BrandBucket Experience

[xtremex]

hello

I am new to BrandBucket. Before getting my hands on this

I wish to experience about brandbucket from my fellow members


Thanks

 

[thedotsol]

With all the rejections the growth program has saved me several thousand dollars to be precise. I now submit first, wait for the review and then buy the domain. Previously I used to buy first, then submit.

The GP is a now brainer.

So you are saying if BB rejects domain, it is not worth buying?

 

[Sinh]

So you are saying if BB rejects domain, it is not worth buying?

BB rejects 4L.com sometimes as well. I think that they have other looks on domains that is not like our views. I think so.

 

[Justin Matmor]

Excellent. How many domains have you added and how many domains got rejected since you shifted to the Growth Program?

Added about 10, rejected about 30

 

[Justin Matmor]

So you are saying if BB rejects domain, it is not worth buying?

Exactly. All my sales on BB have been sold to end users.

 

[thedotsol]

Exactly. All my sales on BB have been sold to end users.

There is no point to argue with you on this, but you might lose some other opportunities with your strategy. I also have some domains at BB, but I earn with rejects also and it's not easy to me to decide which channel brings me more money.

 

[thedotsol]

BB rejects 4L.com sometimes as well. I think that they have other looks on domains that is not like our views. I think so.

Exactly. In a recent past they have drastically changed their approval policy. As a result, you have many mediocre names that were approved last summer. And now they have tightened things again, so some better names than these already listed, got rejected easily.

Hence, the reason not to relay on them (BB) only...

 

[Mister Funsky]

domain value is in the eye of the beholder

So true...been doing this so long names I sold years ago have been let go and I got them again...some had their value tank but a couple have gone up in popularity significantly...hope to 10x previous sales amount.

 

[Arca]

I'm guessing that was me, and I'm taking that criticism of my language on board.

I'm fairly sure this was not directed at you, but at a pretty long (now deleted by mods) discussion where analysis of the search results at BB for certain keywords, and who owned what % of those search results, was posted by a few different members. Some of the analysis was delivered in language that at times was a bit too confrontational towards the BB inner circle, which was unnecessary. At the same time, which I suppose caused frustration among the people posting their findings, leading them to use such language, it looked like the BB bosses (M+M) consistently owned what might be a quite disproportionate amount of the domains that get a good placement on the first few pages of the search results (since nobody knows how the search algorithm works, sellers can only speculate about the implications of their findings). Since the discovery of domains by end-users through search at BB is the main value added at BB, it's obviously somethings sellers care a lot about (as type-in sales would have sold on any platform, so discovery of your name through their platform search is the main way BB can provide additional sales that might not have happened on other platforms).

The only thing I will say in my defense was that I knew about many of the things that were happening behind the curtains at the time. Some of those things are still not widely known outside the insiders group.

Care to share the gist of it?

 

[Brandworthy]

Care to share the gist of it?

I'd rather not go into specifics, but I will make a general comment that transparency at BB has not improved at all IMO. That lack of transparency to many will suggest they have something to hide, and this helps no one.

On the search algo - one of the stated goals of the new search which was implemented last year was to surface historic names, i.e. names which were listed longer on the site. Previously search results were basic chronological indices of names, so as more names were added older names got further buried. This was an admirable goal, but I'm not sure that the implemented solution favoured all users equally.

The new search does appear to surface more diversity, but certainly some of the result sets might be questionable. While BB have stated that domain owner is not a factor in the results, domain age, price, keywords are definitely factors. It's widely known that insiders have/had more control over some of those factors than regular sellers, e.g. it was previously the case that insiders set their own pricing, and their pricing (IMO) was often far higher than accepted prices set for regular sellers. I think this should have been expected since we all suffer from internal bias, and frequently believe our names are worth more than they are. So self-set prices being higher than normal is quite normal behaviour, but I do think it was a mistake allowing BB insiders to set their own pricing. Why might this matter? Because higher priced names, or names in certain price ranges might appear at higher positions and at higher frequencies in search results.

When you review the factors at use in their search algo, look at which factors inside users had/have more control over (price, keywords), and combine this with age of name/portfolio, you can see that the changes introduced may have disproportionate outcomes for some users over others.

FWIW my 900+ portfolio on BB has seen a single sale yet in 2017. I don't submit names any longer, and have another ~300 accepted names which I do not intend to list at this time.

 

[Dnbolt]

Greetings people,

Does brandbucket suggest users to make a 301 redirect instead of a 302? (if not changing nameserver)
Why I am asking? because I see a problem.

 

[Nerevar]

@Dnbolt
I think they suggest that we use nameservers, if this is what you ask.
UPD: They do not suggest redirects and offer no guidelines for that, AFAIK.

 

[Messiah]

When you update their nameservers, they are doing a 301 redirect.. You can check some of your domains on www.redirect-checker.org

 

[Dnbolt]

@Dnbolt
I think they suggest that we use nameservers, if this is what you ask.

Ok I see some people killing their domains by using a 301 redirect when forwarding to brandbucket.
301 means permanently moved. 302 means temporary moved.

(some may say) "Bolt", you are so wrong, this days 301,302 even 307 doesn't matter that google will figure it out. (permit me to say this) Be silence and do your homework.

Okay, "Bolt" what's the big deal?
Ans (1): If you remove your domains from brandbucket, and search for "your-domain.com" you will find
brandbucket.com in the search result

Ans (2): Also NOT good for end users as ALL potential value has been sucked up dry..

...

 

[Dnbolt]

When you update their nameservers, they are doing a 301 redirect.. You can check some of your domains on www.redirect-checker.org

Thanks for this.

 

[Dnbolt]

Thanks for this.

I just checked now. Changing Nameserver to BB implies giving consent for 301 too.
But why is this necessary as I have changed lot's of Namesever without seeing a redirect included.

 

[Domains - Wanted]

Why not just point your domain's record "A" to BB's webserver?

 

[Brandworthy]

Does brandbucket suggest users to make a 301 redirect instead of a 302? (if not changing nameserver)

I think their validation looks for 301, and if it sees 302 it fails. They validate from a single IP, so it's pretty easy to spoof them.

 

[Brandworthy]

(some may say) "Bolt", you are so wrong, this days 301,302 even 307 doesn't matter that google will figure it out. (permit me to say this) Be silence and do your homework.

Anyone who understands how Google works will know the difference between 301 and 302.

Ans (1): If you remove your domains from brandbucket, and search for "your-domain.com" you will find
brandbucket.com in the search result

Until Google next crawls your domain and sees the 3XX redirect is gone.

Ans (2): Also NOT good for end users as ALL potential value has been sucked up dry..

Removing the redirect will change how signals flow. There is nothing permanent, and once Google identifies a change they will adjust accordingly.

As I mentioned above, validation requires a 301 redirect. You can spoof their validation, and then serve everyone else a 302, but really it's not going to make a huge difference other than how Google ranks your domain for queries on the domain itself. Google does not like parking pages (including for sale landers), and that's the primary reason internal pages on BB rank better than their domain landers. The only minor benefit to using a 302 might be that Google would show your domain URL rather than the internal BB URL in search results. Almost everything else should be the same from an SEO perspective.

 

[Grilled]

I wish I could say more, but I believe my account is on thin ice pertaining to infractions related to this type of whistle blowing...

Sales/Rack.com is on the first page for 20 searches (or EVERY TAG and Category assigned) in BrandBuckets search.

Search any tag or category for the above domain, and you'll find it ranks on the first page for EACH. That's a lot of front page real estate for this domain, and other preferred domains.

I wish I could say this is an anomaly but it isn't. It is a widespread pattern. If permitted I can post many more examples of preferred domains dominating page 1's for all their tags / categories. Most of you can infer who's domains these are without WHOIS.

 

[DNScholar]

In following thread https://www.namepros.com/blog/detec...ry-com-frank-schilling-buys-ehiv-com.1005411/ mentioned "BrandBucket sold Sproutsy.com, Slingly.com and Dwift.com among many others."
But I don't see those sales in Dnbolt.