news Dofo.com domain lookup tool to be retired in Feb 2023

[MadAboutDomains]

I visited Dofo.com, a tool that I use frequently to find domains that are for sale and I see there's a banner that says "We will be retiring dofo.com in February 2023".

I thought that this tool was going from strength to strength given that it's had a few redesigns in the not so distant past. I'm sure it said that Saw.com bought it and now it's showing "Powered by Deepinfo".

Shame that they couldn't make it work... either profitable or otherwise.

 

[drsheraz]

They must have earned from affiliate links.
Sad to see them go.

 

[Armageddon]

 

[urfin]

Oh no... Even though I didn't like the last redesign that happened a few months ago, the service is super useful for some purposes.

Does anyone use any similar domain marketplace aggregator? So the main idea is not to check different extensions but rather see where some specific domain is listed and can be purchased.

 

[Kai W.]

A deactivation would be another loss for domainers. However, based on the information above (acquired), it is more likely that its functionality will be integrated into the SAW website.

 

[Ostrados]

This is sad I liked Dofo
I use it frequently

 

[ramkumaritrvs]

 

[Bob Hawkes]

That is sad. It was a great tool for domain name investors, and potentially an extremely useful resource for buyers seeing where a name is listed for sale.

 

[Mkt Sales Leads]

Oh no... Even though I didn't like the last redesign that happened a few months ago, the service is super useful for some purposes.

Does anyone use any similar domain marketplace aggregator? So the main idea is not to check different extensions but rather see where some specific domain is listed and can be purchased.

InstantDomainSearch.com

Overall, as the world economic climate bites, it looks like consolidation is the name of the game, with various tools and marketplaces being snapped up by the bigger players in domaining, be it Saw/GoDaddy etc.

 

[Macit]

There are many reasons why we're deprecating dofo.com. We will miss it, too

 

[MadAboutDomains]

There are many reasons why we're deprecating dofo.com. We will miss it, too

Thanks for replying. I'd love to know the reasons if you can share them?

 

[Macit]

Thanks for replying. I'd love to know the reasons if you can share them?

As I said, there are many reasons combined.

At first, Dofo.com has a vast amount of data behind it. The server cost was very high (5 figures per month). We were not so sad about the cost. Although it was for-profit, it was like a give-back to the domain community because we earned good enough from "domaining". We built it to be a solution to a problem we faced firsthand:
There is no platform you can search through all domain names, and there is no platform you can search domain names for sale at different marketplaces.

We worked hard and built it. It wasn't easy to get data from different sources, standardize it, and present it appealingly.

We did all these with a very high motivation. We got very motivated feedback from such valuable friends all over the world.

The technical side was not a big issue for us (we have a top-notch engineering team to solve the problems), but we are tired of ensuring about data accuracy we get from marketplaces. This is not something we should solve but should be solved by the marketplaces. We suggested our help to them to solve such problems technically, but it didn't work. We were shocked sometimes seeing how old-fashioned they were. We don't blame anybody. They said, " no need to touch it because it's working," and they were right. So, nothing to do

Another point was that many domainers were using dofo.com, but only a few helped us spread our voice (they know themselves, and I thank all of these friends personally). Others were using dofo.com but were trying to hide it from others Of course, we can't blame anyone for not promoting us

Dofo.com was using affiliate links. The affiliate links don't have any extra cost to those who follow the link and buy domain names via Dofo.com. We heard that "we use Dofo.com to find domain names, but we directly go to the marketplace and buy, not via dofo.com". Yes, true. Nothing to do here, too

And many "bad people" tried to abuse our service with bots (they were successful sometimes). We didn't want to deal with this anymore.

We didn't want dofo.com to end and talked to a few "industry players" about the possibility of a takeover, but we would still have to deal with the technical side, which was meaningless for us.

As a result, we have gained so much experience. And we are using this experience (both technical and business) in another business where we don't have to deal with the things I mentioned above.

This is probably my last message on Namepros.

Thanks, everyone.
Thanks a lot to the friends who always support us.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Thank you for the post @Macit and truly appreciate the effort you put into a superb and very useful product. Thanks for sharing the reasons that you felt it was not reasonable going forward.

Very best wishes in your future endeavours.

Sincerely,
Bob

 

[Joe drake]

wow seen this 4l ,never clicked on it ,a good tool I never used,seems like the marketing here used to say goodbye,was more powerful than it was to keep it alive.

 

[Mister Funsky]

Thank you @Macit for the detailed post. It is/was something I visited on a regular basis and I, like the others above, will be sad to see it go.

Since you did not address it directly, I assume it is not being acquired by Saw...too bad as they could use another tool besides the valuator they provide.

 

[Ivan Rasskazov]

As I said, there are many reasons combined.

At first, Dofo.com has a vast amount of data behind it. The server cost was very high (5 figures per month). We were not so sad about the cost. Although it was for-profit, it was like a give-back to the domain community because we earned good enough from "domaining". We built it to be a solution to a problem we faced firsthand:
There is no platform you can search through all domain names, and there is no platform you can search domain names for sale at different marketplaces.

We worked hard and built it. It wasn't easy to get data from different sources, standardize it, and present it appealingly.

We did all these with a very high motivation. We got very motivated feedback from such valuable friends all over the world.

The technical side was not a big issue for us (we have a top-notch engineering team to solve the problems), but we are tired of ensuring about data accuracy we get from marketplaces. This is not something we should solve but should be solved by the marketplaces. We suggested our help to them to solve such problems technically, but it didn't work. We were shocked sometimes seeing how old-fashioned they were. We don't blame anybody. They said, " no need to touch it because it's working," and they were right. So, nothing to do

Another point was that many domainers were using dofo.com, but only a few helped us spread our voice (they know themselves, and I thank all of these friends personally). Others were using dofo.com but were trying to hide it from others Of course, we can't blame anyone for not promoting us

Dofo.com was using affiliate links. The affiliate links don't have any extra cost to those who follow the link and buy domain names via Dofo.com. We heard that "we use Dofo.com to find domain names, but we directly go to the marketplace and buy, not via dofo.com". Yes, true. Nothing to do here, too

And many "bad people" tried to abuse our service with bots (they were successful sometimes). We didn't want to deal with this anymore.

We didn't want dofo.com to end and talked to a few "industry players" about the possibility of a takeover, but we would still have to deal with the technical side, which was meaningless for us.

As a result, we have gained so much experience. And we are using this experience (both technical and business) in another business where we don't have to deal with the things I mentioned above.

This is probably my last message on Namepros.

Thanks, everyone.
Thanks a lot to the friends who always support us.

Best of luck to your new venture.

 

[Reallybigidea.com]

I have never heard about dofo before. what is dofo?

 

[capybara]

@Macit You build really awesome tools which are aesthetically pleasant and easy to use, really sad Dofo is going to be no more. I hope for your future projects you are going to find a more grateful audience than us domain investors. What about another great creation of yours – DNDisputes.com? Can we expect it to live on or...

 

[Kai W.]

As I said, there are many reasons combined.

At first, Dofo.com has a vast amount of data behind it. The server cost was very high (5 figures per month). We were not so sad about the cost. Although it was for-profit, it was like a give-back to the domain community because we earned good enough from "domaining". We built it to be a solution to a problem we faced firsthand:
There is no platform you can search through all domain names, and there is no platform you can search domain names for sale at different marketplaces.

We worked hard and built it. It wasn't easy to get data from different sources, standardize it, and present it appealingly.

We did all these with a very high motivation. We got very motivated feedback from such valuable friends all over the world.

The technical side was not a big issue for us (we have a top-notch engineering team to solve the problems), but we are tired of ensuring about data accuracy we get from marketplaces. This is not something we should solve but should be solved by the marketplaces. We suggested our help to them to solve such problems technically, but it didn't work. We were shocked sometimes seeing how old-fashioned they were. We don't blame anybody. They said, " no need to touch it because it's working," and they were right. So, nothing to do

Another point was that many domainers were using dofo.com, but only a few helped us spread our voice (they know themselves, and I thank all of these friends personally). Others were using dofo.com but were trying to hide it from others Of course, we can't blame anyone for not promoting us

Dofo.com was using affiliate links. The affiliate links don't have any extra cost to those who follow the link and buy domain names via Dofo.com. We heard that "we use Dofo.com to find domain names, but we directly go to the marketplace and buy, not via dofo.com". Yes, true. Nothing to do here, too

And many "bad people" tried to abuse our service with bots (they were successful sometimes). We didn't want to deal with this anymore.

We didn't want dofo.com to end and talked to a few "industry players" about the possibility of a takeover, but we would still have to deal with the technical side, which was meaningless for us.

As a result, we have gained so much experience. And we are using this experience (both technical and business) in another business where we don't have to deal with the things I mentioned above.

This is probably my last message on Namepros.

Thanks, everyone.
Thanks a lot to the friends who always support us.

If Dan success has not yet inspired others, DOFO's career change may bring other friends to think - where the direction of development of domain people in the end?
As I have been doing and have been advocating. If you have a good name and no one asks for it, develop your own name, try to learn the code yourself, and work hard to make it a reality. Hint: This doesn't apply to the Cartesian product "big box" stores, because these are two different business models.

Thanks again for everything @Macit has done and I wish you all the best and good luck for the future!

 

[King]

I remember when @Macit would make monthly 'Domain Industry Reports' and then suddenly stopped, then the extension was redesigned but became less convenient, and now it's completely ending...

Unfortunate.

 

[frank-germany]

As I said, there are many reasons combined.

At first, Dofo.com has a vast amount of data behind it. The server cost was very high (5 figures per month). We were not so sad about the cost. Although it was for-profit, it was like a give-back to the domain community because we earned good enough from "domaining". We built it to be a solution to a problem we faced firsthand:
There is no platform you can search through all domain names, and there is no platform you can search domain names for sale at different marketplaces.

We worked hard and built it. It wasn't easy to get data from different sources, standardize it, and present it appealingly.

We did all these with a very high motivation. We got very motivated feedback from such valuable friends all over the world.

The technical side was not a big issue for us (we have a top-notch engineering team to solve the problems), but we are tired of ensuring about data accuracy we get from marketplaces. This is not something we should solve but should be solved by the marketplaces. We suggested our help to them to solve such problems technically, but it didn't work. We were shocked sometimes seeing how old-fashioned they were. We don't blame anybody. They said, " no need to touch it because it's working," and they were right. So, nothing to do

Another point was that many domainers were using dofo.com, but only a few helped us spread our voice (they know themselves, and I thank all of these friends personally). Others were using dofo.com but were trying to hide it from others Of course, we can't blame anyone for not promoting us

Dofo.com was using affiliate links. The affiliate links don't have any extra cost to those who follow the link and buy domain names via Dofo.com. We heard that "we use Dofo.com to find domain names, but we directly go to the marketplace and buy, not via dofo.com". Yes, true. Nothing to do here, too

And many "bad people" tried to abuse our service with bots (they were successful sometimes). We didn't want to deal with this anymore.

We didn't want dofo.com to end and talked to a few "industry players" about the possibility of a takeover, but we would still have to deal with the technical side, which was meaningless for us.

As a result, we have gained so much experience. And we are using this experience (both technical and business) in another business where we don't have to deal with the things I mentioned above.

This is probably my last message on Namepros.

Thanks, everyone.
Thanks a lot to the friends who always support us.

I have never used dofo
thank you for your efforts


I understand your pain
( try to convince DAN for years by now to change their help text for German VAT related issues
to display the correct German VAT ...
and try to convince Sedo to deal with VAT differently for more than 10 years by now )

 

[kor]

The server cost was very high (5 figures per month)

Seriously?!

What are you calculating exactly? Unknown particles for CERN?

 

[CDM]

@Macit why not switch to a subscription model. Putting the service behind a paywall should eliminate most if not all of the bot problem, as well as the affiliate problem, and subsidize the cost of the servers. If domainers aren't willing to pay at least $10/mo or $99 per year for a service they love then f' em (imo)

I never used the service btw. Just my 2c

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I think the main problem with subscription model proposal is that the most obvious target audience is not domainers but someone wanting to buy one domain. They could enter name, see where for sale and at what prices, then use link if want to buy. They also could see related names. But most just want to use it once.

Now advanced search was useful to domainers, and some might pay a subscription, but it seems hard to get many subscriptions at significant prices.

Bob

 

[frank-germany]

@Macit why not switch to a subscription model. Putting the service behind a paywall should eliminate most if not all of the bot problem, as well as the affiliate problem, and subsidize the cost of the servers. If domainers aren't willing to pay at least $10/mo or $99 per year for a service they love then f' em (imo)

I never used the service btw. Just my 2c

you missed the point