IT.COM

HUGE DOMAINS SNIPING GODADDY CLOSEOUTS

Spaceship Spaceship
Watch
So annoying Godaddy hasn't stopped Huge Domains from sniping Godaddy Closeouts with their automated tools, no way a human bidder can win a even closeout.

First they were sniping with the backorders, now you cut that out, and you are letting them snipe via automated tools.

So what do you say @Joe Styler , you want to even the playing field a bit, as your partners are bidding everything in a split second, from $12, to $11, and bidding everything else into the hundreds from a simple bid. I would rather pay a Huge Domains surcharge at checkout.


Huge Domains has an unfair advantage on the auction platform, essentially taxing every user for using it with their automated access advantages given to them thru the house.
 
Last edited:
39
•••
The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
But if they were given some sort of unfair advantage, why would they need to tinker with the closeout start times? It seems like the closeout times are tailored to match HD's bot.

If the closeout times now start a known time after the auction's end, you shouldn't theoretically be able to beat HD if their servers are next to gd. They only need 1 request per name. That's all highly theoretical tho and it assume perfect functionality on both of their parts.

One might only truly dig deeper if they made a bot of their own to try their hand at closeouts.

Yes, now the time is known. It is pretty much the next second after the name doesn't get any bids and time lapses. So, they can send 10 requests, 2-3 per second and be assured to win, if in fact being next door is factor. But I doubt that gives them that much advantage. There must be additional tweak in their favor, as it seems empirically every name that doesn't emerge into closeout goes 100% of time to HD and that shouldn't be possible if things were as fair and square as GD claims.
 
3
•••
I would suggest reading through this thread and reading GD replies etc before passing judgment. Technically there are equal opportunities to all customers but it makes a big difference if you are a multimillion dollar company with offices next to GD.
Oh i got it.
Thanks!
 
2
•••
their bidding max is $488 on last one I won. I had to bit them to win at $500. so annoying.

looking at my dashboard and I saw the bidder was Bidder 913932
 
1
•••
their bidding max is $488 on last one I won. I had to bit them to win at $500. so annoying.

looking at my dashboard and I saw the bidder was Bidder 913932
They are bidding higher than that on some, usually they are in the number 2 position, seem to blanket every auction with a sliver of interest, it’s like this autobot you know it’s there, and is bidding 8-15% of the auctions appraised value like clockwork. They are adding tens of millions to the houses bottomline with their bidding strategy, and taking a lot of money out of bidder wallets with their automated bids.

They are still gaming the closeouts also, having first pick priority over them.
 
Last edited:
0
•••
looking at my dashboard and I saw the bidder was Bidder 913932


thanks for the info. I checked and found they had outbid me on one this month.
 
0
•••
thanks for the info. I checked and found they had outbid me on one this month.
They have been active in over 90 percent of the auctions I have participated in, I guess we have the same taste, or they are just blanketing everything.

At this point you are going to get caught being bid up the majority of the time. You are best to sit on the sidelines until the next economic downturn, you will make more money then buying to much over bidded dead inventory, which let’s face it, if your turning over 3% of it a year, you are doing pretty good. So if you sell 1 in 35 domains you buy every year, at bidded up prices, not long before you burn your savings, and then you have to grind to get back to even. The risk at this point really outweighs the return.
 
Last edited:
1
•••
Huge Domains has sucked the fun out of domaining for me.
 
0
•••
2
•••
Interestingly, one guy with some time, some coding skills (or help) and little extra to spare, could cost HugeDomains millions.

You'd need to experiment a little and then have HD go for bidding low-mid $xxx on absolute crap and get them buy tens of thousands of names like that, until they realize crowd-piggybacking-slash-exploiting-using-next-door-relationship-with-godaddy is not working anymore
 
7
•••
Interestingly, one guy with some time, some coding skills (or help) and little extra to spare, could cost HugeDomains millions.

You'd need to experiment a little and then have HD go for bidding low-mid $xxx on absolute crap and get them buy tens of thousands of names like that, until they realize crowd-piggybacking-slash-exploiting-using-next-door-relationship-with-godaddy is not working anymore
HugeNames crossed into 4 figures bidding on goldbrand.com today, I have noticed in the past bit they are going for bigger fish, albeit having a lock on their closeout picks, which does help dollar cost average some higher level buys.
 
2
•••
Interestingly, one guy with some time, some coding skills (or help) and little extra to spare, could cost HugeDomains millions.

You'd need to experiment a little and then have HD go for bidding low-mid $xxx on absolute crap and get them buy tens of thousands of names like that, until they realize crowd-piggybacking-slash-exploiting-using-next-door-relationship-with-godaddy is not working anymore
This is exactly what I said a few pages back. The key is in figuring out their bidding algorithm which would take everyone here to give as much information as possible. It's a lot of work in reality because you don't know what they bid on and upto without taking part in the auction and without maxing out their proxy bid.
 
1
•••
Well now you know their bidder ID you'll know exactly what names they bid on.

My guess would be that their algorithm goes through all expired auction names that have 5 mins left (as that's when they seem to bid) and goes something like...

Has name been bid on? (essentially meaning we/other domainers are doing the searching work for them)
Names TLD?
Names age?
Google search stats for name?
Name length?

Etc etc untill it comes up with an amount to bid. This tells me it must be a computer generated algorithm of some sort as it is always a proxy bid, so they have determined what their limit is from the get go. Obviously for domains that go to closeout there must be something that the algorithm sees in it for it to bid straight away.

What annoys me the most is that they have automated the system. If they paid 100 people to trawl and bid manually it wouldn't bother me at all lol as I'd at least have a chance with human error involved.

I also wonder how difficult it would be for a half competent programmer to write a program to do this through GDs api.
 
0
•••
I'm guessing it would take a lot of bidding on a lot of names with a lot of variables to figure out the system but if you knew what to expect it might save you time and also allow you to bid up to just below their limit.

Variables would include...

TLD,
GD appraisal,
Domain age,
Domain length,
Other extensions registered,
Google searches,
Auction page views,

Other information required might include...

Highest bid/winning bid,
If a backorder triggers a bid,
If bidding at different remaining times triggers a bid,
If a name being watched puts in on HDs "radar" (don't know if a "watched" status is available through GD api)

Etc etc you get the idea

My post from another thread.
 
1
•••
Today, after losing three domain auctions to HD, and then thinking about all the names I've lost to them in the past, every day, I've come to a conclusion that there is a bigger point to be made than HD sniping names:

The domain aftermarket is NOT healthy.

To the uninformed, the GD aftermarket looks hot. Just look at all those names being bid on, all those names you just can't win! Damn, it's a hot market, right?

Wrong.

We're being tricked by HD/GD into thinking it is. I wonder just how hot it would look if HD wasn't in there buying up names? Just how many names are they buying every day? Personally, I lost 3 out of 3 auctions today. And the only other bidder was HD. It's not a huge dollar amount, just about a total of $400. But I wonder what I should multiply this number by to understand the true extent of this sham?

To what extent is HD propping up the Godaddy Auctions? I have no idea of the exact or even ballpark number. But my conclusion is that it's telling me that there is so much less demand for names than I was thinking.

Demand from Huge Domains is not demand, folks.

In light of this, I quit.

I will no longer buy new names. I'll continue to sell the names I already own and instead of reinvesting some of that money in new names it's going into my pocket.

Done.
 
5
•••
Today, after losing three domain auctions to HD, and then thinking about all the names I've lost to them in the past, every day, I've come to a conclusion that there is a bigger point to be made than HD sniping names:

The domain aftermarket is NOT healthy.

To the uninformed, the GD aftermarket looks hot. Just look at all those names being bid on, all those names you just can't win! Damn, it's a hot market, right?

Wrong.

We're being tricked by HD/GD into thinking it is. I wonder just how hot it would look if HD wasn't in there buying up names? Just how many names are they buying every day? Personally, I lost 3 out of 3 auctions today. And the only other bidder was HD. It's not a huge dollar amount, just about a total of $400. But I wonder what I should multiply this number by to understand the true extent of this sham?

To what extent is HD propping up the Godaddy Auctions? I have no idea of the exact or even ballpark number. But my conclusion is that it's telling me that there is so much less demand for names than I was thinking.

Demand from Huge Domains is not demand, folks.

In light of this, I quit.

I will no longer buy new names. I'll continue to sell the names I already own and instead of reinvesting some of that money in new names it's going into my pocket.

Done.
I made the same call, I can either be bid up, and overpay, or I can sell off what I have, and just pocket it, instead of being bid up, and forced to pay more by an automated coded bot.

I came across the same scenario, other main bidder was always bidder 91932, they are artificially just inflating the aftermarket. They are creating a fake sense of demand. It’s an expensive project, but I guess they are all in, in trying to buy out the market, and they have the perfect platform to do it on. The newbies keep coming, and lying down for their bid beating.

There is no point in playing bidding games, you can’t win, you are just being maxed out, and after a while, you have to much inventory at higher prices, and the formula just doesn’t work. Plus no value to be had in closeouts, as they snipe those also, so really what’s the point.
 
Last edited:
5
•••
I've monitored this thread on and off for a while.

It isn't just HD but also other investors bidding relentlessly with seemingly limitless budgets that in recent years have come from nowhere with giant war chests and are buying up anything and everything they can lay their hands on.

I gave up almost entirely bidding on godaddy auctions well over a year ago, used to buy plenty but not anymore. It is now part of my daily routine to delete the auctions shortlist email from my godaddy rep straight to trash, not even worth opening it.

I see what end users will pay and their preferences are for .com but max budget in 99% of cases is 3 figures type levels. Anything above that you are aiming for a tiny % of end users who are desperate for your name with all other available options in .com never mind GTLD's/CCTLD's etc.

So to pay up these sort of prices for mediocre/good looking names is a guarantee to be in the red unless you are HD and can do this at scale and know exactly what you are doing. In short i'm not playing that game and don't see that ever changing.
 
3
•••
Someone just snipped Casheo.com from me, I didn't even see it dropping to $11 so i suspect it's HD. I liked the name, What a miss!
 
0
•••
Someone just snipped Casheo.com from me, I didn't even see it dropping to $11 so i suspect it's HD. I liked the name, What a miss!
Either way had you put a last second bid you would have paid $250-400 for it, or take your chances on the closeout which is very hard to win.
 
1
•••
Someone just snipped Casheo.com from me, I didn't even see it dropping to $11 so i suspect it's HD.
Probably your domain is already gone but did you try to restore it for the ridiculous fee of 80 USD or transfer it away in case you stored your authcodes before?

Either way had you put a last second bid you would have paid $250-400 for it, or take your chances on the closeout which is very hard to win.
HugePapa dot com is available. Perhaps not very original but I´m lost for words.
 
0
•••
Probably your domain is already gone but did you try to restore it for the ridiculous fee of 80 USD or transfer it away in case you stored your authcodes before?

HugePapa dot com is available. Perhaps not very original but I´m lost for words.

Not my domain, I was trying to buy it on GD closeouts.
 
0
•••
I have been testing names that Huge Names would like it closeouts, usually they fall thru that 5 minute window, by putting that last minute bid in, it seems Huge Domains bot puts down their max proxy, about 12% of the appraisal. I have bid, and then backed off the bid making them pay a few hundred for a domain they would have sniped in closeouts, a few times now. I don't understand how they can keep paying up like this, no matter how good their business is on the other side, the are still bidding upwards of a thousand for premium auctions also.
 
8
•••
After spending about a good 2 weeks trying to understand their bot, if they have a name on their list, and you don't want to get sniped it closeouts, you are going to have to pay $150-2xx for it based on 10-12% of godaddy's appraised value. So the closeouts are pretty well no longer closeouts, it's more like a wholesale retail value. I don't even need to wait for the auction to end, it's so obvious how their bot just engages, it's like clockwork. You just know it's bidder 91932 just based on how it responds so strong with their top proxy.
 
9
•••
Anyone know who Bidder 1495 is, they have been spending pretty heavy as of late.
 
0
•••
I've cut way back on buying domains at GD due to Huge Domains--it's become simply a huge waste of time. But still I might pick one name a day to go after. I think pretty much all of the last dozen names I bid on were snapped up by bidder 913932.

But what's interesting to me is a name they outbid me for this morning: SLOwatch.com. SLO is the acronym for my small town, San Luis Obispo. I didn't think HD would be interested in a small regional, not great domain name. I was only interested in it for local reasons. I would have paid a small amount for it, with a max bid of $67. HD outbid me and I wasn't about to let my ego get in a bidding war for this unimportant name.

I was so surprised to see HD going going after such a low-quality name. I didn't notice what the GD valuation was for it. Even though their estimates are completely ridiculous, I doubt it was much.

So, in conclusion, you're just not safe bidding on virtually anything at GD without running into bidder 913932--even not-great names.
 
2
•••
SLO is the acronym for my small town, San Luis Obispo.
Thanks for info.
Perhaps they read Slovenia in SLO, as it is the acronym for this small European country, too.
 
0
•••
Back