Drop Catching is Dead?

[Name Trader]

Hi,

I've just spent all day long going thru the dropping domains at NameJet, for my usual selection of keywords. I managed to backorder just one domain. I don't consider this time well spent considering it'll probably be caught by DropCatch. Does anyone else have the feeling that drop catching is pretty much totally dead? Is all the oxygen being sucked up by the Pre-Release Auctions? I don't think I'm going to look again at the drop catching domains. My time is much more valuable than these meagre pickings. I used to be able to identify at least 10 domains or more to backorder from the next 3 days dropping domains.

Any thoughts or comments appreciated.

 

[GoKaizen]

The drop will never die.

You will always have people forgetting to renew, not knowing the value, passing away, etc.

As far as NJ. They suck. BO names caught by SnapNames, no auction email from NJ. Some have been owned by SN for weeks.Wtf?

 

[Hypersot]

same feeling here stub
I was never much a total fan of dropcatching but -while I did some in the past- I have completely stopped now.

Whenever I check for availabilities and -inevitably- I look at the usernames/emails that have regged the names, my heart sinks.
Seeing the same usernames on a daily basis regging huge lists of -seemingly- useless domains makes me constantly wonder.. how the hell am I supposed to fit in there?

...hence the hunt for regfees

 

[Name Trader]

The drop will never die.

You will always have people forgetting to renew, not knowing the value, passing away, etc.

As far as NJ. They suck. BO names caught by SnapNames, no auction email from NJ. Some have been owned by SN for weeks.Wtf?

I didn't say I was backordering at NameJet. Just doing my research there. There were no (well one) semi-quality name in over 8hrs of searching on approx 150 keywords. That was what I call dead. Not worth my time searching. I guess all those domains people forgetting to renew, not knowing the value, passing away, etc, all got picked up in the Pre-Release Auctions

 

[frank-germany]

I didn't say I was backordering at NameJet. Just doing my research there. There were no (well one) semi-quality name in over 8hrs of searching on approx 150 keywords. That was what I call dead. Not worth my time searching. I guess all those domains people forgetting to renew, not knowing the value, passing away, etc, all got picked up in the Pre-Release Auctions

you may want to use f1lter.com to cut down your search time

 

[Name Trader]

same feeling here stub
I was never much a total fan of dropcatching but -while I did some in the past- I have completely stopped now.

Whenever I check for availabilities and -inevitably- I look at the usernames/emails that have regged the names, my heart sinks.
Seeing the same usernames on a daily basis regging huge lists of -seemingly- useless domains makes me constantly wonder.. how the hell am I supposed to fit in there?

...hence the hunt for regfees

I'm going to turn my attention to Pre-Release Auctions instead. What I said to @Adam27 were the reasons.

Actually. i used to be active in both Pre-Release and Drop Catching, but haven't been active for a while. About six months, or so. I just started up today with the Drop Catching, and the available domains are 99+% totally crap. So I think I'm not going to continue with Drop Catching. Wasting my time. I'll give the Pre-Release Auctions a go tomorrow. I did actually have a peek at GoDaddy's Auctions today. bought 2 out of 3,500 domains viewed. Not great names, but OK. Which was many, many times better than my Drop Catching debacle.

 

[Name Trader]

you may want to use f1lter.com to cut down your search time

Thanks for the link. Looks promising. But don't like you can only search for 4,5.6,All characters. that kinda detracts quite a bit from it's usefulness. However, I'll give it a try tomorrow.

 

[Kate]

Hi Stub,

Same experience here. I think the drops are a waste of time, if you spend a lot of time on them.
So I try to automate things as much as possible and I don't allocate too much time toward the drops.
I focus on the prereleases and the closeouts instead.
But a few good names have dropped lately. I was able to get something nice and I didn't pay a lot. But it doesn't happen every day.

There is competition of course, but some good names still slip through the cracks.
Even if there is competition you might still get something without bidding up too much (not all participants are in the mood for fighting, depending on the domain).

I still do dropcatch in ccTLDs. There is competition in ccTLDs too, but less visibility than in .com. It's a bit like dropcatching .com in the early days: experience, research and knowing some tricks about the release cycle can make a difference.

 

[frank-germany]

Thanks for the link. Looks promising. But don't like you can only search for 4,5.6,All characters. that kinda detracts quite a bit from it's usefulness. However, I'll give it a try tomorrow.

you can define custom keyword lists
and you have a keyword input at the start

 

[GoKaizen]

I believe with NJ you can get email alerts of keywords.

There still plenty of registrars with no auction partners. Domains slip through the cracks at large registras too, not often.

 

[fitkhan]

Good topic started by Stub. My experience is that quality of domains in pre release lists is way better than pending delete lists. From last few weeks I was just checking pre release lists but then started checking pending delete lists as well. The reason was on pre release auctions guys with deep pockets will beat you on every auction. 2nd thing is the domains on pre release lists will stay for a very long time so there is almost no chance that a good domain will be un noticed by domainers.
However I was disappointed to find that pending delete domains are mostly of low quality. Very few names are good.
Kate is right about catching ccTLDs. I got a few good names in non .com extensions. But I am a new domainer and I don't have enough skills/knowledge to sell them. Seems like a tough job for me.

 

[cocaseco]

I have noticed a decline in quality domains at the drop. But I don't spend anywhere near 8 hours a day on drops, maybe one hour. But I am only focusing on brandables. I have my 100 +/- keywords an use expireddomains.net and can efficiently and quickly get through the lost in fast enough time to make it worthwhile. For me a successful day is having one or two names accepted at BB or BR, so maybe my "bar" is lower than yours, but it's a profitable strategy that I don't see changing anytime soon.

 

[Paul123]

Gotta say this is an interesting thread. Nothing to add tonight but am watching with interest.

Best,
Paul

 

[DomainVP]

I too stopped looking hard at drops.

The most I will spend looking at the drop list is 15-20 minutes at best.

Spammers that will spam 'domain availability' to end users with 'similar domains' have absolutely ruined the drop.

I might spot a decent name I know I can flip, and will have 1 other bidder willing to go deep into end user price on a domain. After that happened three of four times a while back I stopped looking at the drop and focused on closeout and prerelease.

Closeout sniping has gotten tight too.

As domaining gets more and more popular, the harder this activity gets.

 

[Sarik_Sid]

I think Stub is right and if you dont have what it takes to asses a domain without relying on factors like CPC and Search Volume,its going to be difficult

 

[Sarik_Sid]

you can define custom keyword lists
and you have a keyword input at the start

Like the product.A question,How do I create a custom keyword list

 

[fitkhan]

"Spammers that will spam 'domain availability' to end users with 'similar domains' have absolutely ruined the drop."

I have planed to do some outbound marketing for my domains but after reading your post it seems that those end users might already got a lot of similar domain availability emails. I don't know if this strategy will work for me?

 

[Name Trader]

I have started the next step on my road to Pre-Release Auctions. I went thru the GoDaddy Pre-Release Auctions today. It took me about the same time as it did to go thru Pending Deletes for the prior 3 days. But this GoDaddy Auctions was covering from $5 Closeouts to the 9 days of the Pre-Release Auction. A total of 14 days. I was helped because GoDaddy's Searching is so much better than NameJet's.

I bought 1 domain at $5 and bid on 1 domain closing today. There are some domains also in the Closeouts on other days which I will buy when they reach $5. I have itemized a couple of domains per day in the Closeout section. But I'll probably only buy 1 domain per day. I have identified a few domains per day in the Pre-Release $12 section of the auction. I will choose what to bid on, the day the Auction closes.

So. Pending Deletes took me approx 8hrs for 3 days of Pending Delete Domains. Which is approx 3hrs per day. Which was completely worthless.

GoDaddy Pre-Release Auctions took me about 8hrs for 14 days. Which is approx 1/2hr per day, and has started to show some kind of results already. And I am now monitoring about 13 days of these Pre-Release Auctions. So won't need to spend another 8hrs analyzing the GoDaddy Pre-Release Auctions for another 13 days

I hope tomorrow to take a stab at the Non-GoDaddy Pre-Release Auctions. This time I'll use SnapNames and Pheenix.

 

[Name Trader]

I know I should really only bid at the last minute for the Godaddy Auctions. But for me, they close between 12 midnight and 5am in the morning. I hope to be comfortably asleep at that time, unless there is an extremely important domain coming up for closing.

I'm also monitoring Dynadot's Pre-Release Auctions. But nothing really comes up there very often.

 

[fitkhan]

Sharing your experience is great thing. So do we have gd pre release domains section on expireddomains.net? What type of domains you buy and in which extension? @stub.

 

[Name Trader]

Sharing your experience is great thing. So do we have gd pre release domains section on expireddomains.net? What type of domains you buy and in which extension? @stub.

I haven't watched expireddomains.net. You are more likely to tell me, rather than the other way around. I have a keyword list of about 150 keywords, which I work from. This whole thread I've only been talking about .com domains

 

[fitkhan]

I haven't watched expireddomains.net. You are more likely to tell me, rather than the other way around. I have a keyword list of about 150 keywords, which I work from. This whole thread I've only been talking about .com domains

Actually we have GD Closeouts, GD Expired, GD Auctions WB, GD Buy Now, GD Make Offer, GD Featured, GD Traffic, GD Most Active and GD TDNAM sections on expireddomains.net but i don't know which one of them is pre-release one. So can you share those 150 keywords or is it a business secret ?

 

[Arca]

Actually we have GD Closeouts, GD Expired, GD Auctions WB, GD Buy Now, GD Make Offer, GD Featured, GD Traffic, GD Most Active and GD TDNAM sections on expireddomains.net but i don't know which one of them is pre-release one. So can you share those 150 keywords or is it a business secret ?

Take your pick

 

[fitkhan]

Take your pick

mmm. I think it is GD Expired. But at the same time i think these are Pending delete auctions and not pre release ...

 

[Arca]

mmm. I think it is GD Expired. But at the same time i think these are Pending delete auctions and not pre release ...

GD Expired is expiring GoDaddy domains that are in a pre-release auction, and these can only be bought at GoDaddy.

Pending Delete names are domain names from all registrars, not just GD, that are past the redemption period, and will be deleted and become available for hand registration again.

Also, my post above is a link to some of the most popular domain keywords. You can use it as a starting point to build up your own list of keywords.