries successfully.

Always submit a test inquiry after configuring a new site.

25. Recommended Initial Setup

For a new Domain Sales HQ installation, a good sequence is:

  1. Install and activate Domain Sales HQ.
  2. Review Settings.
  3. Import a small test portfolio.
  4. Create a Domains For Sale WordPress page.
  5. Add [domain_sales_hq]
  6. Publish and inspect the portfolio.
  7. Open several individual domain landers.
  8. Submit a test inquiry.
  9. Verify both the admin inquiry and email notification.
  10. Test filters and sorting.
  11. Test inline and bulk edits.
  12. Export the portfolio and verify the resulting CSV.
  13. Test domain mapping with one domain.
  14. Only then import or configure a very large production portfolio.

26. Removing Domain Sales HQ

There is an important difference between deactivating and deleting the plugin.

Deactivation preserves your Domain Sales HQ data.

This allows you to temporarily disable the plugin without destroying your portfolio.

A full plugin deletion can remove Domain Sales HQ’s dedicated tables and settings when the applicable uninstall option is enabled.

Because deletion can therefore be permanent, export or back up important portfolio information before intentionally removing the plugin.

Quick Reference

Publish portfolio: [domain_sales_hq]

Add one domain: Domain Sales HQ → Add Domain

Manage portfolio: Domain Sales HQ → Domains

Bulk portfolio: Domains → select domains → Bulk Actions

Import/export: Domain Sales HQ → Import / Export

Buyer leads: Domain Sales HQ → Inquiries

Performance: Domain Sales HQ → Analytics

Configuration: Domain Sales HQ → Settings

Individual landers: Generated dynamically—no individual WordPress posts required.