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registrars GoDaddy Domain Name Expiry Changes

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I just received this email,


Good morning,

We are making a change to our domain name expiry process and wanted to give you enough notice to make decisions on your portfolio. GoDaddy is changing the domain renewal timeline from 42 to 30 days for most domains. Based on our research, less than 1% of our customers renew after 30 days.

Starting Dec 4, the following changes will happen to expired domain names:
* After Day 5 of expiration, DNS, email, hosting, redirecting and any other DNS-dependent services will be interrupted and stop working.
* After Day 30 of expiration, domain names are no longer able to be renewed or transferred away.

We wanted to give a heads -up so you have enough notice to make decisions on your portfolio. As always please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions.

Thanks,
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
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@Paul Nicks

Hope they shorten the time between winning an auction and the domain actually hitting your account.

Time is the enemy.
 
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Hope they shorten the time between winning an auction and the domain actually hitting your account.

It seems like it should be able to happen instantaneously under the new system.
 
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This is true
Paul, it took one outburst from Rick Schwartz, what about the hundreds of us little people who have brought this up for years? Do we not have a voice?
 
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Thanks for commenting. How about opening up bidders ID's for transparency? Is that a change for the future?

It's something we've considered but have no current plans to change
 
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Paul, it took one outburst from Rick Schwartz, what about the hundreds of us little people who have brought this up for years? Do we not have a voice?

The timing of this is coincidental. We have been carefully planning this for over a year, and this is not actually driven by the Aftermarket
 
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It's something we've considered but have no current plans to change

Thanks for answering. I am wondering though, with all that has gone on recently with the discovery of shill bidders in July of this year on the other platform (as I am sure you might have read all the threads)- it seems like being the largest company you could take the opportunity to be taking the leadership role- giving a permanent handle to a trackable paid customer name, with a prefunded account. If not now, then sometime in the near future. I understand some of the biggest customers, don't want to be tracked and they probably account for the most gross revenue. Perfectly understandable. But I would think it would be less overhead for Godaddy (No employee intervention) since the system is somewhat self policing when all bidders know what's going on and bidders ID's.

In live auctions, people actually know who they are bidding against. Even if they have a proxy on a cell phone.

Right now, I don't understand who I am bidding against a real person or "team of persons" or if it's an API or outside sniping software, etc. Some level of Transparency would help, not just bidder 1, bidder 2 and 3 on each auction.

I simply stopped bidding a few months ago after feeling that something was going on. I'd like to return and with new non-clawback change I will check it out. Thank you.
 
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not getting chance to gauge value of domain in an auction and less days to renew and transfer, overall not a great decision for average domainers or domain owners.
 
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Most people had no clue this was going on, but now that's its dead the cat can come leaping out of the bag.

Here's what was going on.

You let your domain expire, and it would go to auction. The auction would run it's course and if the domain sold for an amount that you cared about then you could just transfer it out to a cheaper registrar for regfee. GoDaddy would charge you a $70 fee to keep the domain with them, but why keep it with them when you can transfer out for less than $9 USD to other registrars that had free privacy.

The process was simple: (btw these were the exact instructions obtained by a spammer thanks pal)
RECOVER EXPIRED DOMAIN AFTER AUCTION:
1. Log into your GoDaddy account.
2. Next to Domains click Manage.
3. From the Domains menu, select Expired Domains. You should see these names listed here.
4. Unlock the domain (hover your cursor over the green check marks and click to edit/change to unlock).
5. Select the domain you want to transfer out and then click Email Authorization.
6. you will receive transfer code in the email use that code to transfer to ***********!
7. Process complete.

The hilarious part of this process was that GoDaddy would never just send you the transfer code unless you did step #5 twice. If you did it twice then you could get the transfer code within a few seconds.

You could do this within 5 days of the auction ending, 6 days if you really wanted to push it. (I've seen people say 4, this was not true).

Why would anyone do this at all? Here is why.

So when a GD domain goes to auction the parade of spammers that starts eMailing people about 'domain availability' kicks in. Imagine having 5 or 10 spammers spamming the zone file letting people know that your domain was becoming available.

They did this to get a piece of the pie, if the eMail recipient clicked on their link and used them as a broker then the spammer/broker could charge them a fee and then go to auction and make a profit. Most people would just visit the domain and would see the auction available through GD, and they would place a bid. So to let you domain go to auction was smart. It cost you nothing and you got free promotion from spammers.

Another angle.

The problem was that GoDaddy was allowing domain owners to bid on their own auctions to get it started. The shill bidding did not happen all of the time, but it happened. Let's say that the auction had a few bids early. Now the expired domains vultures can clearly see that there is an auction with a few bids, so it gets their attention. Now the domain has a few bids on it and it starts the become visible of the GD platform in the listings. In the end you have an auction for a name that has now been seen by end users, investors, and casual GD browsers.

Flippa does .035% of that kind of marketing and charges $250 for a premium listing. All because you just let the domain name expire and had ZERO risk involved because you can renew it on the last day after the auction.

GD is going to see a big exodus away from their service with investors.

There is now no reason to stay with a service that charges you $150 (DDC) to have access to reduced $9 pricing, when other registrars offer reduced pricing for free. There is now no reason to stay with a service where privacy is being charged, when other registrars are INCLUDING privacy. There is now no reason to stay with a service who has hosting that is complete crap.

This is going to hurt GD more that help, because this was just about the only thing keeping many portfolio holders with the service. This 30 day move will save the corp from the shill scandal that would have imploded stock prices at some point.

It's a good move overall for auction participants, but it's going to diminish the quality of domains available through expired auctions.
 
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That's so smart I never even thought about using GD to market my crappy domains to find users
 
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GoDaddy proudly boasted that they were fulfilling ICANN's requirements by allowing you to renew/transfer up to 42 of the 45 days supposed to be allowed under ICANN. So they've now changed this to 30 days, the same as many other companies. F*** the actual owners rights to their domains. It was the problems they were having with their auctions which caused this change. It was predictable. Because GoDaddy don't care about your owners rights to your domains. They never have. And don't let them tell you otherwise.
 
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Some thoughts on this -

1.) The change certainly doesn't seem all that beneficial to registrants in my view. While it might be rare domains are redeemed after day 30, it does happen and sometimes for very valid reasons like illness.

2.) This is a massive change to registrant's rights to only give (3) weeks notice, especially if it has was being worked on for a year as Paul said above.

3.) This change will obviously stop the free appraisal game where an owner will let the domain expire then transfer it out after it ends. It will also stop after the auction bidder circumvention.

4.) If the auction schedule is not being changed, it means it will still go to auction on day 26. That gives the registrant 4-5 days after it goes to auction where they can still renew it.

5.) For a multi-billion dollar company with massive resources, I am not sure why GoDaddy can't figure out the timing when it comes to auctions. Other venues like NameJet that deal in expired domains when the auction starts it can no longer be redeemed. If the redemption period is 30 days, why not start the auction after that period?

Brad
 
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It's something we've considered but have no current plans to change

I think GoDaddy auctions should reconsider having bidder id's and so do a lot of other domainers that buy and sell domains on your platform.

Mark Thorpe
 
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I think these actions by GoDaddy clearly show how important their auctions are to their revenue and profits.
 
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@Paul Nicks
And for God's sake, I hope in your new release people who bid on your domain and you accept their bid, there are mechanisms in place that guarantees the seller is paid. Perhaps by freezing a portion of the offer on their credit card. Time and time again, so called buyers are not paying! The only recourse is "we'll freeze their account"... big wow..

Also, this 5 day rule thing that everything stops working.. I had a domain with another registrar and even at the 25th day (wasn't 100% sure if I wanted to renew or not), everything was still forwarding and as a result I got a very decent sale. Guess what that means... more investing......You're just hurting domainers and consequently yourselves with these policies.... going backwards..
 
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@Paul Nicks
And for God's sake, I hope in your new release people who bid on your domain and you accept their bid, they are mechanisms in place that guarantees the seller is paid. Perhaps by freezing a portion of the offer on their credit card. Time and time again, so called buyers are not paying! The only recourse is "we'll freeze their account"... big wow..

Also, this 5 day rule thing that everything stops working.. I had a domain with another registrar and even at the 25th day (wasn't 100% sure if I wanted to renew or not), everything was still forwarding and as a result I got a very decent sale. Guess what that means... more investing......You're just hurting domainers with these policies.... going backwards..

I also had some buyers not pay for some of my sold domains on GoDaddy auctions.
Very frustrating!

Mark Thorpe
@Paul Nicks
And for God's sake, I hope in your new release people who bid on your domain and you accept their bid, they are mechanisms in place that guarantees the seller is paid. Perhaps by freezing a portion of the offer on their credit card. Time and time again, so called buyers are not paying! The only recourse is "we'll freeze their account"... big wow..

Also, this 5 day rule thing that everything stops working.. I had a domain with another registrar and even at the 25th day (wasn't 100% sure if I wanted to renew or not), everything was still forwarding and as a result I got a very decent sale. Guess what that means... more investing......You're just hurting domainers and consequently yourselves with these policies.... going backwards..
 
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Why not have an arrangement with actual local auctioneers where people can go a domain name auction weekly and sell a few domains in person and get paid instantly with domain name transferred instantly and seller paid instantly

I know it's not domain names etc

But have a look at @dvlaauction on twitter and scroll down - you can view previous auction clips etc I think it is where people turn up live but people can view it live and or bid via a phone line or via the Internet etc

That seems to work well for uk number plates

No reason why it can't work work domain names too where everyone competes against each other eg individuals and the trade etc but it is done all present and correct
 
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I was intending to move my remaining GoDaddy names out or sell off. As far as the auctions there should be more transparency and the auctions should happen after the previous owner can no longer change their mind. But we know that’s not going to happen, Also don’t like how we pay high prices for some dropping name and don’t even get the full year we bought,
 
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Transparency will come when those bidder ids are revealed, and we see the light.

There is no reason to hide them, other than we might discover how many bots might be bidding?

There is something that is not being told, and it is worrisome, what would be the reason to keep bidder ids hidden, they can even be a given serial number, not an identifier name if they fear something greater, I don't know.

The shorter expiration window favors the house for profits, but full bidder disclosure may tip the scale to bidders, as their are many here who can sniff out patterns which are not random by design.

If anyone can think of why bidder ids cannot be integrated, I would love to hear it, maybe I am missing something, and just need to be educated on why not, which is great, and I would totally accept it...
 
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@wwwweb
If a certain bidder ID wins, then someone can verify where the won name is later forwarding, or what whois is showing. If it happens that it's a successful investor, or known domainer, then their cover is blown.

By having that info, then you can potentially make a list of which ID belongs to which person, and when you see that ID in the bidding wars, you know they are onto something, or a hidden gem that you have missed and start bidding on a domain that perhaps you wouldn't have gone into otherwise. Or others bidding that person up on puporse if they don't like him.

That being said perhaps an official neutral 3rd party verification body can be an option. Like major lottery verifiations.
 
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Some thoughts on this -

4.) If the auction schedule is not being changed, it means it will still go to auction on day 26. That gives the registrant 4-5 days after it goes to auction where they can still renew it.

5.) For a multi-billion dollar company with massive resources, I am not sure why GoDaddy can't figure out the timing when it comes to auctions. Other venues like NameJet that deal in expired domains when the auction starts it can no longer be redeemed. If the redemption period is 30 days, why not start the auction after that period?

Brad

One reason to let the domain go to auction while still providing the registrant the opportunity to renew is all the 'collective intelligence' that comes from our attention. For example, I was able to alert a client that one of their domains (a forward, not their main url) had sold at auction because I accidentally ran across it. Their renewal was someone else's clawback, but considering the name was only marginally valuable, I'd have to assume that the bidding frenzy was only because it associated with a legit and growing company.

On the other hand I've been 'victim' to the auction-appraisal-transfer-out scam and know how it feels to have a name clawed back. If I'm reading this right, we can assume that any expired name at Gddy with 6 or fewer days left until auction close WILL sell/transfer if bought.
 
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So domain owners can no longer renew domains after an auction has completed?

Good news for GD auctions buyers. But terrible news for Jason Newby.
 
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