discuss Beating Dropcatch.com ? Possible ?

Daniel Owens said:

Well, GD checks 6 times a second and dropcatch checks more often. I seriously doubt even if you have a 1 gigbit connection you will be able to check more than 2-3 times a second if your lucky. If, you can't even beat GD you certainly can't beat dropcatch. Perhaps, you should try to snipe less competitive domains and flip them. In, the case of good domains they aren't that easy to snipe fast enough to get, it would be impossible that you'd get an LLL .com or LLL .org even, and basically impossible that you would catch a low-quality 4L .com. You'd be lucky to catch a 4L .net chinese premium with the software, even that is highly unlikely!
Solution? Possibly, snapnames might be a good option at least they only put it for a PRIVATE auction if more than 1 person backorders, whereas GD and dropcatch do public auction for domains snipped if more than one backorder.

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Only 6 times a sec? Suppose even one of my setup send 1 API req per 10 sec, Whole system can send about 100 API req per sec with 100 Setup

Siddharth W said:

Only 6 times a sec? Suppose even one of my setup send 1 API req per 10 sec, Whole system can send about 100 API req per sec with 100 Setup

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Best of Luck, start wasting those dollars on multiple vps/servers. Cheers.

hwgriffi said:

Even with all of this you are missing a key fundamental... registrars.

With the DropCatch network of registrars they can fire off tens of thousands of domain requests per second maybe more bro.

You can't build a cost effective system, using registry rate limited API requests, and expect to achieve the same result as they are.

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Yeah, They Can fire of but the question is do they really fire? For a Single domain?
Cost effective, Maybe Not but Question is just beating by anyway.
Registry has limited API req but what if we've unlimited acc. (10k+) do their Limited API still matters?

Daniel Owens said:

Best of Luck, start wasting those dollars on multiple vps/servers. Cheers.

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Btw, Where how did you get to know that GD checks only 6 times a sec ?

I agree you would need to be your own domain name register to pull this off very easily.

Siddharth W said:

Btw, Where how did you get to know that GD checks only 6 times a sec ?

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A rep on the phone from GD, although they tried to sell it as a positive.

Mankind made can be competed by another mankind made.
Oneday, dropcatch will become a past.

Do not forget that backordering services choose how they'll use their ressources for catching domains. If multiple people backorders the same domain and put money on domains in the past they will decide to put power on it.

Hani A. said:

Mankind made can be competed by another mankind made.
Oneday, dropcatch will become a past.

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guess what we may made to beat dropcatch.com? acquired the registry company (verisign/icann)? :lol

today i am laughing because above statement, but in few years again maybe i am laughing because someone had made it & not me that made it in the past :lol

@Dave it wasn't the initial cost of 1 registrar I was speaking of. It was the cost of setting up several hundred of them. I know for some registries they only allow 1 registrar per "company" as well. That means setting up a new company for each registrar, setting up the registrar, and then as mentioned the catching system. Overall, to really compete with DropCatch, it's going to be very, very, very expensive.

FPForum said:

@Dave it wasn't the initial cost of 1 registrar I was speaking of. It was the cost of setting up several hundred of them. I know for some registries they only allow 1 registrar per "company" as well. That means setting up a new company for each registrar, setting up the registrar, and then as mentioned the catching system. Overall, to really compete with DropCatch, it's going to be very, very, very expensive.

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Yes, I think you'd need at least $5 million to even consider competing at a bare minimum. Maybe closer to 10 million.

I honestly can't see where the return would come from with that kind of investment to be honest. I would look at investing in other things if I had that kind of money for sure.

All those cores in Iceland crunching Bitcoin might need a job soon..So yes, it is possible. With a warehouse full of servers.

Siddharth W said:

Yeah, They Can fire of but the question is do they really fire? For a Single domain?
Cost effective, Maybe Not but Question is just beating by anyway.
Registry has limited API req but what if we've unlimited acc. (10k+) do their Limited API still matters?

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API limits also matter. With a single API key, you can only have on active API call in progress at most registrars. Which means, you'll also have to create 10K accounts with the registrar (ignoring the registrar's objections to this), manage 10K set of API credentials and rotate them efficiently across API calls. Try it and let us know how that fares, even with 10K VPS'

Dave said:

I honestly can't see where the return would come from with that kind of investment to be honest.

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I see it easily. Just look at their daily auctions. Remember that NameBio only reports sales over $1K. And how many auctions are there in $100 - $1K range closing daily? I could try to watch it the next few days, but i guess it's dozens daily. Heck they must have dozens if not hundreds delivered non auctioned backorders in $10-59 range. And their fixed cost for each such sale - is $7 to registry. So, take a median profit about $20 per domain - i smell easily $10K daily. Ok, even if only $5K. So $5M sounded by you, is very worth to invest.

And all this even without those crazy auctions ending with $2K or $15K. Few auctions like this a month - and you are okay.

I’m very grateful to Andrew and Jeff Reberry for opening up the DropCatch platform which I believe was originally used exclusively to build up the Huge Domains portfolio.

It’s refreshing to use after so many bad experiences using SnapNames, which I have now abandoned completely.

I have a good success rate at DropCatch because it is a fair and level playing field. It is open to anyone so I don’t understand why anyone would seriously want to “compete” with them. What, to operate your own private domain catching service and exclude everyone else?

Or if someone creates 1,000 new registrars and builds a new and competitive open drop catching service, then we would all have to start backordering in two venues instead of one to maintain our success rates. What would be the point or advantage of that?

The article referenced earlier by @fastcool provides a lot of info about the challenge of building a service.

“Domain drop-catching service DropCatch.com has added five hundred new registrar accreditations to its stable over the last few days.

“The additions give the company a total accreditation count of at least 1,252, according to DI data.”

(DomainIncite. DropCatch spends millions to buy FIVE HUNDRED more registrars. 2 December, 2016.)

DomainIncite also mentions the significant cost of creating 500 new LLC companies to match these 500 new registrars.

A DomainNameWire article about a year earlier said this:

“The company behind expired domain name catching service DropCatch.com has adding 300 more accredited registrars to its arsenal, and now has a whopping 752 registrars. This is according to ICANN’s public list of accredited registrars.”

(DomainNameWire. Wow: DropCatch adds 300 more registrars, now has 752. 9 October, 2015.)

https://domainnamewire (dot) com/2015/10/09/wow-dropcatch-adds-300-more-registrars-now-has-752/

So thanks to Turn Commerce and the Reberry brothers for providing such a fair and valuable resource.

BrandableDomain said:

Or if someone creates 1,000 new registrars and builds a new and competitive open drop catching service, then we would all have to start backordering in two venues instead of one to maintain our success rates. What would be the point or advantage of that?

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Competition is always good for consumers.

At the same time Pheenix dropped most of their registrars, clearly the game was no longer cost-effective for them. The same could happen to DC at some point.
That game doesn't look sustainable in the long term.

@Dave I think you're cost estimates are probably fairly accurate. For someone looking to get in that deep at this point in time would be a bit risky. @golan DropCatch is certainly raking in the money, but think of the cost it would take to set everything up, and how long it would take to return all of that. Not to mention you're still competing with DropCatch, SnapNames, NameJet and other smaller registrars. I can't remember if VeriSign does renewals for registrars, but it wouldn't surprise me. With hundreds of registrars that's now another yearly cost you might have to factor in. Not to mention company renewals for each of your registered businesses which the registrars are under each year. It's like @Kate just mentioned - such a large setup could become hard to maintain. More and more of the *best* names that dropped before aren't dropping again. I think people these days are much more aware of what they have, and always keeping the more premium-type names renewed. For a setup like DropCatch or NameJet to keep that huge machine running I would imagine they need their fair share of $XXXX auctions. The few hundred dollar auctions are nice, but with the bills they probably have each year I imagine they need those big auctions too. Not to say something like an LLL.com won't ever drop again, but for those places it's probably important great names like that which can bring them several thousands of dollars in one auction continue to drop for them to grab. Once those dry up and they're sales are mostly around the $500-$1k range there might not be enough to sustain hundreds of registrars in your arsenal. I'd be a little curious what the average auction price is for DropCatch right now. I'd be even more curious what it is in comparison to 5 years ago. More? Less?

@BrandableDomain I hear what you're saying. Before DropCatch came around it was pretty much NameJet and SnapNames grabbing all the top-notch names dropping each day. Even with all the problems and shady practices SnapNames had they were still getting great names and if you wanted one you had to give them your business. Competition is nice like @golan said and that's exactly what DropCatch brought, some real competition. At this day in age it's the two old places that are now needing to play catch up to the newer company that had a solid plan, put it into motion, and essentially become the best at it. Props to the Reberry family!

For regular domainers, without any shadow of a doubt, the best thing is not to alert other domainers if you find a good expiring domain.

That means just bidding quietly at snapnames.com *only* on the day (don't bid the day before).

You can always join the auction later (if one starts) at dropcatch, but snapnames.com is your best chance. I would say it's 60/40 now to DropCatch.

That means for $79 you can beat dropcatch if nobody else bids.

I must hand it to HugeDomains they really know what they are doing. Buy low sell high(er) is your path to success. The lower you pay for your domains, the greater your odds of success. The more you overpay in an auction for an expired domain - just because it is expired - the less your odds of success.

domainer111 said:

For regular domainers, without any shadow of a doubt, the best thing is not to alert other domainers if you find a good expiring domain.

That means just bidding quietly at snapnames.com *only* on the day (don't bid the day before).

You can always join the auction later (if one starts) at dropcatch, but snapnames.com is your best chance. I would say it's 60/40 now to DropCatch.

That means for $79 you can beat dropcatch if nobody else bids.

I must hand it to HugeDomains they really know what they are doing. Buy low sell high(er) is your path to success. The lower you pay for your domains, the greater your odds of success. The more you overpay in an auction for an expired domain - just because it is expired - the less your odds of success.

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exactly, many domainers have this strategy due to dc and hd now.

Many domains sold by dc goes to customers who did not backorder, they only follow current auctions for their investment. they use thework of others who backordered...

The only way to beat drop catch is to buy them

Well, everything is possible - Different thing is what is your changes to succeed?

Isn't dropcatching/backordering slowly becoming a thing of the past now that the registrar's are auctioning off their own expired domains before they even drop (GD, Name, Namesilo, etc)? I would imagine the market has declined considerably in recent years. HD is the next business model for the big spenders, by which I mean buying everything worth anything on the expired auctions. Maybe DC will start to move into buying the backordered names from the expired auctions on their clients behalfs.

Apologies if this has already been mentioned or makes no sense.

Isac said:

The only way to beat drop catch is to buy them

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how much they company worth approximately?
checking my wallet.... :D

D Haynes said:

Isn't dropcatching/backordering slowly becoming a thing of the past now that the registrar's are auctioning off their own expired domains before they even drop (GD, Name, Namesilo, etc)? I would imagine the market has declined considerably in recent years. HD is the next business model for the big spenders, by which I mean buying everything worth anything on the expired auctions. Maybe DC will start to move into buying the backordered names from the expired auctions on their clients behalfs.

Apologies if this has already been mentioned or makes no sense.

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you are right too, wonder why some great domains falling from each registrar internal auction at first

D Haynes said:

Isn't dropcatching/backordering slowly becoming a thing of the past now that the registrar's are auctioning off their own expired domains before they even drop (GD, Name, Namesilo, etc)? I would imagine the market has declined considerably in recent years. HD is the next business model for the big spenders, by which I mean buying everything worth anything on the expired auctions. Maybe DC will start to move into buying the backordered names from the expired auctions on their clients behalfs.

Apologies if this has already been mentioned or makes no sense.

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Already DC doing this, I've participated an auction on GD but lost, later i can see that domain transfered to "NB / TurnCommerce" listed for sale on hugedomains(so i believe the last bidder is DC).