Brandworthy
Established Member
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Some information about one particular GD Auctions API Bot and how their automated bidding works. I try not to watch live auctions. Too easy to get caught up in the ebb and flow (and end up overbidding). But I sat and bid some auctions to better understand the programmed behaviour of the bot. All the bidding activity is designed to minimise the cost and maximise the probability of winning. Here are some of the traits it displayed:
1. Initial bid is a backorder. Contrary to what some may think after Godaddy raised backorder pricing some time back, Backorders are marginally cheaper than $5 closeouts when buyers purchase in bulk. The cheapest closeout is $13.47, but when you buy backorders by the hundreds Godaddy will offer you a price around $0.20 cheaper than this. Possibly cheaper if you buy thousands of backorders (which I suspect teh ownerof this bot likely does).
2. Right after the backorder is created a second bid is placed at the next bid amount (i.e. $5 higher). This behaviour is replicated once the bot becomes the high bidder also (see later). I suspect this second bid is to retain the high bidder position if a second bidder comes in with a new non-proxy minimum bid. So Bidder 1 (the bot) places backorder at $10. Immediately after Bidder 1 also places a bid at $15. If a new Bidder 2 places the minimum bid at $15, Bidder 1 is still the high bidder at $15.
3. Approximately 20 seconds before the auction is set to end the bot checks the current bid. Becasue GD's web interface only shows hours and minutes it's not possible to see if this timing is set or varies. If the bot is still the high bidder I suspect they do not check again (very difficult to check via web). If they are NOT the highest bidder they will place a single bid $5 higher than the current high bid. The API response will tell them if their recent bid is the high bid or not. If not, they will immediately place a new bid $5 higher, and continue doing so until they are the high bidder (or their bid budget is reached, more on this later). In the web interface you can clearly see this behaviour when there are a very high number of bids made in less than a minute, which would be impossible to achieve manually.
4. If the bot's bid becomes the high bidder a secondary bid $5 USD higher is immediately added, similar to (2) above, subject to the bots bid budget. This is done to minimise the price at which bot finally becomes the winning bidder (no need to bid $5 more if a single higher bid is made).
5. At no time will the bot make a proxy bid. This suggests that the bot has been programmed to take as much time as possible. This strategy may be designed to wear out human bidders, and in fairness, a part of me admires the tactics used here. But as a human bidder, I imagine most people will despise this behaviour.
6. The bot does have a bid budget, but I don't have enough data to posit how this might be set. Right now I suspect it might be set at 8-12% of an appraised value.
Based on what I've seen this bot is optimised in multiple ways to acquire domains for the lowest possible price. From using backorders to setting secondary bids at minimum next bid level, and not placing proxy-bids to adding new challenging bids at the latest possible point in time, the bot is designed to minimise costs, maximise duration, and win as many auctions within budget as possible. Placing a secondary bid $5 above the bots current winning bid is very clever IMO, as this negates at least some cases where you would have to bid an additional $5 to finally win the auction.
Hope the above might be useful to some GD auctions users who come up against this opponent!
1. Initial bid is a backorder. Contrary to what some may think after Godaddy raised backorder pricing some time back, Backorders are marginally cheaper than $5 closeouts when buyers purchase in bulk. The cheapest closeout is $13.47, but when you buy backorders by the hundreds Godaddy will offer you a price around $0.20 cheaper than this. Possibly cheaper if you buy thousands of backorders (which I suspect teh ownerof this bot likely does).
2. Right after the backorder is created a second bid is placed at the next bid amount (i.e. $5 higher). This behaviour is replicated once the bot becomes the high bidder also (see later). I suspect this second bid is to retain the high bidder position if a second bidder comes in with a new non-proxy minimum bid. So Bidder 1 (the bot) places backorder at $10. Immediately after Bidder 1 also places a bid at $15. If a new Bidder 2 places the minimum bid at $15, Bidder 1 is still the high bidder at $15.
3. Approximately 20 seconds before the auction is set to end the bot checks the current bid. Becasue GD's web interface only shows hours and minutes it's not possible to see if this timing is set or varies. If the bot is still the high bidder I suspect they do not check again (very difficult to check via web). If they are NOT the highest bidder they will place a single bid $5 higher than the current high bid. The API response will tell them if their recent bid is the high bid or not. If not, they will immediately place a new bid $5 higher, and continue doing so until they are the high bidder (or their bid budget is reached, more on this later). In the web interface you can clearly see this behaviour when there are a very high number of bids made in less than a minute, which would be impossible to achieve manually.
4. If the bot's bid becomes the high bidder a secondary bid $5 USD higher is immediately added, similar to (2) above, subject to the bots bid budget. This is done to minimise the price at which bot finally becomes the winning bidder (no need to bid $5 more if a single higher bid is made).
5. At no time will the bot make a proxy bid. This suggests that the bot has been programmed to take as much time as possible. This strategy may be designed to wear out human bidders, and in fairness, a part of me admires the tactics used here. But as a human bidder, I imagine most people will despise this behaviour.
6. The bot does have a bid budget, but I don't have enough data to posit how this might be set. Right now I suspect it might be set at 8-12% of an appraised value.
Based on what I've seen this bot is optimised in multiple ways to acquire domains for the lowest possible price. From using backorders to setting secondary bids at minimum next bid level, and not placing proxy-bids to adding new challenging bids at the latest possible point in time, the bot is designed to minimise costs, maximise duration, and win as many auctions within budget as possible. Placing a secondary bid $5 above the bots current winning bid is very clever IMO, as this negates at least some cases where you would have to bid an additional $5 to finally win the auction.
Hope the above might be useful to some GD auctions users who come up against this opponent!
