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

Arca · Dec 9, 2016

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

Related: HUGE DOMAINS SNIPING GODADDY CLOSEOUTS

MapleDots · Apr 20, 2018

We are getting noticed, seen a few good links recently

https://www.thedomains.com/2018/04/20/does-godaddy-have-too-much-power/

LifeFreedom · Apr 20, 2018

Michael M said:
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.

Thank you for that.

I checked these domains as mentioned in the first article on Huge Domains

domaindinosaur(.)com - $2595
datagrain(.)com- $1595
huntingcircle(.)com- $2395

Interesting pricing.

RozasMD · Apr 20, 2018

Joe Styler said:
Even though you hate us we still like you GoDaddy does not bid on, win, take, hold back, warehouse, etc domains on the expired auction period end of story.
Also anyone can say whatever they want, we are a free society and love open dialogue. We would never ban an account for posting negative stuff about us. In fact we rarely ban anyone the vast majority of people want to sell the names they list and buy the ones they bid on

It's many of us who are experiencing 'unusual' things with GoDaddy expired names lately. And as far as I know, you fail to give an explanation. You just state 'We don't do this, period'. But no further explanation for this 'unusual' behavior.

I stopped using GoDaddy auctions for several months, and I must confess that in the last month, since I've started using the service again, there's not been a single a day without one of this cases.

Today one name just disappeared from my cart. It was a last day closeout name, $5, 3:30 hours to go. I finally decide to buy it and suddenly... boom... 'there's been a problem'. Not available anymore. Gone. Well maybe the name went fully unnoticed till the very same minute I decided to buy it and it's all a matter of hard luck. But this adds to a dozen names I've been watching that went with no bids but never made it to the closeout, and are now for sale at afternic, under no username, and under whois privacy.

It's all shady and there's no satisfactory explanation from your end. Just a smile and a statement: we don't do that, period.

To be honest, to me this looks like an operation about keeping names based on not just estimated value, but also on traffic, whois search and auction users behavior stats - that's a powerful tool to use. I have no evidence, obviously, it's just a feeling. But sure I'm not a happy customer anymore. To me GoDaddy is not a partner, it's a competitor. And you seem to be using my behavior on your platform to compete against me... or to sell me the names I might be interested in at 10/20/50 times the closeout price.

You can disregard this as conspiracy theories but I believe there's a growing number of domainers with this same -or similar- feeling.

Name Trader · Apr 20, 2018

LifeFreedom said:
Thank you for that.

I checked these domains as mentioned in the first article on Huge Domains

domaindinosaur(.)com - $2595
datagrain(.)com- $1595
huntingcircle(.)com- $2395

Interesting pricing.

I am. We most are..... DomainDinosaurs

Heck. I even have one as a pet...... "Dino, Dinooo"

Joe Styler · Apr 20, 2018

RozasMD said:
It's many of us who are experiencing 'unusual' things with GoDaddy expired names lately. And as far as I know, you fail to give an explanation. You just state 'We don't do this, period'. But no further explanation for this 'unusual' behavior.

I stopped using GoDaddy auctions for several months, and I must confess that in the last month, since I've started using the service again, there's not been a single a day without one of this cases.

Today one name just disappeared from my cart. It was a last day closeout name, $5, 3:30 hours to go. I finally decide to buy it and suddenly... boom... 'there's been a problem'. Not available anymore. Gone. Well maybe the name went fully unnoticed till the very same minute I decided to buy it and it's all a matter of hard luck. But this adds to a dozen names I've been watching that went with no bids but never made it to the closeout, and are now for sale at afternic, under no username, and under whois privacy.

It's all shady and there's no satisfactory explanation from your end. Just a smile and a statement: we don't do that, period.

To be honest, to me this looks like an operation about keeping names based on not just estimated value, but also on traffic, whois search and auction users behavior stats - that's a powerful tool to use. I have no evidence, obviously, it's just a feeling. But sure I'm not a happy customer anymore. To me GoDaddy is not a partner, it's a competitor. And you seem to be using my behavior on your platform to compete against me... or to sell me the names I might be interested in at 10/20/50 times the closeout price.

You can disregard this as conspiracy theories but I believe there's a growing number of domainers with this same -or similar- feeling.

There are a lot of buyers on the platform it is not unusual to face strong competition, even on this thread many people have come out and said they buy domains the same way you and many others are every day. It is not just one big buyer although we certainly do have many big buyers as well as many smaller buyers and end user buyers.
As far as the error occurring on the check out it sounds to me like a cookies issue. If you call into support they can fix that for you. Here is what I am guessing happened. You clicked buy the domain and it made you sign in to your account and when you did it didn't recognize you as the same person who clicked buy now. This can happen for a variety of reasons, you use a couple accounts, you block certain cookies, you used a private browser window, etc etc and the platform does not recognize you are the same person who logged into the account. If anyone clicks on a BIN closeout name it removes it from the platform so you can check it out, otherwise other people could also buy the same domain before you check out. We remove it for a period of time. You can call support and they can cancel the hold on it and you will see it again. Best advice is login to the account before looking for domains and when you hit the BIN button it will know it is you and you can pay if there is something else involved in here which is making us not know you are the same person.

Name Trader · Apr 20, 2018

LifeFreedom said:
Thank you for that.

I checked these domains as mentioned in the first article on Huge Domains

domaindinosaur(.)com - $2595
datagrain(.)com- $1595
huntingcircle(.)com- $2395

Interesting pricing.

I liked HarryAndHisBucketFullOfDinosaurs.com $2495

RozasMD · Apr 20, 2018

Joe Styler said:
There are a lot of buyers on the platform it is not unusual to face strong competition, even on this thread many people have come out and said they buy domains the same way you and many others are every day. It is not just one big buyer although we certainly do have many big buyers as well as many smaller buyers and end user buyers.
As far as the error occurring on the check out it sounds to me like a cookies issue. If you call into support they can fix that for you. Here is what I am guessing happened. You clicked buy the domain and it made you sign in to your account and when you did it didn't recognize you as the same person who clicked buy now. This can happen for a variety of reasons, you use a couple accounts, you block certain cookies, you used a private browser window, etc etc and the platform does not recognize you are the same person who logged into the account. If anyone clicks on a BIN closeout name it removes it from the platform so you can check it out, otherwise other people could also buy the same domain before you check out. We remove it for a period of time. You can call support and they can cancel the hold on it and you will see it again. Best advice is login to the account before looking for domains and when you hit the BIN button it will know it is you and you can pay if there is something else involved in here which is making us not know you are the same person.

Thanks for the advice. Appreciate it. Anyway, even if that's the case the closeout period for this name ended hours ago, so it is gone anyway whatever I do now. Tough luck.

And back to the main subject, I think the expired domain auction needs far more transparency regarding process, bidders and conditions depending original registrar. As I said in my previous post, it's all quite shady.

As long as this transparency is lacking the shadow of doubt will always be there.

Hater · Apr 21, 2018

I still see many domain names closes with no bids and never shows on closeouts, and then listed at afternic.com with similar low prices. Godaddy is tasting domains this way, they want to see whether HugeDomains' catch and sale tactic would work for them. If it works as a profitable branch, customers can say bye bye to closeout sniping.

If you are so open and transparent show bidders aliases to anyone attended to the auction for the domain at least?
Would you do this? No, because it is bad for your cartel profits.

Recons.Com · Apr 21, 2018

What also surprises me is that this mystery buyer uses privacy and lists all the names on Afternic, even at prices that makes no sense given the sell through % for someone really independent.

And, oh, btw, for some reason won't list them at Sedo or other marketplaces.

This truly makes no sense for anyone with a portion of a brain and I don't believe anyone with deep pockets to spend millions $ would be that stupid.

Arca · Apr 21, 2018

Hater said:
If you are so open and transparent show bidders aliases to anyone attended to the auction for the domain at least?

Poll: Should GoDaddy Auctions display bidder handles?

aheiven · Apr 17, 2019

GeorgeQuang · Apr 17, 2019

80% this year.

Croissant · May 21, 2019

I lost against HugeDomains =)

I feel like I am fighting with Gods

MapleDots · May 21, 2019

candyengineer said:
I lost against HugeDomains =)

I feel like I am fighting with Gods

HeHe

No, you are fighting against computer algorithms, and trust me they only go so high. I had to go up over $800 before they stopped bidding on a domain.

wwwweb · May 21, 2019

MapleDots said:
HeHe

No, you are fighting against computer algorithms, and trust me they only go so high. I had to go up over $800 before they stopped bidding on a domain.

You think after owning 6 million domains, and having multiple drop catching registers they need to pay $800 per domain anymore? Probably not, most likely killing two birds with one stone, and getting a kickback at the same time.

MapleDots · May 21, 2019

wwwweb said:
You think after owning 6 million domains, and having multiple drop catching registers they need to pay $800 per domain anymore? Probably not, most likely killing two birds with one stone, and getting a kickback at the same time.

I have lost a few where I've placed some pretty high bids, afterwards I checked and they were at Huge Domains. I don't think they get any discounts once they place a bid. If I bid $450 and they bid $500 then I'm pretty sure they're paying $500.

That is why some domains cost about 1k more than the average. I bet they were bid up on some of those.

wwwulff · May 21, 2019

candyengineer said:
I lost against HugeDomains =)

I feel like I am fighting with Gods

Besides that they now get most of the best closeout´s, they bid on 80-90% of all names on expired auctions, so if you want a name that way, you have to pay

wwwweb · May 21, 2019

wwwulff said:
Besides that they now get most of the best closeout´s, they bid on 80-90% of all names on expired auctions, so if you want a name that way, you have to pay

If that name is on their list, they will engage their proxy on it, so you will pay $xxx either way.

wwwweb · May 21, 2019

MapleDots said:
I have lost a few where I've placed some pretty high bids, afterwards I checked and they were at Huge Domains. I don't think they get any discounts once they place a bid. If I bid $450 and they bid $500 then I'm pretty sure they're paying $500.

That is why some domains cost about 1k more than the average. I bet they were bid up on some of those.

I would believe it if they got a partner rebate based on business value. Their proxy bot makes more money for the house than any other client. They are pretty much in every auction with substance. Even on outside platforms we are still being taxed by huge domains in order to purchase a domain. Majority of those domains really don’t have any other bidders outside $12, most people end up bidding, then outbidding, and then everyone jumps in on the action. They really haven’t been able to get any of the good names that sell for over $1k, but they do keep the auction alive a lot longer with their proxy bids, and that allows more people to bid.

tonyk2000 · May 21, 2019

MapleDots said:
If I bid $450 and they bid $500 then I'm pretty sure they're paying $500.

Yeah. But, what if they receive a cashback in cases where

MapleDots said:
I had to go up over $800 before they stopped bidding on a domain.

Total daily balance will be affected, and seriously, if it is the case.

It is not illegal to offer $$$/cashback to 2nd high bidders. This also happened in our industry (on new gtld registry auctions - rights to run gtlds). But it was all public.

Not all such deals are public in B2B relations in general or auctions in particular. Some would have NDA. So it would be illegal for any of 2 parties to disclose such a specific relationship details. We should not even ask either party - the answer will be negative by default.

cuni.co · May 23, 2019

Yes they are, I was bidding on icenroll.com and I lost to them on the name.

wwwweb · May 23, 2019

wwwulff said:
Besides that they now get most of the best closeout´s, they bid on 80-90% of all names on expired auctions, so if you want a name that way, you have to pay

Joe Styler refutes this fact that they are gaming the closeouts, but I have seen what you have seen, and totally agree.

Fadi H · Jul 29, 2019

Looks like they rise the price after each renewal, CakeMart is now at $8k, CrabLab at $6k .etc

Kazzia · Jul 31, 2019

I am 2nd in so many auctions. A lot of them are HD infected. When I know I am against deep pockets, I like to keep the auction alive for hours if I can. I kept PictureEditor dot com alive for quite awhile a few days ago. Bidding dropped out for the rest at like $700 or $800 except deep pockets and me. I kept resetting the clock at the last seconds, over and over hoping someone else would come in and take it past where I wanted to go with it and make hd (if it was them) pay more for it.

From like $800 to about $1375 it was them and me (not sure yet whether it was hd or not yet). Last few seconds and I did minimum next bid price, to add another 5 minutes. I would have kept going on it past $2000 just to piss them off, but I was on a call and forgot about it. Haha.

But they are not perfect. They missed Requisites dot com which I won, and they have the inferior Spanish version Requisitos. They also missed BluQuote dot com, which I got cheap, when they have the .net on it. I priced my .com at half of their .net so any buyers with a brain go my way instead of theirs. And they pick up a LOT of my drops as well.

They are like an institutional investor in the stock market - I just hope they stay in business, as I would NOT like to see them dump millions of names on the market. I just wonder who they are and how they are financing hundreds of millions of dollars or more on names. Anyone know???????

wwwweb · Jul 31, 2019

Kazzia said:
I am 2nd in so many auctions. A lot of them are HD infected. When I know I am against deep pockets, I like to keep the auction alive for hours if I can. I kept PictureEditor dot com alive for quite awhile a few days ago. Bidding dropped out for the rest at like $700 or $800 except deep pockets and me. I kept resetting the clock at the last seconds, over and over hoping someone else would come in and take it past where I wanted to go with it and make hd (if it was them) pay more for it.

From like $800 to about $1375 it was them and me (not sure yet whether it was hd or not yet). Last few seconds and I did minimum next bid price, to add another 5 minutes. I would have kept going on it past $2000 just to piss them off, but I was on a call and forgot about it. Haha.

But they are not perfect. They missed Requisites dot com which I won, and they have the inferior Spanish version Requisitos. They also missed BluQuote dot com, which I got cheap, when they have the .net on it. I priced my .com at half of their .net so any buyers with a brain go my way instead of theirs. And they pick up a LOT of my drops as well.

They are like an institutional investor in the stock market - I just hope they stay in business, as I would NOT like to see them dump millions of names on the market. I just wonder who they are and how they are financing hundreds of millions of dollars or more on names. Anyone know???????

PictureEditor.com for $2K? why?

Maybe their goal is just so you pay more, and not necessarily when all the bids, they just make sure prices stay high, which serves their 6 million plus inventory of domains very well, as well makes the house a lot of money, by a bot making people open their wallets no matter what for a majority of popular, or not so popular auctions. Only suckers are buying into this at this point, they are just bleeding your wallet dry.

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

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