Godaddy has this 'expired domain name auction'... people can bid for those expired domain names when they are in redemption period. It seems that the winner will take over the domain name and this name will not be available for others to grab... My questions are 1. if this works, what's the value of those domain name grabbing service (e.g. pool.com)? 2. do all registars do the same?
Well, I supposed you are referring to the TDNAM service ? I did grab a few nice domains there. I like the names and they are relevant to my sites and besides some were priced quite low so it is okay.
[1] Tdnam is auction based, the lowest bid is the registration fee I believe and then people bid for the domain, the highest bid gets the domain. Services like Pool.com function similarly as well, except that (I believe) they are based on Backorders. If more than one person backorders a domain, they land up on areas such as pool.com for a bid between the backorderers. [2] Not all registrars work like Godaddy, some have tie-ups with third party sites like Pool.com where they transfer their expired domains for auctions. Godaddy is all on its own, the catch for registrars is that they get a fixed fee for this favor to the third party sites. IT