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HUGE DOMAINS SNIPING GODADDY CLOSEOUTS

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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.
 
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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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They are in closeout. Their bot is just slow as any domainers. I watched a lot of domains in the past. And u check the whois feww days later. It is usually not hugedomains. It's other domainers. That's why I am saying not strong meaning their bot is slow when competing with other domainers.

Sucks, i thought closeouts was 100% HD free!
 
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I am OK with that. I just don't want to end up paying $200 or publish the domain to HD while one of my fellow domainers could have it for $11.


that is not a bot. that is someone or more than one person seating in front of their screen refreshing the page trying to get to the domain first.


so, you rather hand the domain to HD by placing a $12 bid versus letting other domainers have a shot at it. WOW.
Where did I say hand the domain to HD, I am
simply stating godaddy should block bots from sniping them as soon as they drop.

Relax and pace yourself there is more history here than you think start with the backorder loophole, and take it from there.
 
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Relax and pace yourself there is more history here than you think start with the backorder loophole, and take it from there.

What exactly is the "backorder loophole" if I may ask? Sounds interesting
 
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Mind-boggling:

RickHansenRelay.com
HD purchase price: $157
HD list price: $395

Herang.com
HD purchase price: $217
HD list price: $595

These are both recent purchases. It's not like they had the names on the market for a few years and decided to do a discount. These are original list prices.
 
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What exactly is the "backorder loophole" if I may ask? Sounds interesting
A few years back Godaddy had a loophole where if you placed a backorder on a domain as the $12 closed, and it entered the $11 closeout, it would automatically grab it before anyone else could at $11.
 
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ManagerPerformance.com
ExcitingCareer.com
PCAgents.com
GreatScans.com
DuelLink.com

I don't even look at domains in that age range any more.

They won't make it to closeout because someone will place a bid on it at some point, and then it gets sucked up by the HD bot.

There are 50k+ expired auctions on any given day.

Every domainer is searching by age and then looking at the best ones.

The only way I look at that group is if I'm willing to invest $500 - $1200 on a decent name.

If the bot has it in it's que at $12, you can surely bet it's going to go at it for $11.
If you are referring to HD bot. HD is not very strong in closeout.

HD bot is not very good at closeout snipe because the resources devoted to trying to snipe and to run their bid-bot would be too much. Are they better than someone who is trying to do it manually, sure, but there are other bots that beat HD to closeout snipe often.

That's why I was saying earlier, when someone nukes a domain by last minute bidding more than likely you are penalizing other domainers and just allowing HDbot to win by spending a pittance that they will happily spend to force individuals out of the industry.
 
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A few years back Godaddy had a loophole where if you placed a backorder on a domain as the $12 closed, and it entered the $11 closeout, it would automatically grab it before anyone else could at $11.

What exactly is the "backorder loophole" if I may ask? Sounds interesting

To get even more specific here's how it went.

With at least 3-5 minutes left on an auction you would start the backorder process. This was done because if you tried to start a backorder closer to the end the system would not let you.. and that would be that.

So your backorder is open... now you wait until the auction has 3-4 seconds left to place your backorder. If you waited any longer your backorder would fail and the domain would go to closeout, any sooner and they would place that lame $10 bid on the auction effectively opening the auction to competition.

3-4 seconds allowed your backorder just enough time to process and be submitted just at the auction was in that grey area before it went to closeout.

Domains were still lost this way, if someone did the same thing but beat you by a fraction of a second you lost the domain.

If you did it just right, and beat all of the other backorder loophole jumpers, the domain was yours. This was also during the time when people could just transfer the domain to another registrar outside of GoDaddy after an auction ended. So in some cases the domain would get retained by the owner for a $8 transfer fee and it would give them a free real-world valuation of their domain.

To be clear, this is closed now and does not work.
 
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That's why I was saying earlier, when someone nukes a domain by last minute bidding more than likely you are penalizing other domainers and just allowing HDbot to win by spending a pittance that they will happily spend to force individuals out of the industry.

There is another dilemma here.

Most of domainers don't have an access to GoDaddy API, only bigger ones do. So, not placing $12 bid and letting the domain to hit closeout means that ordinary domainer has much less chances to get it compared to bigger ones. To ordinary domainer, it maybe doesn't make any difference who will snipe it from closeout, HD bot or bot run by one of very few bigger domainers. Placing $12 bid on a good name sometimes gives more chances to get it it compared to chances to snipe it from closeout.
 
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And GoDaddy keeps singing the same song (just received below response):

Thank you for contacting GoDaddy Aftermarket.

Unfortunately, we are not currently adding API accounts, as we are in the middle of a complete system rebuild. We hope to offer API sometime in the future, although I do not believe it will be until Q2 (summmer) 2020 at the earliest.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Let us know if you have questions.”


Pretty much the same answer I received back in 2017. Still in the middle of a compete rebuilt. What a BS! One can build a new GoDaddy from the ground up during three year period, not just an API :banghead:

Why don’t they just tell us the truth? — API is available for the selected few. Get lost.
 
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Most of domainers don't have an access to GoDaddy API, only bigger ones do. So, not placing $12 bid and letting the domain to hit closeout means that ordinary domainer has much less chances to get it compared to bigger ones.

I disagree. Small domainers have very little chance to win a bidding war, we have bigger chance of "hand-sniping" a domain as it goes to closeout. Personally I never managed to get a domain at gd auction (I started in January and don't have the API access) but I got a few half-decent domains after the auction, sometimes even the ones that had many refreshes as the auction ended (refreshes mean there are real people trying to get the domain, api bots don't need to do that). So it's never a better option to place the initial bid, unless you're desperate to get the domain.
 
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Small domainers have very little chance to win a bidding war

Yes and no. Big Domainers who buy manually or have a bot will settle on a max price and stick to it. If you are able and willing to keep bidding you can get .
 
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Yes and no. Big Domainers who buy manually or have a bot will settle on a max price and stick to it. If you are able and willing to keep bidding you can get .

As I wrote, if you're determined to win, then by all means do it. But if you're just gonna bid up to a few dozen $ then there's no point and it's just a wasted opportunity for the rest of us.
 
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As I wrote, if you're determined to win, then by all means do it. But if you're just gonna bid up to a few dozen $ then there's no point and it's just a wasted opportunity for the rest of us.

Its not about being desperate. Its about being willing to pay more than $12.

If you don't like a domain enough to pay more than that why go after it in the first place.

I won the bidding at $450 for one domain. The GD value is about 4200, predictably all the bots one by one stopped bidding as we approached 10% of the GD value, which is low. I had a well known broker agree to list it on his newsletter for 15k with a 10k reserve.
 
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Its not about being desperate. Its about being willing to pay more than $12.

If you don't like a domain enough to pay more than that why go after it in the first place.

My point exactly. Why start the auction if you're not willing to bid high.
 
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I know for fact they are doing it on purpose. I have heard of a guy who places bunches of $12 bids b/c he can't get API access. And determined to nuke all domains he thinks he is not going to get in closeout.

Here's an idea for that guy:
1. make a list of domains that you think you can't get at closeouts.
2. Try to actually get them.
3. If you get at least one (and you probably will), you'll know you've been just shooting yourself in the foot all that time.
:xf.rolleyes:
 
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Placing $12 bid on a good name sometimes gives more chances to get it it compared to chances to snipe it from closeout.

I hear what you are saying but statistically speaking if you don't place a bid at all you have more of a chance to catch it during snipe than if you place a bid.

If you place a bid with minutes remaining you are 100% guaranteed to have the HD bot enter a bid war with you.

Conversely, there are some good domains I've watched completely fall through to the closeout without a single buyer. Sometimes I add DNs to my watch list but then decide to focus on another name, that happens with others too - so there might be a good name you can get for $20 and sell for $200 but I'll pass and aim for the one I can get for $20 and sell for $1500+.

This isn't just my experience, you can see others have the same experience with this...

Small domainers have very little chance to win a bidding war, we have bigger chance of "hand-sniping" a domain as it goes to closeout. Personally I never managed to get a domain at gd auction (I started in January and don't have the API access) but I got a few half-decent domains after the auction, sometimes even the ones that had many refreshes as the auction ended (refreshes mean there are real people trying to get the domain, api bots don't need to do that). So it's never a better option to place the initial bid, unless you're desperate to get the domain.

If you place a bid on that name then HD bot will bury you in bids and the resale value of the domain is gone.

If you just wait for closeout you might have a chance.

Even a slim chance is better than no chance.
 
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You really think you going to get away with a $12 bid. As soon as you place the bid. You already lost the name. If you get a domain for $12, it must be a name that nobody want.

If you place a bid on that name then HD bot will bury you in bids and the resale value of the domain is gone.

If you just wait for closeout you might have a chance.

Even a slim chance is better than no chance.

I totally agree.

At the same time, it’s just so demotivating to skim through hundreds of names daily, add them to your watchlist, then refreshing the page many times and see nothing there (instead of Buy Now $11). So I personally become very irritated and lose patience — that’s when I start bidding just to “hurt” HD and make them pay to compensate for the time I wasted.
 
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At the same time, it’s just so demotivating to skim through hundreds of names daily, add them to your watchlist, then refreshing the page many times and see nothing there (instead of Buy Now $11). So I personally become very irritated and lose patience — that’s when I start bidding just to “hurt” HD and make them pay to compensate for the time I wasted.

I hear you, but keep an eye on where DishWorks.com ends up in 6-7 days.

According to GD it had a previous sale of $1200 and was regged in 2001 so I was incredibly shocked when this went through to the closeouts.

This one was weird though when it went to closeouts - the page itself usually says 'auction ended' when someone buys it but it was in limbo for 5 minutes or so. It was the longest I've seen a domain hang in between auction and closeout.

Point being - these vanishing closeouts aren't HD for the most part. It's people with the know how or the API. If you have both then you can pretty much take any closeout domain you want.
 
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I got that one. no need to wait 6-7 days

Do you have API access?

Yes, I do.

Well there you go. 100% Confirmed.

The know how + API = the ability to clean out any closeout you want.

This is how GoDaddy policy is jacked up.

Sure you need to know how to program, or you could hire a developer (which Joe Styler has recommended in a previous post), but the inability to have API access completely disables anyone else from even having a chance.

It's no secret I'm a developer myself, so figuring out the snipe is not a problem. But not having API access puts others at a significant disadvantage because it adds at least 3-7 additional seconds to the process that an API user can just skip over.

So why can't we ALL have API access?

This is what we've been asking @Joe Styler and the GD team for years, and to just flat out tell people that you aren't allowing access to something that gives a significant advantage is biased at best illegal at worst - especially on an auction platform.
 
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