How to Snatch an Expiring Domain
I recently found myself in the position of wanting to register a domain which was owned by someone else. The domain was set to expire in a week, and I figured there was a decent chance that the person who owned it wouldn’t be renewing it. Upon consulting the WhoIs registry on the current owner, I discovered the guy was a bit of a domain shark and didn’t seem to be around anymore.
So I placed a backorder through GoDaddy for $18.95 thinking that was all I needed to do. During the week that followed, I learned a lot about the domain expiration process. Two and a half months and $369 later, I am the proud owner of a shiny new domain. A really really good one.
This article will explain the domain expiration process and what you need to do in order to use it to your advantage.
How a domain expires
Contrary to popular belief, domains do not expire when they say they do. If the owner of a domain does not renew by the expiration date of the domain, the domain goes into “expired” status. For 40 days, the domain is in a grace period where all services are shut off, but the domain owner may still renew the domain for a standard renewal fee. If a domain enters this period, it is a good first indicator that it may not be renewed, but since the owner can re-register without penalty, it can also just be a sign of laziness or procrastination.
After 40 days are up, the domain’s status changes to “redemption period”. During this phase, all WhoIs information begins disappearing, and more importantly, it now costs the owner an additional fee to re-activate and re-register the domain. The fee is currently around $100, depending on your registrar. When a domain enters its redemption period, it’s a good bet the owner has decided not to renew.
Finally, after the redemption period, the domain’s status will change to “locked” as it enters the deletion phase. The deletion phase is 5 days long, and on the last day between 11am and 2pm Pacific time, the name will officially drop from the ICANN database and will be available for registration by anybody.
The entire process ends exactly 75 days after the listed expiration date. For an even more detailed explanation, read the article Inside a Drop Catcher’s War Room.
Landing your domain
So if domains are available to the general public 75 days after they expire, how do you know your GoDaddy backorder isn’t one of many other backorders from other people using other services? The answer is, you don’t.
And thus begins the cloak-and-dagger game of “getting in on The Drop”.
“The Drop” is the unpredictable three hour period of time in which the domain is deleted from VeriSign’s database and released back into the ecosystem.
I briefly thought about trying to beat GoDaddy to the punch by manually registering my domain during the drop process, but I quickly found out that there are no fewer than three major services which specialize in pounding away on VeriSign’s servers during the drop period. With their considerable resources and my measly Powerbook, there was no way I could compete on their level.
So I decided to enlist the services of all three major domain snatching firms in hopes that a) one would grab my domain for me, and b) no one else would be competing against me.
The three services — Snapnames.com, Enom.com, and Pool.com — all operate in a similar manner. They use a network of registrars to hit the Verisign servers at frequent intervals (but not too frequent to get banned) and snatch as many requested names as possible. If you don’t get your name, you don’t pay. But that’s where the three services begin to differ.
Snapnames.com
Snapnames.com (the exclusive partner of Network Solutions) charges you $60 for your domain unless there are multiple suitors, at which point there is an open bid auction between suitors. Seems fair enough. Snapnames is a bit of a newcomer to the game, but with their Network Solutions affiliation, they are said to be improving their success rates.
Enom.com
Not wanting to chance it with only one company, I also enlisted Enom to snatch my domain for me. Enom had reportedly been improving their “Club Drop” service for a year or two and it was now considered one of the top three. Their fee was only $30 and they are based in my ‘hood (Seattle), so I was hoping they would be the company to successfully “work The Drop” for me.
Here’s where it starts to get sketchy though.
Enom claims that the higher your bid is (beyond the $30), the more “resources” they will dedicate to grabbing the domain. What the hell? How am I supposed to judge that? Does that mean you’re using one server now and will use 30 servers if I bid $40? Or does it mean that you’re using 30 now and will use 35 if I bid $1000?
Not knowing exactly what to do, I attempted to bid a couple of hundred dollars during the last day, but Enom required me to send them a fax to become a “verified bidder”. Since I was at home that day and only dinosaurs still have fax machines, I was unable to increase my bid. Oh well, I thought, if someone else on Enom bids higher, at least I’ll be able to participate in the auction.
Pool.com
Pool.com is the Scott Boras of domain name grabbing — the brilliant, yet conniving agent that players (domains) love and team owners (prospective domain buyers) hate. Pool plays off the power of the unknown in such a fiendishly clever way that you don’t know whether to hug them or kill them. Here’s how it works:
Pool is the #1 company around as far as number of servers and success rates go. You place your original bid for $60 and if Pool.com grabs your name for you, they send you an e-mail telling you they’ve been successful and that you’ve now entered “Phase 1″ of the two-phase auction system. This is the case whether or not you are the only bidder! Pool.com doesn’t even reveal how many bidders there are.
Then, in a Boras-like move of diabolical genius, Pool.com informs you that you have three days to place a new sealed bid. If the bid is either one of the top two bids or within 30% of the top bid, you move on to a one-day open bid auction (the “challenger” auction) for final control of the domain.
Grrrrreat.
So if I bid $100 and two people bid $140, I don’t even get to move on to the final auction! It’s all designed to get me to up my sealed bid… whether or not there are even any other bidders.
Note: One other thing I forgot to mention is that before the name dropped, I grabbed all .net, .org, and .info variants (all were available) in order to have more leverage over other buyers.
The chase is on
Right on time, 75 days after the domain expired, I got an e-mail from Pool.com telling me they’d secured my domain for me. Great. Of the four sources I used, Pool.com was the one I least wanted to deal with. But true to their claims, they ended up being the best agent of The Drop and had just gotten me one step closer to my domain. They had A-Rod and I was the Texas Rangers.
Unlike the Texas Rangers, however, I realized I could be bidding against myself and entered a sealed bid of $302. I chose that number because it seemed sufficiently high but not so high that I’d feel foolish if I was the only bidder. I added the extra two dollars on the end just to edge out any other people potentially deciding on $300 as their number.
The next three days were particularly stressful. I had no idea where I stood, and throughout this entire process, I’d always had the sneaking suspicion that the people at these companies are on the lookout themselves for valuable domains. In other words, if someone all of a sudden bids $1000 on a domain, will a domain company decide to snatch it up themselves or “shill bid” against you on it?
Finally the e-mail from Pool arrived and informed me that I had moved onto the Challenger Auction. There was one other bidder and they had upped their bid to $312 in order to beat me. Not too bad, but I had no idea how high that person was willing to go. I had to decide on a top bid (a la eBay’s proxy bidding) and a strategy for when to place it.
True to form, Pool.com’s auction system squeezes even more money out of you by making sure the auction doesn’t end if there’s a bid in the last five minutes. In that case, the auction time keeps extending by five minutes until there are no more bids.
I could try one of two things: Bid high and bid early in an attempt to scare off the other guy, or lull the other guy to sleep by doing nothing until the last 6 minutes. I chose the second method since the ending time was 8am on a Saturday… a time when many people are not in front of computers. I set four alarms for 7:45am Saturday morning, woke up on time, and placed my bid for $500 when the countdown clock hit 6 minutes.
The system immediately auto-upped the current bid to $369 and I was the leader. Six nervous minutes, fifty browser refreshes, and a thousand heartbeats later, my opponent was nowhere to be found and the domain was mine… ready for immediate transfer to Dreamhost, my hosting company of choice.
I’m still not quite sure whether the person on the other end was real (although I assume they were), but the bottom line is that by playing every possible angle, I now have an extremely valuable domain in my possession for the reasonable sum of $369. Not valuable because I want to sell it or anything; just valuable because I want it.
Thank you Pool.com. I love/hate you.
Lessons from The Drop
Hopefully this article helps you in your own quest for a domain that may be expiring. My best advice is that if your interest in a domain name is only lukewarm, go ahead and use a basic service like GoDaddy, but if you really don’t want to let one get away, you must enlist the services of the big three: Snapnames, Enom, and Pool. It’s anybody’s guess what the final price will be, but by getting all the best agents out there working for you, you ensure at least being in the game.
- Snapnames has an exclusive partnership with Network Solutions which allows them first shot at any and all expiring domains that are currently held by Network Solutions. The domain I got was not held by Network Solutions but a great many are. If yours is, Snapnames is your best bet. You’ll still have to bid against any others who may be after the same domain, but the auction process at Snapnames is pretty fair and straightforward. If you are the only bidder, it will cost you a flat fee of $60. Not bad.
- Snapnames is actually not technically a newcomer to the game, but their exclusive deal with Network Solutions is fairly new and it is that which has made them a powerhouse.
- According to Chris at Enom, some less than savory registrars have been known to actually cut the initial 40 day grace period down manually with the intent of repossessing the domain for resale. While this is technically against ICANN guidelines, ICANN has a hard time enforcing its rules on registrars, so just beware when watching for a domain that it may enter the redemption period quicker than you expect. It’s rare, but it can happen, especially with a non-established registrar. This could shrink the 75-day window down to potentially 35 days, and it could also screw you out of your own domain should it expire on you.
- Chris also confirmed my suspicion that manually trying to snag a domain during the drop is all but impossible if any professional drop catchers are going after it. Enom, Pool, and others have many orders of magnitude times the amount of resources that private citizens have so it’s not even worth trying unless you’re going after an uncontested domain.
- There is a very sticky issue going on right now with regards to how names drop. Verisign proposed a Waiting List Service a little while ago that basically let you sign up on a waiting list for all expiring domains. It was a flat-rate, first-come-first-serve service where the fees were reasonable but Verisign controlled the whole thing. This would based eliminate The Drop entirely. Companies filed lawsuits and the thing never happened. So basically, registrars got proactive and amended their agreements so that when your domain expires, they can repossess it themselves or sell it as their own. This is what allows Network Solutions, GoDaddy, Tucows, and others to repossess their own domains and use their own services (like Snapnames) to auction them off. An argument can be made that by eliminating the ICANN-mandated redemption grace period, these companies are in violation of their ICANN agreements, but thus far ICANN has been reluctant to take action. It appears ICANN is generally very slow at taking action with anything, so it looks like this sort of practice may become a de-facto standard. The moral of the story is that you should always look to see what registrar the domain you’re after is under and see if they offer exclusive backorder rights to it. Network Solutions does, GoDaddy does, Tucows is starting to, and others may follow suit.
Interesting story…
And I guess I’ll ask the question everyone will want to know at this point - what’s the domain name (although I’m assuming if you wanted to share you would have)?
(Editor’s Note: Unfortunately yes. It must remain a mystery for now :)…)
Thanks for that article, Mike! Ironically, I was just wondering this weekend what it would take to snatch up a domain that expires, as I am impatiently waiting through the next two months to see if one that I’ve had my eye on for several years will be renewed…
Fascinating. My next move would be to consult my friend who is a class action attorney. If in fact there was any shill bidding, you might have a decent case. If they did it to you, they did it to others, and they would deserve a bit of a poke for it. They probably have a subsidiary that bids on all open names. The ethics of this would be a fun study.
(Editor’s Note: Yeah, I’d say it was more of just a general feeling of being taken than any foul play, but who knows. On the one hand, I have a crazy amount of respect for a bidding scheme which produces such results, but on the other hand, you just kind of feel a bit powerless and in the dark the whole time.)
Great story! I’ve been wondering a lot about this proccess for some time now. Great to hear from someone thats done it!
Fascinating story. I’ve never actually looked into the process before. Whenever I try to get a domain, I don’t even bother with trying to grab a domain currently in use, so I end up finding an alternative. I lack the patience and monetary support to go after high value domains, unfortunately.
And what a secret your new domain is. The anticipation is killing me!
I too wanted to boost an expired dinosaur domain and asked the manager of my server to see if he could get it for me. His response was: “What typically happens these days is the registrars have relationships with auction houses and transfer the domains to them… It’s pretty rare when they just get dropped for anyone to register them now.”
True to what he said, at the last minute the domain was re-registered.
Great story, and I’m really looking forward to learning what domain name is worth $369. ;-)
I’m curious as well. I hope that when you’re ready you’ll post an entry with a link to the site, and back to this entry so we can remember how you got there. Congratulations.
Heh - been thru this myself, great fun, especially after setting up the site and finding out that Google had the domain penalized from the previous owner…
One year (and many reinclusion requests) later and it’s getting traffic. Yay.
There are some tricks to avoiding this whole process too, but they don’t get around the google trap…
The domain name that Mike secured is irrevelant.
This article is well-written and very informative. I also like the baseball analogies - Scott Boras, Alex Rodriguez, and the Texas Rangers. PERFECT visuals. It really helps picture your story better.
I missed it the first time around:
“This article is well-written and very informative. I also like the baseball analogies - Scott Boras, Alex Rodriguez, and the Texas Rangers. PERFECT visuals. It really helps picture your story better.” said Mike P.
He’s right, Mike Industries made a mistake, he forgot to use steroids to get an advantage. Remember Mike, you are just an entertainer.
See:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/10900527.htm
and
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page3/story?page=lateword/050228
for example.
Actually, Matthom said that, and I have to agree with him, it’s a great read.
Excellent piece of first-hand how-to. But man, this whole process seems shady as hades.
And, yes, my curiosity is up wanting to know what this domain is! I demand a sequel!
Both educational and a thrilling read. Thanks!
i must say i do hate those “cliff-hanger” endings.
but definitely a good read.
Great article! I linked it in our forum at HostPC.com.
Interesting article. Now I understand how those bastards at Pool.com stole my domain after my hosting service when under. What I don’t understand is what is at the new domain. It looks like a page of spam. Check it out at http://www.frolicofmyown.com. I guess it’s better than my old blog being replaced with porn, although that might happen yet.
Enom’s involvement here doesn’t surprise me, they’re know for housing all kinds of shady operators.
Great article. Thanks for shining a flashlight into the dark musty corners of the internet.
Another great service if you intent to acquire a domain name which is already registered and not going to be expire in the near future is a domain name brokerage service from a company called sedo.com.
After paying 49$ for a quite profound domain valuation that gives you the idea of the domain’s fair market value, they try to acquire the domain from the current owner on your behalf.
Works great, I already had success with it…
I’m glad you got your domain Mike. I’ve had two less successful experiences with domain registering.
One was where I was using a simple word and couldn’t get that as the domain. Initially it was owned by some random company in England, and instead of dealing with them I just got something else and forgot about it. A couple years later I checked it out again, then it was owned by a smallish ISP/hosting company. Fast forward again and that company was bought out by a much larger company. And now they just use it to redirect to their main site. Even though they have 0 affiliation with the domain name anymore. I tried contacting them, but their IT dept. said they had 0 interest in selling it.
The other one was where I ended up with a .net instead of .com. The .com is owned by a spammer as far as I can tell. Just directs you to some shifty search page. I saw it wasn’t getting renewed but naturally it got snapped up just before it was put into the first “expired” status.
I pretty much despise the current system where automated bots can register domains for spammers and stuff. Maybe we should all start to ignore .com for a while. ;)
Excellent story, I just wonder if the domain was genuinely one that these firms would have been watching for, or were they only alerted to it by your registering to grab it - in other words, if you had been brave/reckless enough, could you have waited the extra few hours and gone through a ‘normal’ domain registration service? Or if you had ONLY used GoDaddy, might the others not have bid?
Like you say, it has value because you wanted it, so as long as you’re happy that is all that matters, but if you were determined to just pay the minimum might you have got away with it? Of course if it was a single term high value name, they’d maybe have snatched it away anyway… and no way to find out.
Interesting case study for brand and risk management as it applies to domains!
I had a good experience acquiring a domain name through a Snapnames auction. It’s very similar to eBay, where you see the bidders “names” and have a sense of how/when they are bidding. I located the domain I bought by browsing through Snapnames’ l o n g list of soon-to-expire domains and putting a few on backorder. The whole process took less than a month.
I’ve been enjoying the comments you leave on other sites for some time now. Through natural course of action, I found myself perusing your site, and eventually checking back from time to time.
I’m glad I did.
Your writing is great. It is this type of quality posting that raises the bar for everyone else. Consider me a fan!
Good story, but it does really make me want to know what the URL is that you bid for.
The whole bidding process seems really shady. Who knows if pool.com just took you for a ride. Ohwell.
After you get your new site up, be sure to send an email to webmaster@google.com with the subject “reinclusion request”
Otherwise, if the domain has inbound links from its previous incarnation, you are going to find that it will not get indexed by Google - part of their fight against SEOs who used expired domains with pre-existing pagerank and links to fill the results thousands of affiliate sites.
Great Story!!
I don’t know how good a domain worth $369 is.
but on one guess … you could be off with godaddy
if you hadnot used the services of big3 …
many domain names expire everyday they wouldn’t know
which to snap up
….. but then..we wouldn’t know who’s the best among them then……thanks great story
I realize that a great domain name can be a helpful marketing tool. Just as catchy phone numbers can help out John Q. Customer, such as 1-888-Best-Buy, domain names have the same power. Yet, I also believe that in coming years having a domain name that matches the company or site name will be a luxury. I tend to place less emphasis on the perfect domain name; as long as the name is easy to remember and it relates to the site itself, I say you have a winner.
Nice info - thanks. I’ve been waiting for years to register a domain that I barely missed registering (my name). It was snatched up by someone in Korea and then fell off the map. It’s never been active (at least as a Web site) and only one WHOIS server even reports that it’s registered (whois.internic.net). That whois reports that it’s parked at Register.com and the status has been REGISTRAR-HOLD for years. I continue to call Register.com every 6 months (I have many domains registered with them) but they continually give me the run around. The funny thing is that the domain doesn’t even show up when I run the WHOIS at Register.com’s site.
Can a registrar keep a domain on HOLD indefinitely?
This was really insightfull Mike. Thanks.
This may have been mentioned, but I think this is important. I work for a
domain registrar and know that ordering a backorder that is already registered through the same registrar that you purchase the backorder from GUARANTEES that the domain is yours (assuming of course, that the domain is not renewed or redeemed by the current owner.
four: I’m pretty sure that is not the case… at least with some registrars. The domain I got was previously registered by enom.com and I backordered through enom.com. No dice. Enom failed at retrieving their own domain. Pool.com got it.
OK. I read through the legal agreements and could not find support for my argument. I work for godaddy (online tech support). I have been with them for about 6 months and know that we will guarantee that the backorder will be successful if the domain is already registered with us. This may not be the case with other registrars.
Also, I guess this is a (fairly) new policy (maybe since DEC04) based on a change in ICANN policy. I dont know what other registrars do, but have heard (from godaddy) that they are following suit as well.
I wish I made a point to remember the exact details.
A freind got lazy with his website, for the business he was starting. Pretty sure he said “it ran out this week”.
The reason we spoke of it was an e-mail he got from a stranger in Asia … selling him his own web site name for $500.00.
Guess he got burned.
For the Canadians, what’s an A-Rod? Is that better than a team of Chuck Norris guys? The way ‘Texas Rangers’ are described it seems so, but I never watched that show.
Four, I’ll have to take issue with what you said. My bloghosting service (bloghosts.com) registered and owned my old domain through GoDaddy. When they went under, I placed a backorder with GoDaddy. It failed to capture the name and GoDaddy said that there were no refunds.
I’m also certain that this happened after DecO4.
Not that I have a complaint with GoDaddy. I registered my new domain with them and have been very happy with the service.
Hi Four,
Careful we don’t mention you in the same breath as Mark Jen and the Stewardess :-) Perhaps Bob Parsons could clear things up about GoDaddy’s stance over on his blog, you might suggest it to him.
I have a pending backorder with Godaddy as we speak. The domain was renewed. If I understood correctly, if after waiting a while this domain does not come available, I can switch and register a different domain name for $18.95 fee I paid, meaning that the cost to backorder is really only $10.
What Godaddy didn’t do was tell me if others were in line in front of me. It seems to me you could have 20 people backorder the same name. I don’t know if I am number one or number 20. And if in fact this backorder thing with the same register works, pool.com may in fact backorder it as soon as they decide it has value, knowing that for the $10 investment they can extract several hundred from a guy like Mike, and perhaps several thousand for other names.
Don: If you successfully entered your backorder through GoDaddy it means you are the only person to backorder through GoDaddy. They don’t accept multiple backorders on names. Search for the name on GoDaddy and you’ll see that the “Backorder Now!” option is no longer available. This is good, but as I spelled out in the article, don’t let it lead you to believe that GoDaddy will definitely be successful at grabbing it. If someone else has gone through Pool, Enom, or Snapnames, chances are you won’t get it.
Four: It would definitely seem like good policy for companies to do as you say (offer their expiring domains with 100% certainty through their own backordering services) but from what I understand there are certain ICANN rules which must be followed. Some of the rules, as I understand it, say that a registrar is not the “backup owner” of a domain. Meaning, if a person lets a domain expire, their registrar does not then get to decide if they want to keep it and re-auction or repossess it. They must go through protocol and release it the standard way. I do, however, think that registrars probably break this rule quite often. I think one commenter above pointed to a situation where someone had put a “registrar lock” on a domain for quite some time… this would probably be against the rules. And finally, I think you’re probably right in that if a domain is registered by GoDaddy and you try to backorder through GoDaddy, you may have a slightly greater chance than you otherwise would, but unless they have documentation stating otherwise, I don’t think it’s a slam dunk. If you can provide wording to the contrary, please post it… would love to know.
I was wondering where all the hits were coming from! I figured someone had republished the link to that article about me :-)
I point out that there are a number of issues that you’re not quite 100% correct on - and some questions you ask that I could answer.
If you’re interested, of course.
Nice post, interesting. Now…to wait for yahoo to slip up…
OK. Im fairly new to this and checked with some people at work. This is how I understand it.
First of all, Mike is right about Godaddy allowing only one backorder per domain.
Apparently if you place a backorder on a domain PRIOR to its entering the REDEMPTION period and the domain is not renewed, you will get the domain. Once the backorder is placed, a “mock-redemption” period ois created and the domain is not released to the registry (becasue it doesnt need to be as the domain will either be redeemed by the current registrant or captured by the backorder). Therefore, there really is no way (barring some kind of fluke or mistake) that the domain could be snatched up by another individual or registrar.
disclaimer and correction to cover myself:
1. Godaddy does not officially guarantee any backorders
2. I am not an official spokesperson for Godaddy and was just trying to shed some light on this often misinterpretted and confusing subject.
Greetings Mike:
Mason Cole here with SnapNames.
Very good article. You’ve captured a lot of what consumers think about the “drop-catching” industry. Back when Al Gore invented the Internet, he had a chance to make this a non-issue, but everyone was too busy thinking about just getting online and didn’t spend time creating a smooth, orderly domain name “redistribution” process. That is what gave rise to services like ours.
First, a couple of minor corrections: We’re not owned by Network Solutions. They ARE one of our partners — in fact, we have an exclusive relationship that allows only SnapNames customers first access to expiring NetSol domains. So if there’s a good Network Solutions name you want, check our site first. Same with BulkRegister names and a couple of other registrars that will be signing on with us shortly.
SnapNames actually was the first in the market. We launched our system in 2000.
You’re right about how hard it is for customers to understand and use this “system.” It’s not much of a system — you either have to know how to chase a name yourself, which is pretty unlikely, or use our service or a combination of us and others. We’ve been trying to work with ICANN and others on a predictable, orderly and centralized system that everyone can understand and use on an equal footing, but dealing with ICANN and its participants is not always productive.
Until we can get ultimate resolution, we’re at least trying to add some predictability with these partnerships. If you put in a “backorder” with us, and it’s for a Network Solutions or BulkRegister name, you’re guaranteed to have a shot at it if the current registrant doesn’t renew. There’s no cost to put in a backorder, and if you’re the only one interested in the name, it’s yours for $60 upon fulfillment. If others want it too, we auction it among interested parties.
In our auction process, we avoid the kind of frustrations or suspicions you experienced. We want you to have as much transparency into the auction process as you can, and shill bidding is never allowed. There are rumors from time to time that shill bidding exists in our industry, but I hope that’s not the case — for our part, we won’t tolerate it.
I hope that’s useful information on how the process works, at least on our side. If you or anyone else have questions, I’m glad to answer them.
Best of luck.
(Editor’s Note: Thanks for posting, Mason. Great information. I’ve amended the statement about your affiliation with Network Solutions in the article, and I appreciate the insightful post. I agree that SnapNames seemed like a very straightforward and transparent process… I just wish they were able to grab the name.)
Scott, Comment #28,
REGISTRAR-HOLD usually mean the domain is in dispute, and will not be released until resolved.
I’ve been working in the Registrar industry now for about 5 years, and there are different rules for each gTLD and ccTLD.
Mail me your questioned domain, i’ll look into it…
Milo
Must say that it was very well spelt out.
In my case I had to wait until the dam ‘Cyber-Squatters’ moved on.. For me to get the last two url’s extensions, have a nice site that list’s first on most major search engines.
Just got to finish my studies then take the project live, into the commerical world.
Very good information.
Thanks
As Mason pointed out, snapnames was the first on the scene. Pool has a lot of relationships with many foreign registrars to catch drops, and that is how they do so well.
This whole process represents a weakness, not a strength to the domain name registration system. ICANN is a largely ineffectual organization that needs to be done away with.
I actually have respect for the guys at snapnames. I however do not respect pool one bit for their entirely “closed” process that allows them to shill whenever they feel the need.
In fact, I have witnessed personally one high value name that they caught that _never_ went to auction. Seeing them breaking their own rules (if they have any) is enough to beware of”dirty pool” to me. They have lost me as a customer with the “two phase” nonsense that was implemented.
I know that they have already heard these complaints before, and it is indeed ripe for an attorney make them feel some pain.
I only found this blog because I was searching for “pool” and “shill” to see what the latest with them was.
Hey Mason from SnapNames: thanks for the information… but it’s a shame you had to taint it with that old lie about Al Gore and the internet.
Very useful to me, read the excerpt. Will come back to read the whole post later.
Interesting, but you do realize that your reluctance to divulge the URL makes it seem as though you’ve registered something like porn.com?
The drop game is an ever evolving beast, and the top catcher today may not be the best tomorrow. Snapnames about 2 years ago grabbed almost every valuable expiring domain. At that time it was a $60 first come first served business model. But many things have changed during this time, and it is crucial for anyone interested in aquiring a specific domain to cover all bases and use all of the above mentioned services (Pool, Snapnames, Enom, Godaddy or a godaddy reseller) and also a few more (NameWinner.com, 4domains.com) depending on the extension of the domain.
The title of best drop catcher changes frequently because of the hundreds of registrars involved. And almost daily, a few registrars change their alliances, and work for a different service. The more registrars working for a drop service, the better the chances of them aquiring the domain you want. There are many tricks, techniques, and formulas for estimating what you should bid, but these are secrets seldom revealed.
People that are trying to aquire expiring domains often do much research into the past uses of the domain, weather it has linkpop (links from other websites), how popular the sites are that link to it, how many people searched for the domain or words that compile the domain in the previous month, weather a domain is listed in yahoo or dmoz, and what Page Rank the domain may have. I have even created an automated site that compiles all of this data and more, Because there are still thousands of people chasing domains that do not understand the value of the domain they are after, or the traffic it may have.
Just like there are numerous companies that chase domains, there are also numerous companies that provide domain owners with a way to monetize these domains until they are developed. Most expired domains, have very targetted inherent visitors, looking for specific items, and these services (Domains Sponsor, Fabulous, Sedo, Afternic, Domain Hop, Trafficz) all provide a way to get paid by advertisers that are looking for their products. The domain owner is paid for each click that a visitor makes to see one of these sites. (see ParkingIncome.com for more info)
With the increasing dollar amounts willing to be paid by these advertisers (through the Pay Per Click Search Engines), this is what is driving the value of expiring domains up. So if you are interested in a specific domain, use all of the above mentioned services, but be prepared to spend some serious cash if the domain (or traffic accompanying it) looks valuable.
(Editor’s Note: Wow, that is the most comment-spam-looking piece of non-comment-spam I’ve ever seen. :) Nice info… thanks for posting.)
Excellent BLOG. When I’m ready to start this process, I’ll be back here refreshing myself on the inside scoop of this shady process.
Actually I was just looking for a list of unregistered 4 letter domains and ended up here. Still haven’t found that yet, though I saw one link to a guy who sells a list for $4. Seems like there would be a place to go to find that information quickly.
Thanks Mike and Mason, for making this read a productive and useful one.
Great article Mike! Kept me glued to the screen like a good movie, I usually just print and read articles later. When are you going to reveal the name?
PS. This is a great blogg, no user name, no password, no registration and no email confimation and loggin! I love it! How did you get this done? Any articles or instructions you can reffer me to?
Nice blog, very useful information. I once tried to get an expiring domain myself. Spent several hours on the Godaddy website using a crappy connection. After about 100 refreshes I was thrilled, I got it, the system said. It was a shortlived joy. I received an email that it was not mine after all. Why, I still don’t know. The original owner kept it.
The post of “Expired domains” is definitely comment-spam in a very smart way. I checked out the website and not being “prepared to spend some serious cash” I noticed I won’t even see any info on whatever domains:)
Nice information.
I did try to grab some expired domains myself using the deletedomain list but it seems that it is impossible to get those that were previously registered with Enom and GoDaddy. That is why I only keep track of domain names that were not registered with them.
Didn’t know that there are varying drop time too, as I normally try to register the domain name during the 6am gold rush period which is 6.45 pm our time.
Strangely, the .org .biz names are easier to get even though it may have alot of links. Anyone knows the reason?
Also even though country level domain names may be more expensive, it would be more worthwhile because it preserve its pagerank when expired unlike the .com and .net names.
Johnny,
The releasing registrar has little to do with your chances of aquiring an expiring domain during the normal drop process. That being said, as I mentioned previously the “Drop Game” is an ever evolving beast, and changes each day. Since Netsol and Bulk Register, starting working with Snapnames, Dotster with Namewinner, and Godaddy and it’s resellers, to have exclusive drops circumventing the normal drop process, the initial registrar has a lot to do with where you can win the domain. On exclusive drops domains can only be won, or bid on at the drop partner site of that registrar. There are still hundreds of registrars that follow the normal drop process, making it necessary to place an order at all dropcatchers, but I foresee this all changing within the next 3-4 months. Soon all registrars IMHO will be participating in exclusive drops, either for themselves or partnered with snapnames, or another drop partner.
And Mike thanks (I think), I love to educate people on domains because it is such a fun business, but at the same time am always looking to benefit from sharing when possible.
Great article!
I really hope some conformity comes to this industry. Having to back-order through several companies is a pain. It’s like the wild west out there in this expired domains game.
.org .biz (and .info, .us) are known as “thick” registries. When a domain is puchased, or whois info modified the database they provide (whois) is directly updated in real time. Thefore lapse information is more accurate and purchasing more secure. Nothing is more problematic for a registrar when they take an order for a domain they think is avaliable, and fail to secure it.
The industry has got 100% better since the dark days of 90s, where a .com would cost £75 ($130) and avaliable via fax only. When new registries are launched, there are tight rules regarding trademark, patents, sunrise and landrush. Basically, if you really really want and domain in a new registry, then you need the trademark. That is the surefire 100% guarentee you will get your domain.
I recall one company, accually store all domain searches, and pro-ordered the domain before the customer…
Hi Mike
As many others have already stated excellent article. Although I must admit to not being that interested in snapping up that all important domain name - until of course I lose my current domain name - better make sure that doesn’t happen!
Can I propose that we actually have a bid to be the first person that you tell the domain name to. What I propose is that we all email you sealed bids and you take the best two bids and then we have to bid until we don’t want to go higher. That way the best bid gets to win!
Alternatively it could be like waiting for the last episode of 24!
Rich
(Editor’s Note: Ha! Good idea. It will come out sooner or later though… be patient.)
I too must confess that I am a 24 addict.
No offense, but that’s a colossal waste of money. I’m still mildly upset that I spent 10$ too much on my domain name - I went through GoDaddy, got one of the $2 .info names back during that deal, and spent $10 on some privacy thing that takes over your WHOIS - it worked, too, until it turned out I needed to get rid of the privacy thing so the DNS would work. I wasn’t refunded for it, which really sucked. Oh well… live and learn, I suppose.
(Editor’s Note: Interesting that you can proclaim something you know nothing about to be a “colossal waste of money”. If you are buying .info domains for two dollars and then complaining about paying an extra ten for privacy, I think we are in very different boats here.)
I know the situations are different, but still - over 350 dollars for a domain? It must be extremely important to be worth that kinda money.
(Editor’s Note: Yes, that’s a lot more rational explanation, isn’t it?)
Traffic, Keywords, and Brandability, are money, now that the net is finally starting to break out of it’s infancy stages. When it finally matures, $350 will seem cheap for a prime domain. It actually seems cheap to me already (even without knowing the domain).
For current prices on the top sales of the year visit http://www.dnjournal.com
Hi Mike,
INSPIRING STORY! After reading your guide to the ins and outs of the expiring domain game (of which I am becoming increasing addicted too) I went on dotster.com where they have a list of expiring domains for that day. My eyes were immediately drown to a GREAT.com domain name, I had a look on the who is database a found that all the other extensions for that domain were available so I snatched them all up.
I took your advice and went to snapnames.com and put down a backorder for the crucial .com detention and after an anxious few hours I was shocked to realise that I had got the domain name for the minimum $60 dollar fee!!!
Thanks for reading my story Ged Lightfoot.
Oh bye the way isnt it obvious that your secret domain name is in fact: mikeindustries.com?
it seems so simple when you think about it! everybody is wondering what it could possibly be when in fact it was this very site all along!
I cant believe no body else has suggested it.
Am I right Mike? email me. Ged.
On the topic of grabbing expiring domains I have discovered a little trick to increasing your chances ten-fold to get that prize domain. When a domain first expires it goes into what is called “REGISTRAR-HOLD.” While in that period the registrant can easily renew the domain for a small fee. After 1 to 45 days, if the registrant has not renewed his domain, the registrar can request a refund from Verisign, then the domain moves on to REDEMPTIONPERIOD. The trick is to backorder the domain before it moves to REDEMPTIONPERIOD. While in REGISTRAR-HOLD check the whois information to find the registrar. Then find out who backorders for that registrar. If you backorder with that registrar’s affiliate backorder service then you should have an outstanding chance of grabbing that domain. That is as long as the registrant does not renew it first. Many backorder services do keep the domains available for backorder and will automatically give it to you if the registrant does not renew it, but if you wait too long the registrar will request a refund and then you’ll have to battle it out at the end. I know that GoDaddy does it this way. I have snatched up many valuable domains using this technique.
The post and the comments have been very informative. Thanks.
It took me over ten years to collect the main set of my domain name. I first registered the .com in 1994 when registration was free but took six weeks for confirmation. I picked up the .net around 1997 and the .us a couple of years ago.
The .org was owned by someone who contacted me a few months ago about buying it. I was leery that he was going to try to gouge, but it turns out he asked less than I thought he should so I paid him more than he expected.
There are more TLDs, of course, but these are the main ones as far as I am concerned.
Anyway, I have been waiting for four years for a domain name which has now expired. Call me crazy, but I am going to try to get it on my own. I am curious what kind of odds people would give me for snagging it.
Shockwave Rider: If anyone else really wants the domain you’re going after, I give you a zero percent chance of snagging it on your own. Seriously. The only way you’ll get it manually is if no services are also going after it. That said, if you don’t think anyone else is going after it, and you don’t mind losing it, you might as well try manually.
If the domain has anyone else at all interested in it, and they backorder it at any of the dropcatchers, you do not stand a chance trying to hand register it yourself.
Each of these drop catching service (pool.com, snapnames.com, enom club drop, namewinner.com) have affiliations with multiple registrars.
What does this mean?
Let’s say you visit http://www.Domainut.com and try to register the domain at drop time (6 days after the date that the status was updated to pending delete at 2pm eastern for .com .net). Realistically you could copy the domain name, and press the submit button on a dsl or cable connection, maybe a total of 30 times a minute (I say this because you must wait for the page to refresh). Each of these dropcatchers has multiple registrar partners working for them. In other words the drop catcher rents the direct line to the central registry from each registrar. These drop catchers have been doing this for a long time, and can almost pinpoint the exact rotation that the daily expired domains will be released to the available domains pool. So they will know which domains will be released at which time (almost to the tenth of a second). Then using these multiple direct connections to the registry, they send thousands of register commands at that second from each of these registrars.
In a nut shell, if any dropcatcher has a backorder for the domain you want, you should also backorder it at all of these services. (You have waited 4 years, if you take a chance that noone else is chasing this domain, you may blow it). There is no way to tell if a domain is being backordered at any of these services by someone else, so decide for yourself weather the domain is worth $30 at enom or namewinner, $60 at snapnames or pool.
Fantastic post, very informative. I was planning on grabbing a .com I’ve had my eye on for years, but it was re-newed just today. Bugger.
Dear Mike,
I don´t know how to thank you! With this fantastic article and a bit of luck, I got the domain I had my eye on for a long time. 60 Bucks and Snapname did it for me. You have to register at all big three and stick with it. Enom and Pool did not even bother to email and tell me they´d lost out. Snapnames was quick and very efficient. The tip on Sedo.com is good but it could mean you pay more, however they will do a good analysis of the name for you and really try their best to acquire the domain. I chanced it and waited and managed to get what I wanted. A bit of luck helped but I stayed focussed. You have to be passionate about it. Good luck to all for future acquisitions!
Not only a well-written piece, but obviously one that has gotten a lot of attention (and kudos). Here’s a squirrelly one for you. I registered a domain, paid for the name and hosting the site, but set the admin contact as the guy who was to become a customer. Built the bare bones of a web site, then waited on more material from the customer. After a couple of meetings, numerous emails and phone calls, and TWO years, I still never got any additional material, and never got paid. And because I’m not the Admin, I can’t do a thing about the domain name. A shame, because the guy really had (has) something worth sharing with the world.
Unlike Mike’s valuable domain, this one is not particularly noteworthy. Even so, I want it should the dormant customer ever get his act together. It expires soon and I want some leverage for payment. But I’m going to take my chances. No bidding wars for me. It either becomes available or it doesn’t. With well over 75,000 domain names expiring each month, the odds are on my side.
Sorry to hear the typical “non-paying customer”. Way too many…
The admin contact shouldn’t count for much, like the tech contact, the Bill contact is usually the registrar so they add their % from the NIC fee, however the Reg contact is the one to have.
It might be a idea to try to transfer out to a registrar that does recognise the registrant as the auth name. (such as GoDaddy, but check it out first)
Registrars have high, first line, staff turnover, so don’t trust everything they say…
Great article. I’ve tinkered with designs privately and volunteered my time for some groups that already had domains, but I have yet to acquire my own. This article (and others that I’ve read) have solidified my feeling that there’s a lot more involved in domain registration than a first glance might indicate.
I haven’t been reading your blog for very long, Mike, and I hope not to sound like too much of a newbie here, but do you have any good references regarding what to look for in a registrar and/or hosting provider? I still have many questions about the process, and I’m not sure who’s best at answering them. I also don’t want to post here at risk of annoying more experienced people, which I hope I’m not doing already. :)
I am in stealth mode seeking to register an obscure domain name currently in redemption. I have a US federal trademark on the name and actually use it in business unlike the current registrant.
This stealth mode is so deep that I did not even inform the current lapsing registrant of my interest or my trademark.
Today when I noticed the url did not work I limited myself to 2 searches of it using registrar pages to clarify its status. I plan to do no more searches until the 75th day when it would typically be expected to become available for registration.
Assuing that tens of thousands of names drop everyday and based on my ebay and live auction / bargain hunting experience I believe that the simple fact that I am interested in this domain is a very valuable piece of information that I should not let out. Even if I just log onto any of the dropcatching services such as Pool, Snapnames, Enom, Godaddy and search for it I may be telegraphing my intention. I may be allerting these very adept name catchers that it may have a value or I may be creating the value or elevating the price. They may then be motivated to capture it and subject me to an auction in which case I will need to out bid the speculators, squatters as well as potential less diligent legitimate users. As a trademark owner if anyone else gets the domain the date of my trademark registration will precceed their date of aquisition of the domain and I believe that this will enable me to use the ICANN UDRP policy to challenge the registration. Of course this will be long and expensive and I might not prevail. I would be willing to pay 250 plus dollars to get the domain and avoid this inconvienence and get my domain.
Extending the ebay analogy I think I might need a sniping tool like Auction Stealer that will disclose my intent and my valuation at the time when it will do the least damage to my interests.
Your comments and suggestions are welcome.
kwh
A little too paranoid, but better safe than sorry right?
Excellent post