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.

 

[GAhmed]

Hi, I must say, as a newbie domainer (if you can call me that), all of this sounds interesting and overwhelming at the same. Not to mention a little worrying. If I want to get my foot in to making some serious $$$$, what do you guys suggest would be the best method if drop catching is supposedly dead? Is there any hope of being successful any other way? Or is it all about having $$$ to make $$$$?

 

[Name Trader]

@GAhmed - When I used the expression "dead". I didn't mean it literally. It was meant to convey that it's largely moved in the arena of the deep pocketed buyers only. Although there will always be a few domains that pass thru the cracks. DropCatch have changed the game forever. Sweeping up most of the available decent drop-catches, and auctioning them off in open auctions. I've always admired their strategy and commitment in their investment in registrars. It seems to have worked for them as an investment strategy.

But there are 2 categories of expiring domains. Drop-Catching, as the name suggested, is when a domain is actually dropped from the registry and registered anew. And Pre-Release, where domains which have not been renewed by registrants are auctioned off by their Registrar/Auction House before they are returned to the Registry 45 days after expiry. These domains don't drop and retain their original registration date. Many (new) domainers muddle these entirely separate processes together. When they are entirely separate. Whilst I consider Drop-Catching (almost) dead. Pre-Release Auctions are thriving. Mostly because DropCatch has forced us to move (almost) entirely to the first bite of the cherry, at Pre-Release Auctions. Where DropCatch don't operate. So, sadly, this too has become more competitive. It's the nature of more participants.

 

[GAhmed]

Thanks for the explanation @stub

So is it a matter of pot luck, deep pockets or scrapping for the left overs when it comes to Pre-Release? How does DropCatch manage to sweep up the good ones so effectively?

 

[Jasonn]

i would say over the years there is definitely less quality stuff hitting pending delete. i've also noticed a lot more competition in the both pending delete and pre-release as well. its very different than 5 years ago.

 

[Name Trader]

Thanks for the explanation @stub

So is it a matter of pot luck, deep pockets or scrapping for the left overs when it comes to Pre-Release? How does DropCatch manage to sweep up the good ones so effectively?

DropCatch don't participate in Pre-Release. They are a Drop-Catcher. They sweep up the dropping domains by having more registrars knocking on the doors of the registry after the domain comes newly available. I'm talking about 1/1000th of a second in timing (or there abouts).The last time I checked they had over 800 registrars doing this work. Probably more registrars than all the others put together.

As @Jasonn has said. It's a lot harder than 5 years ago. But you will find better domains generally in Pre-Release than in Drop-Catching. It's the nature of the beast. But for a noob with limited funds those minimum bids of $79 can soon add up, if you select the wrong domains. And most decent domains you will be bidding against other people. Some of whom have deep pockets

 

[GAhmed]

Damn, all the dreams and ambitions I had about becoming a successful domainer are slowly fading away

So what hope is there for the average Joe? Some have mentioned ccTLD's. All's I've been reading so far is .com is king. Is there a market to make a decent return with ccTLD's?

 

[Name Trader]

Damn, all the dreams and ambitions I had about becoming a successful domainer are slowly fading away

So what hope is there for the average Joe? Some have mentioned ccTLD's. All's I've been reading so far is .com is king. Is there a market to make a decent return with ccTLD's?

I'd stick with .com as a beginner because there is much more demand for .com than any .ccTLD.

 

[Kate]

There are still good prerelease names that slip though the cracks. Research
Otherwise move up the ladder, and acquire names direct from their owners.
Dropcatching still applies to ccTLDs but there is competition too. If you are trying to catch .de or .uk: good luck.
The mature ccTLDs generally attract competition.

Also, there are millions of names listed on platforms like Afternic or Sedo. Some with BINs.
The usual marketplaces are sometimes overlooked, but there are bargains to be had too.
Unfortunately searching for them tedious. But there are ways around that. If you can write scripts and automate things.

 

[GAhmed]

@Kate I wonder if anyone has written any scripts of the like...

 

[Kate]

Well, in order to be efficient I like to automate as much as I can. For example, I review tens of thousands of deleting names every day (across gTLDs and ccTLDs). I have also compiled my own lists. Of course I don't read the lists in full (it's something I could do in 2005 but not any more). Instead I developed scripts to highlight names of interest based upon certain criteria.

Now imagine you want to get a list of names for sale at Sedo or another platform, but the search feature is too painful to use.
What do you do ? You could build a web scraper or something like that.
If you have access to the zone files, you can do many things. For example if you want to extract a list of all names parked at Sedo (using Sedo NS) it's easy. Then you filter out according to your desires. There is no need to reinvent the wheel because the data (or most of it) is already available.

There are many things that you don't have to do manually. The time saved can be devoted to other tasks like the actual selection of domains. Because days are short and we have to make the most of our time.

Just don't follow your competitors, because everybody is chasing the same names. Walk out the beaten path

 

[GAhmed]

That is some good advise there @Kate
I don't know anything about scripting or scrapping. Are there any good sources available to learn how to do these things? Or would it be better to outsource such a task to save time? Apologies for going off on a tangent on your post @stub

 

[dordomai]

I don't know anything about scripting or scrapping. Are there any good sources available to learn how to do these things?

Yes there are many free online tutorials and courses for coding available.

 

[Kate]

There are plenty of tutorials about web scraping. But it's the kind of job you can outsource to a freelancer.
To stay on topic, here are some examples of real life scripting for domainers.

1. In the early days (mid-1990s) smart domain pionners were compiling their own droplists of .com/.net domains. You could download the zone files from FTP. So what you did is compare the current release against the previous one, thus you could see which names were added (new registrations) and which names were removed (typically expired domains).
   When you had your droplist you just had to keep tracking the expiring names and send a request to netsol (the only registrar at the time) as soon as the name became available.
   Nowadays the droplists are freely available and come straight from the registry.
2. Some ccTLDs publish droplists, but most do not.
   Many years ago, there was a ccTLD that published the list of all registered domains on the official registry website. So I figured out that if I scraped the page say once a week, and compared the list against the previous version I could easily spot the expired domains.
3. The other approach is to simply build and maintain your own lists. You create a list of domains with all the keywords you're interested in (you could even use a list from a zone file of another extension). Next you check the whois for each domain and determine the anniversary date of the domain. Then every day, your scripts check the domains that are due for renewal. You keep checking until the name is renewed or flagged for deletion. Then you wait until the name is deleted and available for registration again. Either way you keep your list up to date (if you have to try next year).
   
4. Some ccTLDs are bureaucratic. One example is the .it TLD (Italia). When you want to register a domain you must fax a letter (LAR) to the registry. It must arrive ASAP: first come first served. It's an open secret that some dropcatchers have automated the process of sending faxes...
5. The most common form of scripting is using a registrar API to register dropping domains. You can compete against people trying to handreg but not against dropcatchers.
6. ...

 

[kaz2]

There are plenty of tutorials about web scraping. But it's the kind of job you can outsource to a freelancer.
To stay on topic, here are some examples of real life scripting for domainers.

1. In the early days (mid-1990s) smart domain pionners were compiling their own droplists of .com/.net domains. You could download the zone files from FTP. So what you did is compare the current release against the previous one, thus you could see which names were added (new registrations) and which names were removed (typically expired domains).
   When you had your droplist you just had to keep tracking the expiring names and send a request to netsol (the only registrar at the time) as soon as the name became available.
   Nowadays the droplists are freely available and come straight from the registry.
2. Some ccTLDs publish droplists, but most do not.
   Many years ago, there was a ccTLD that published the list of all registered domains on the official registry website. So I figured out that if I scraped the page say once a week, and compared the list against the previous version I could easily spot the expired domains.
3. The other approach is to simply build and maintain your own lists. You create a list of domains with all the keywords you're interested in (you could even use a list from a zone file of another extension). Next you check the whois for each domain and determine the anniversary date of the domain. Then every day, your scripts check the domains that are due for renewal. You keep checking until the name is renewed or flagged for deletion. Then you wait until the name is deleted and available for registration again. Either way you keep your list up to date (if you have to try next year).
   
4. Some ccTLDs are bureaucratic. One example is the .it TLD (Italia). When you want to register a domain you must fax a letter (LAR) to the registry. It must arrive ASAP: first come first served. It's an open secret that some dropcatchers have automated the process of sending faxes...
5. The most common form of scripting is using a registrar API to register dropping domains. You can compete against people trying to handreg but not against dropcatchers.
6. ...

This is really amazing advice Kate! You mentioned earlier that you can look for domains with a BIN listed at a marketplace. My worry is that a domain like that may not be of much interest as if it has been listed at a marketplace for long and no one has bought it then that says the domain has not got much potential to sell to an end user. Would you agree?