I've already outed myself once this week as a newbie in buying expired domains. Now is my chance to do it again. We were tossing around names for a business idea and found that most were taken but unbelievably one of the good ones was pending release. The guy who owns it is in the trade associated with the name and probably doesn't give a damn that it's dropping because it's not a great match based on what I saw on Google's street view. I've put a watch on it in one site I've found that runs pre-release auctions for names and I gather others run post-release auctions if they snap it up. Makes sense for them but a pain in jacksy for us. What I'd like is to line up a site to try and grab it when it releases but who won't try and hold me to ransom after - and won't alert the world to the domains availability beforehand. We're happy to pay a premium for that service because we're not in the business of trading domains, we have an actual, real world, use for this one. So who do you recommend? and who should be kept away from?
The % of a succseful drop catching has to do with the registrar that it's registered. Most of the drop catching services create exclusive deals with registars and they get their names. I did have a list before some time but i stopped drops
Hmmm, I ended up putting a request in through one local registrar, snapnames and used an auction tool on a third site. I waited until it had 3 minutes to go and made an autobid. We got lucky, I guess, because we didn't draw attention to the domain and picked it up for the standard minimum fee through the third site.
I've got to stop reading the pending release emails I'm getting sent. Today's one made me laugh. Some guy couldn't make his adult domains pay and is offloading.
This QUESTION is like asking the Kernel of KFC for the secret spices Email Adam Dicker from DNFORUM > Keeps an AK-47 in his head guarding his domain secrets (metaphorically ) OR JUST offer HUGE amounts of money to the guy that picked it up after the drop BTW - If someone posted that answer on a PUBLIC forum.....LOL - That would not be so "quite" anymore SILLY <---------
Luckily we didn't have to do that. We had the funds lined up but it's always nice to be able to hold onto them. We'd considered contacting the old owner prior to the drop and checked him out on streetview and found his reg phone number was wrong - he had a massive sign outside his business. Was an interesting experience strategising it all. Quite different when you want a domain for a specific reason as opposed to identifying valuable domains and trying to catch them but knowing that while you won't get them all those you do get will make the process worthwhile. Not really - two of the sites I "enlisted" didn't promote the drops they were trying to catch. One did - ironically the one that worked. When we'd seen another domain we liked the look of I put in a bid which was publicised on their home page - not quiet at all! So my question wasn't about the site/service being unknown but about it being discrete
Sarah, the thing is not discretion or publicity. The thing is knowing the EXACT time the Registry deletes the domain - and registering it seconds after. Snapnames.com does it well, as I have seen tons of domains backordered through them and successfully catched. They also refund in case of failure, so you are always on the safe side.
I'm not so sure, I believe that a domainer was watching to see which domains had some implicit value and outbid me (the auction is before the drop on this site) at the last minute. By bidding early and not hanging around until it closed he was able to bid higher than my autobid and win the right to register through that site. If I had waited too I don't think he would have bid at all.
In college I used to buy and sell domain's almost daily and eventually got very good at it. Pool.com is by far the best with back-orders and will beat out any of the others with their enormous registrar relationships that they have. If you found a good domain it is worth the $60 fee (you only have to pay if they snag the domain). I've tried registering Snapnames and Pool on the same domain and Pool won. GoDaddy back-orders will usually beat out the hand registering guys but not always. When I used to hand register I wrote a script to check register API's every minute after 1pm EST (around when domains usually move from pending delete to available)
There is no such thing as quietly picking up dropped domains. If the domain has value then chances are it will get picked up by one of the drop catching services like Namejet, Snapnames, Pool, etc. You can not compete with these services if they want the name as they have more resources to catch the name (this is their business model). Knowing the time of the drop is irrelevant if it never becomes available to manually register yourself. GoDaddy backorders are a waste of time but you can pickup expired domains registered through GD on TDNAM auctions.
Well, of course, when 3rd party is after the domain you want and auction takes place, additional efforts are required. I mostly deal with situation when domain owner registers names "just in case" and lets them expire after no offers appear. In this case Snapnames proves to be best backorder company. Bids and auctions... yes... these require more actions and nerves.