Has anyone actually gotten an expired domain name by using the back order feature on registers like Godaddy? This really smells like a scam. I know its been around for a while but I've never heard anyone tout that they "back ordered this killer domain and got it for next to nothing." I'd like to hear from anyone that has used this service and had success (or failure for that matter).
I have never had any luck using godaddy to snag a domain. I've heard good things about pool.com, i just havent used their service yet.
I think it's a mere waste of time and money. If you really badly need a domain name and you expect it may be not renewed or abandoned, you just may try to get it yourself the same way a register like GoDaddy may try to do it.
You really should read the link referenced above. I posted there and won't waste space repeating myself here.
Its not a scam, but its like the lottery. Not much chance of winning. I never use it to be honest, waste of money.
I backordered a long time ago and never got that domain, then transferred the credit to another expiring domain and go it. (Gets about 200 typeins a month so was worth it).
I have never had a successful backorder with GoDaddy. I have had many with Pool and one or two with SnapNames.
More than one week ago I put myself in line to get one expired-deleting domain name from pool.com and I have yet to hear from them...nevermind the countless promo emails I received from them.
If the backorder is not successful, you can use it again (during one year) as many times as needed until you catch a name.
Absolutely a scam. Tell, me...what does the parked page look like? Hmm. Looks like a godaddy template page. Strange how you can't see who owns it now. My belief...Godaddy buys up sites that members communicate that they want through backordering. Then they capture it themselves and all you can do is try to buy it from them for more when they should have done the ethical thing and let you have it when you paid for the backordering.
The practice of "back-ordering" domains is called buying them on the drop. Basically, if the domain is registered through Godaddy and you backorder it through Godaddy, you have a shot of getting it when/if it expires and the 72-90 day probationary period passes. That's how it works in theory. In practice its a bit different. There are domain sharks out there - companies that you can "backorder" any domain through and for a price they will go after it on your behalf. The trouble comes in when more than one person wants the same domain. In fact, when this happens the shark company you paid a fixed price to to get the domain often puts it up for private (and anonymous) auction between the parties who are interested. Many times you never know who you are bidding against, or how many other parties are involved. The shark company gets the "backorder" money for attempting to get it on the drop for you, and they also gt the auction money from the interested parties. The reason these sharks are so successful is that they have invested a ton of cash in equipment and bandwidth so they can carpet bomb registrars with requests as domains are about to come available. The exact procedure of how a domain is released back into the pool of publicly available domains is somewhat mysterious, as each registrar operates slightly differently and they leave some degree of mystery in the equation so they don't get crushed by the sharks in a pseudo dDoS attack. I have tried to backorder through Godaddy before without success. If it is a great domain that you are after, you may want to Google for the shark companies and take your chances there in the auction. Hope this helps!
Last week I was successful in securing a domain via backorder through GoDaddy and I have another that hopefully will go through this week.