Buy GoDaddy Closeouts without API Access

[theunique]

Hi everyone,

I´m trying to buy domains GoDaddy-Closeout domains via script. Is this somehow possible without API Access? They don´t want to grant me access because currently, I own only about 100 domains with them and I didn´t spend too much money in the auctions.

Did anyone find a way to do this? The GoDaddy page is pretty crappy, HTML Code isn´t clean, and I´m afraid that something could go wrong. For this reason, I need your advice

Thanks in advance,
unique

 

[Brandworthy]

Are they granting access again?

They closed access to new users last year. Their API was incredibly poor, and if you think their html was bad you'll have a great laugh at their API methods.

 

[Arca]

Their API was incredibly poor, and if you think their html was bad you'll have a great laugh at their API methods.

Care to elaborate?

 

[Brandworthy]

Care to elaborate?

I'd say it was built a long time ago by someone who didn't really know what they were doing. I have the docs around somewhere, but many of the methods relied on you interpreting a string of text to determine the results of a request. Values like prices were stated as "$1,000 USD" which requires you to clean up that string in order to get an integer. Instead of including properties with a false value they'd exclude it, so if you were high bidder the response would include

IsHighBid="True"

But if you weren't they'd just not return that property (you need to check for existence of property rather than just its value). Errors took a generic format and could only be identified using a Message property, which included long strings of text with varying values, e.g.

<PlaceBid IsValid="False" Message="Bid must be a minimum of $15">

The amount could vary, so you had to interpret the string to determine the minimum bid. A lot of this data could have been returned in distinct properties to make the API more consumable.

Being honest, I'm not at all surprised that some API consumers had serious problems that led to GD restricting access. It really wasn't fit for purpose IMO. Still hoping that they will provide new API sooner rather than later. Many of their recent APIs are well constructed.