HugeDomains.com is Buying 50%+ of Expiring Domains at GoDaddy.com

[Arca]

I've been wondering about the competition in auctions for expiring domains over at GoDaddy.com, because somebody is paying hundreds for seemingly every domain that gets a few bidders.

I’ve also noticed a clear pattern, with the last bidder (or one of the last bidders) entering the auction winning most of the time, which made me think that there is one large corporate buyer piggybacking of whatever domains other people find and bid on. Turns out that is the case: HugeDomains.com is buying most domains over at GoDaddy.com expired auctions. I looked up the WHOIS of the past 150 auctions I have lost at GoDaddy.com, and 84 of those are now owned by HugeDomains.com and listed for sale on HugeDomains.com.

While 50%+ may not be representative of overall domains bought at GoDaddy, they do seem to buy far more domains than anyone else. The 66 names not bought by HugeDomains.com were bought by a number of different individuals and companies (BuyDomains.com bought 6 of those 66, for example), so 50%+ were taken by HugeDomains, while "the rest" of the auction wins were by a number of different individual domainers and companies.

This might not be news to some, but I've never seen anyone mention that HugeDomains is this active over at GD expired auctions, so I thought it might be interesting for some people to know who is outbidding everyone in the lower range over at GoDaddy. I've read people mentioning that HugeDomains buy names in close-out status over at GoDaddy, but never that they buy most of the domains in auctions too.

HugeDomains absolutely dominates all auctions below $5XX, and they only picked up a single name above $5XX (cakemart.com) in my sample of 150 names, so $5XX seems to be a self-imposed limit for them. If I only checked domains sold below $5XX, the percentage bought by them would be even higher. I've been the second highest bidder in lots of auctions that HugeDomains.com won, and in my experience they will keep bidding until you give up or until the price passes $5XX. By outbidding most bidders in the lower end, and acquiring more than half of the domains other people also have interest, it leaves a far smaller pool of names for the rest of the domainers to compete for, so I guess that's part of the reason why the reseller prices for names keep increasing so much for names in this range.

The only way to buy cheap domains at GoDaddy auctions now seems to be to let domains expire with 0 bids, so that they go to close-out status, and then try to snipe them as soon as that happens. However, some domainers seem to think it's smart to bid $12 on any decent name when there is 1-15 minutes left, hoping that nobody else is going to place a bid, so fewer and fewer decent names are let to expire with 0 bids. However, that strategy never seems to work (I've tried it myself lots of names, and it did not work even one time), because there are always other people watching and waiting for the name to go to close-out, and they jump in and bid if you make a $12 bid, and most of those names are eventually won by HugeDomains.com. What experiences do other people have at GD recently? Anyone else have any good strategies for buying expiring domains @ GoDaddy.com these days?

Some examples of expired domains bought at GoDaddy.com auctions by HugeDomains:
Domain: skillsharing.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $540
Asking price (at HugeDomains): $2995

Domain: ledmaster.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $537
BIN price (at HugeDomains): $2195

Domain: cyberstrategies.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $262
Asking price (at HugeDomains): $2895

Domain: crablab.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $320
Asking price (at HugeDomains): $1895

Domain: dailyportal.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $560
Asking price (at HugeDomains): $2895

Domain: fivesecondrule.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $42
Asking price (at HugeDomains): $2695

Domain: deltacloud.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $365
BIN price (at HugeDomains): $1795

Domain: itace.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $499
BIN price (at HugeDomains): $2595

Domain: sunnykitchen.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $200
BIN price (at HugeDomains): $2595

Domain: baristaschool.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $449
BIN price (at HugeDomains): $2895

Domain: cakemart.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $695
BIN price (at HugeDomains): $3495

Domain: visuala.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $315
BIN price (at HugeDomains): $2795

Domain: massanalytics.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $130
BIN price (at HugeDomains): $2095

Domain: edusport.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $535
BIN price (at HugeDomains): $2995

Domain: acneguru.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $52
Asking price (at HugeDomains): $2495

Domain: stylefolio.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $195
Asking price (at HugeDomains): $1995

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Related: HUGE DOMAINS SNIPING GODADDY CLOSEOUTS

 

[Michael M]

I have been curious about HugeDomains impact on GD auctions since this thread started and also watching rising auction prices and less decent names making closeouts - so I decided to dig a little to see what I found. I have shared the results below.

To explain my methodology: I generate keyword domain list daily to comb through by using a software program I wrote to identify names with potential.I used this list as a "random" sample.

I had to do some special work to figure out what domains HD purchased since they don't seem to be changing their nameservers and since I can't access the GD whois. But this method I found is reliable.

So, in a nutshell - I picked my 2/23 list as the first to test this on.
There were 539 names on this list.
141 of those names seem to have been purchased.
Here are results of the landing page (excluding HD which was found through alternate method) for those 141 domains.

Other - 70
HugeDomains - 15
Bodis - 8
Above - 7
Undeveloped - 7
Efty - 6
ParkingCrew - 5
Uniregistry - 5
Brandroot - 3
DomainMarket - 3
Afternic - 2
CashParking.com - 2
InternetTraffic.com - 2
Sedo - 2
BrandBucket - 1
Brandpa - 1
BuyDomains - 1
Voodoo - 1

List of domains purchased by HugeDomains from the sample:
datagrain(.)com
dietme(.)com
discoverycorp(.)com
domaindinosaur(.)com
huntingcircle(.)com
ideasheet(.)com
indiaelite(.)com
insidestore(.)com
jiffyme(.)com
noblehosting(.)com
oakvalue(.)com
photorecipe(.)com
pipejet(.)com
starttowing(.)com
wholepharmacy(.)com

Did anyone find the auction results I posted useful? Is it worth my time to dig any deeper? I am personally more interested in figuring out facts and getting a picture of the landscape than I am about complaining about generalities...

From the 2 days of samples I analyzed I was actually amazed to see that it appears HD is winning 10%-20% of auctions for keyword domains at GD. That is actually a pretty staggering amount.

@Arca - tagged you since you started this thread.

 

[hookbox]

Did anyone find the auction results I posted useful? Is it worth my time to dig any deeper? I am personally more interested in figuring out facts and getting a picture of the landscape than I am about complaining about generalities...

From the 2 days of samples I analyzed I was actually amazed to see that it appears HD is winning 10%-20% of auctions for keyword domains at GD. That is actually a pretty staggering amount.

@Arca - tagged you since you started this thread.

If someone were to ask me out of the blue what percentage of names Huge Domains is winning at GD I would have easily said much more than 10-20%. I actually think that number seems pretty low all things considered.

 

[Michael M]

If someone were to ask me out of the blue what percentage of names Huge Domains is winning at GD I would have easily said much more than 10-20%. I actually think that number seems pretty low all things considered.

I personally think 10%-20% is very substantial - considering the quantity of names at GD expired auctions, the fact HD is grabbing names they deem of higher quality, and that they are willing to pay hefty prices. This all would add up to a big effect on the market. It would also mean they are bidding on far more than the number they are winning driving prices up everywhere.

I have only looked at 2 days so far in the end of February, and I am only looking at Keyword domains that are deemed to have potential by using sales and inventory databases. (similar to what they would be doing)

There is of course room for error as the scope and number of samples so far is low. But I think it is starting to draw a decent picture of their true reach on GD auctions.

Also, keep in mind they may have been much more active a couple of months ago when this thread first started than they were in the 2 days I sampled so far. If someone has some auction exports from December I would be happy to analyze those.

 

[equity78]

Did anyone find the auction results I posted useful? Is it worth my time to dig any deeper? I am personally more interested in figuring out facts and getting a picture of the landscape than I am about complaining about generalities...

From the 2 days of samples I analyzed I was actually amazed to see that it appears HD is winning 10%-20% of auctions for keyword domains at GD. That is actually a pretty staggering amount.

@Arca - tagged you since you started this thread.

Isn't 10 to 20 % way down from the premise of the start of this thread? 50%?

 

[Michael M]

Isn't 10 to 20 % way down from the premise of the start of this thread? 50%?

I had assumed people didn't really think HD was taking half of GD's expired domains. (that are won every day)

20% to me is insane, though it still could end up being higher or lower with more samples.

But, I understand my stats aren't exactly supporting this threads initial promise, so I have altered my samples and have think I have managed to make everyone happy

Sample: 2 domains
HD: 1
Other: 1

 

[Michael M]

where did the 4 million names number come from?

their site indicates 350,000 names

Looks like their site claims "over 200,000" names
Their category page totals up to 685,196
Google reports 3.7 million
The .com zone file shows 3.1 million - Chart of entire .com zone file - Landing Services/Companies

 

[MasterOfMyDomains]

Name Server(s) DOMAIN-FOR-SALE.HUGEDOMAINSDNS.COM (has 973,769 domains)
FORSALE.HUGEDOMAINSDNS.COM (has 973,769 domains)

Thanks Michael for the numbers. Not sure if mine are relevant or helpful, your work and others is appreciated.

 

[Michael M]

Name Server(s) DOMAIN-FOR-SALE.HUGEDOMAINSDNS.COM (has 973,769 domains)
FORSALE.HUGEDOMAINSDNS.COM (has 973,769 domains)

Thanks Michael for the numbers. Not sure if mine are relevant or helpful, your work and others is appreciated.

Thanks for that info.

Take a look at NSG1.NAMEBRIGHTDNS.COM and NSG2.NAMEBRIGHTDNS.COM as well. I believe that is all HugeDomains. I believe NS1 and NS2.NAMEBRIGHTDNS.COM are for customers and NSG1 and NSG2 is HugeDomains. Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[MasterOfMyDomains]

HelloYum/com has ns1 and ns2 nameservers. I was searching a list off names from previos page that member says was caught by hd. Will go find that list

Edit: was you posted info Small.world cant add quote to edit??

 

[MasterOfMyDomains]

HelloYum/com has ns1 and ns2 nameservers. I was searching a list off names from previos page that member says was caught by hd. Will go find that list

Edit: was you posted info Small.world cant add quote to edit??Oh, use reply to add quote

Here are the results for 2/26/18:

Keyword Domain Sample: 449 domains
Sold Domains: 119

Other 45
HugeDomains 20
DomainMarket 10
Above 8
Uniregistry 8
Sedo 5
InternetTraffic.com 4
ParkLogic 4
Afternic 3
BrandBucket 3
CashParking.com 3
Efty 2
Bodis 1
Brandpa 1
ParkingCrew 1
Undeveloped 1

This means that HD purchased 16.8% of the domains that sold out of the 2/26 sample list.

Domains that HD purchased from sample list:
purestory(.)com
seednorth(.)com
pantrycollective(.)com
helloyum(.)com
investingcircle(.)com
hitcycling(.)com
spotpop(.)com
hidin(.)com
meetbug(.)com
strategykit(.)com
smartada(.)com
hotelhello(.)com
toolsnow(.)com
blindmonkey(.)com
diabeticguy(.)com
worshipstudio(.)com
farmwaste(.)com
litshow(.)com
techiewire(.)com
websitestorage(.)com


FYI: I saw no sales to TLDPros on 2/26. I am rechecking 2/23 now.

HelloYum/com has ns1 and ns2 nameservers. I was searching a list off names from previos page that member says was caught by hd. Will go find that list

Edit: was you posted info Small.world cant add quote to edit??

 

[Michael M]

HelloYum/com has ns1 and ns2 nameservers. I was searching a list off names from previos page that member says was caught by hd. Will go find that list

Edit: was you posted info Small.world cant add quote to edit??

Hmmm... That one is actually not owned by HugeDomains, but a NameBright customer (NameAlpha).

So seems as if my detection method to pickup on names that HD grabbed from GD auctions will pick up some false positives if a NameBright customer has entered the domain into namebrights DNS. (they must share a database with HD)

 

[Michael M]

But I believe the NSG1 and NSG1 are hugedomains (even though they will return results for NameBright domains if queried). Can anyone confirm if this is not the case?

 

[Michael M]

If NSG1 and NSG2 NameBright DNS servers are only HugeDomains (which I think is the case but I am not a NameBright customer and don't know their systems - someone please chime in) then after adding @MasterOfMyDomains NS information into the analysis program it produced these results:

HugeDomains has 4,082,038 domains. That is 3% of all domains that are registered in .com. 37% total of the landed domains in my analysis of large services .

 

[Recons.Com]

4 million names at $8 = $32MM/year on renewals.

They need to sell around 12800 names at $2500 average to cover that, which is only around 0.3% of the inventory.

If they have STR of 0.5%, then they are making around $20MM to cover their other costs, expected profit and leave few million bucks extra to waste on GD auctions.

 

[Michael M]

4 million names at $8 = $32MM/year on renewals.

They need to sell around 12800 names at $2500 average to cover that, which is only around 0.3% of the inventory.

If they have STR of 0.5%, then they are making around $20MM to cover their other costs, expected profit and leave few million bucks extra to waste on GD auctions.

You imagine they could be pulling 1% (or more). At 1% if they sold 40,000 domains for an average of $2500 that would bring in $100,000,000 gross, and $68,000,000 after renewal.

 

[wwwweb]

4 million names at $8 = $32MM/year on renewals.

They need to sell around 12800 names at $2500 average to cover that, which is only around 0.3% of the inventory.

If they have STR of 0.5%, then they are making around $20MM to cover their other costs, expected profit and leave few million bucks extra to waste on GD auctions.

They are becoming a beast pretty soon either you overpay by 2-3X at dropcatch, or get outbid by them at godaddy, or lose a hand reg to them in the drops there will be nothing left. It is the extinction of the one you call a domainer. Only way is to band together to defeat the Goliath, make them
pay, boycott their services, otherwise they going to prettty well out tech you, and out weigh you out of the market.

As renewals get smarter, there will be less inventory. It will be a bot war in the auction houses soon enough if it already isn’t.

Domainers are paying more then end users are offering on some purchases.

 

[Recons.Com]

You imagine they could be pulling 1% (or more). At 1% if they sold 40,000 domains for an average of $2500 that would bring in $100,000,000 gross, and $68,000,000 after renewal.

1% with the average quality of theirs and the ugly website would be, in my opinion, impossible to achieve. 0.5% +/-0.1% is the most realistic. Which means, after renewals, they have $10MM to $30MM to cover their overhead, profit, new purchases.

 

[Recons.Com]

They are becoming a beast pretty soon either you overpay by 2-3X at dropcatch, or get outbid by them at godaddy, or lose a hand reg to them in the drops there will be nothing left. It is the extinction of the one you call a domainer. Only way is to band together to defeat the Goliath, make them
pay, boycott their services, otherwise they going to prettty well out tech you, and out weigh you out of the market.

As renewals get smarter, there will be less inventory. It will be a bot war in the auction houses soon enough if it already isn’t.

Domainers are paying more then end users are offering on some purchases.

Yeah, stupid domain investors regularly get weeded out by the thin margins of this business. But I am glad at least they are overstretching HD budget by going into those wars ) Otherwise, they'd spend the same amount of money but would actually get 50%+ of the names, instead of 20%.

You cannot afford to overspend on cost portion of the equation.

When I see the waves of craze on GD either general or for a niche, I just wait them out and/or just look through the drops/closeouts for gems that others missed. I am not going into any bidding wars or helping bots identify good names. I will participate in auctions only for liquid names. HD can keep wasting their profits on such acquisitions.

The only true winner here is GD, actually.

 

[Michael M]

Here's a little view on the Domain Market from the thread I mentioned above. (still a work in progress)
Landing services with over 25k names. Let me know if I am missing any.

 

[Recons.Com]

@Michael M thank you for this. Can you also add BrandRoot, BrandPa?

 

[Michael M]

@Michael M thank you for this. Can you also add BrandRoot, BrandPa?

Brandroot - 17,313
Flippa - 12,661
Brandpa - 1,311

They didn't qualify for over 25k and didn't leave a noticeable slice on the pie chart.

 

[Recons.Com]

Brandroot - 17,313
Flippa - 12,661
Brandpa - 1,311

They didn't qualify for over 25k and didn't leave a noticeable slice on the pie chart.

hmm... strange. I thought Brandpa would be over 3000 by now and Brandroot would have over 20K?

 

[wwwweb]

Here's a little view on the Domain Market from the thread I mentioned above. (still a work in progress)
Landing services with over 25k names. Let me know if I am missing any.

Uni & internet traffic two of the same

 

[Michael M]

hmm... strange. I thought Brandpa would be over 3000 by now and Brandroot would have over 20K?

Domains that use forwarding are not picked up by this scan. This only identifies them by nameserver. Crawling 130+ million domains would take a considerable amount of time.

 

[Michael M]

Uni & internet traffic two of the same

Thanks very much for that info! I will get those combined.