Domain auction monitor - bid.larval.com

[larval]

I've had a passive interest in domains over the last ~2 decades and made the most modest profits buying and selling here and there over those years. But in the last ~5 years I just stopped doing it entirely, I sold almost all of them and just kept one to make my personal projects around.

The method I used previously was to scour the auction sites and keep note of ones I'd want, then bid on them right before the auctions ended, as to not show interest. Welp, everyone does that and it was a consistent letdown to have it lingering in my mind for days only to have it bid out of my price range right when it ends... on top of that, the market itself just became too thin to warrant my active effort. The reality is I know what price I'm willing to pay almost immediately, so why don't I skip the 7 day auction and just get a notification right at the end of the auction when it gets the bid? Well, that's why I slapped together this thing.

I happen to tinker with another project that monitors stock prices (larval.com) and sentiment (top.larval.com), and it's generally where my hobby of buying/selling has gone in recent years... but, I recently realized it would be easy to repurpose that getup for domain auctions in the way I want, so over the last week or so I slapped together bid.larval.com.

I have it running during the workday in a background tab and I loosely pay attention to the notifications it finds me, which is the same thing I do with the other stock-related project. My use-case is looking for the first bid in the last 30 minutes, so that's how I set the defaults.

It's currently following godaddy (GD), namecheap (NC) and dynadot (DD) auctions, if anyone has other relevant sites I may add them.

URL = bid.larval.com

Just to be clear, there are no ads or trackers on this thing. I'm just compelled to periodically make stuff for fun outside of work, for my own sanity.

 

[anantj]

Thank you. This looks useful. Would you be able to add other domains (from the same marketplaces) for monitoring?
Also, I think the hyphen filter is not working. I have both hyphens and numbers deselected but the list of the domains still shows domains that contain a hyphen in the name:


Also, can you add contrast to the slider bars? It is quite difficult to differentiate from the background. And any chance you could provide an alternate control to the sliders (step-up counter or direct keyboard entry) for the 3 top filter options?

Edit:
Is there any way to sort - Clicking on the header of the End Time I think does something but the list isn't sorted per se. Or perhaps a time based filter as well - Monitor auctions ending in the next 24 hours?

 

[anantj]

I also just realized - you show the auction end times in the local timezone/time. This is awesome

 

[larval]

Thank you. This looks useful. Would you be able to add other domains (from the same marketplaces) for monitoring?
Also, I think the hyphen filter is not working. I have both hyphens and numbers deselected but the list of the domains still shows domains that contain a hyphen in the name:


Also, can you add contrast to the slider bars? It is quite difficult to differentiate from the background. And any chance you could provide an alternate control to the sliders (step-up counter or direct keyboard entry) for the 3 top filter options?

Edit:
Is there any way to sort - Clicking on the header of the End Time I think does something but the list isn't sorted per se. Or perhaps a time based filter as well - Monitor auctions ending in the next 24 hours?

The light blue rows just indicate that it's a new or updated domain since the last update, if it matches the criteria it pulsates (if animations are on) a darker shade of blue and sense a browser notification and makes a sound (if enabled)

In reference to the sliders, is it just the cyan/blue circle on the slider you're talking about, or did I misunderstand?

I'm not sure the monitoring is applicable for this, that seems like a job for the actual auction site... or at least I'd always prefer to use the data from the horses mouth on that one.

Clicking the headers should sort and cycle through normal/reverse/default. Those are also bound to the number keys. What would be a good method for keyboard shortcuts in relation to the sliders?

What browser is that btw? Curious why there's a little line on the settings button there.

 

[anantj]

The light blue rows just indicate that it's a new or updated domain since the last update, if it matches the criteria it pulsates (if animations are on) a darker shade of blue and sense a browser notification and makes a sound (if enabled)

Was this in reference to hyphenated domains also being displayed in the list? If so, I'm seeing domains with hyphens even when they aren't the most recently updated.

In reference to the sliders, is it just the cyan/blue circle on the slider you're talking about, or did I misunderstand?

I meant the slider bar behind the circles. But it's not a major issue.

Clicking the headers should sort and cycle through normal/reverse/default. Those are also bound to the number keys. What would be a good method for keyboard shortcuts in relation to the sliders?

Something as simple as a text box that takes keyboard input. The slider should likely update automatically. I don't know if you're using any JS library or your own hand-rolled JS functions but a lot of open-source JS libraries have a component that combines a slider with an input box (or the up-arrow+down-arrow button component for step increases).

What browser is that btw? Curious why there's a little line on the settings button there.

I'm on the latest public Firefox release (v117) with several extensions and tracking blockers

 

[larval]

Was this in reference to hyphenated domains also being displayed in the list? If so, I'm seeing domains with hyphens even when they aren't the most recently updated.

Yeah. The list itself doesn't represent anything related to notifications, it's just previous data to look at if I glance at it and something catches my eye. The light blue one is also just informational to what was most recently changed and is eligible for notifications. The darker/pulsating blue ones are ones that actually hit the criteria and should pop notifications off (whether it be audio or browser-level).

For my use case I'm not generally looking at it much, I just look at the browser notifications when they pop up while I'm working, which is the same MO I have for looking for volatile stocks.

I meant the slider bar behind the circles. But it's not a major issue.

Something as simple as a text box that takes keyboard input. The slider should likely update automatically. I don't know if you're using any JS library or your own hand-rolled JS functions but a lot of open-source JS libraries have a component that combines a slider with an input box (or the up-arrow+down-arrow button component for step increases).

There are several keymappings, but I ripped the majority of them out for thos domain thing as they weren't relevant (like they are for the stock site). The arrow keys still go through the backlog, so I'm not changing that one, but a lot of other keys are available.

Honestly, I thought about that when I was making it, but I couldn't come up with an intuitive way to do that one... everything I thought of was confusing.

I'm on the latest public Firefox release (v117) with several extensions and tracking blockers

Is that little thin bar in the settings button always showing like it was in your screenshot? I'm assuming windows too.

 

[anantj]

Is that little thin bar in the settings button always showing like it was in your screenshot? I'm assuming windows too.

Yes to both!

There are several keymappings, but I ripped the majority of them out for thos domain thing as they weren't relevant (like they are for the stock site). The arrow keys still go through the backlog, so I'm not changing that one, but a lot of other keys are available.

I think I'm not expressing my suggestion well. I wasn't asking for keymappings or keyboard shortcuts. I was trying to indicate a component similar to the image below:

So I can use the slider with the mouse or simply change it by changing the value in the text box. But, anyway, I don't think it's a big deal to warrant so much discussion

Yeah. The list itself doesn't represent anything related to notifications, it's just previous data to look at if I glance at it and something catches my eye. The light blue one is also just informational to what was most recently changed and is eligible for notifications. The darker/pulsating blue ones are ones that actually hit the criteria and should pop notifications off (whether it be audio or browser-level).

Fair enough. In that case, what's the use case of the hyphen and number checkboxes in the settings panel?

 

[larval]

So I can use the slider with the mouse or simply change it by changing the value in the text box. But, anyway, I don't think it's a big deal to warrant so much discussion

Ah, it makes sense now.

Fair enough. In that case, what's the use case of the hyphen and number checkboxes in the settings panel?

In my case I don't want notifications if they have hyphens or numbers, so no beeping or browser notifications popping up for those. I don't want beeps for anything more than the first bid, and within the last 10-30 minutes... I really catered this thing to what I wanted heh, but I figured I'd throw it out here for anyone else that's like-minded... even though it's potentially creating competition for myself. I'm pretty dumb in some ways.

 

[anantj]

In my case I don't want notifications if they have hyphens or numbers, so no beeping or browser notifications popping up for those. I don't want beeps for anything more than the first bid, and within the last 10-30 minutes... I really catered this thing to what I wanted heh, but I figured I'd throw it out here for anyone else that's like-minded... even though it's potentially creating competition for myself. I'm pretty dumb in some ways.

Ah, now I understand the setting. And thank you again for the tool. It is a very useful tool.