DropCatch.com - Is it me or do they now get 95% of the desirable drops?

[Michael M]

DropCatch.com - is it me or do they now get 95% of the desirable drops? Then with their public auction platform - it pretty much screws any smaller guy wanting to play in the domain game. I dont mind bidding against other backorders nearly as much as people who did not have the forsight to backorder it - and wait to see it pop up on a list to bid.

They seem to have managed to capture all that middleman profit for themselves. Irks me a little, and yet I have to have respect for their ingenuity in dominating the expiring market.

I understand they are using a vast network of registrars to do this...

Anyone have any ideas on how to combat DropCatch.com so you do not have to paid over-inflated open to public auction prices?

I understand people have their trade secrets, and the general basics of snatching them self, or using multiple backordering services - but seems DC has figured out how to rig those odds waay in their favor where the success rate isnt worth the effort.

Thoughts?

-Mike

 

[Michael M]

Moderators - just noticed there was a better category for this if you wanted to move it there. I dont see an option for me to move it. Or if you feel it necessary then delete it and I can repost in the appropriate area.

 

[Jasonn]

its a new era for drop catching and one that only works for those with a lot of money to play with. dacsan.com is up for auction for the third or forth time. lots of fraud bidders apparently.

 

[cbk]

Andrew Reberry, Namebright, Huge Domains, Denver Domainer ( I made the last one up) whatever you want to call him is notorious and yes he grabs a lot but does miss a few especially good domains with young registrations, also domains I owned and only got a couple hundred he puts up for 4,000, good luck with that.

Best way to combat him is to buy the domain before the drop, when it drops it more than likely went through the "buy now" auction at Godaddy for $5.

 

[Name Trader]

If, what you say is true, that they are now capturing 95% of the desirable domain drop market (which I doubt), you are probably wasting your time to compete with them. But as @cbk states you can look into the Pre-Release auctions at SnapNames/NameJet/GoDaddy, where you can buy the same domain before it drops. No Dropcatch.com operating in that segment and it is where you can still find quality domains

But @cbk is wrong about GoDaddy. Every expiring domain at GoDaddy is a Pre-Release Auction. Both Expiring Domain Auctions and Closeout Buy Now. There is healthy competition there also. I see a lot of good domains sell for what I would consider, too much money.

 

[cbk]

Where does cbk say that not all expiring domains at Godaddy goes through the auction process??

"More than likely" reference was that the domain was even registered at Godaddy before the drop.

 

[Name Trader]

Best way to combat him is to buy the domain before the drop, when it drops it more than likely went through the "buy now" auction at Godaddy for $5

This is only referring to closeout domains. But $12 expiring auctions are also Pre-Release auctions.

 

[cbk]

The 5 day buy now is the last chance and cheapest way to buy the domain before the drop for which we are talking about.

I will say it again the cheapest way to somewhat combat the drop kings is buy it in the $5 closeout since nobody bid on it.

The OP could more than likely bought those domains he was interested in for $5

I do it all the time and buy $5 closeouts of domains I know Andrew and others would have snagged on the drop.

 

[Michael M]

I have grabbed a few at the Godaddy closeout and a few from auctions lately... But I was just wondering if the domain name game has changed that much since I was actively looking at it 5 years ago... I'm guessing grabbing dropped domains is rendered impossible by dropcatch, godaddy holding their domains, and snapnames and namejet deals with registrars? Was wondering if there was any tactic to getting the names not acquired before drop by the big couple of players? Best I see is work out a deal with the owner before drop, but wonder if someone with some programming expertise could also work the system to have a chance against dropcatch?

 

[Michael M]

@cbk I can not simply buy the domains I was speaking of for $5 from Godaddy because Godaddy was not their original registrar, therefore dropcatch grabbed them before any backorder service could or I could hand reg them. The auction for this name is now up to $2,500.

Now, I understand the likelyhood of getting this domain was VERY low to begin with - but I have been unable to acquire some much less desirable names lately. I am forced to use Godaddy Auction expiring auctions/closeouts or similar to buy domains for my projects and possible resale. It just burns a little when I see better names being dropped going for close to end user prices on these sites. 3 or so sites have most of the market locked down to where you can not pickup any valuable domain anymore without overpaying.

 

[cbk]

Michael, Godaddy does NOT hold dropped domains for their own personal use. Godaddy search does not know the difference between a freshly dropped available domain and a domain that as always been available. That thread is dead.

I buy dropped domains at Godaddy almost everyday for the past 10 years. One today about 11:30. No holds.

As for dropcatch it is just a great business model and yes there will be more competitors in the future grabbing even more of the drops unless you somehow know and acquire them before. Be careful asking the owner for you may just jog his memory to renew but then again if he does renew dropcatch wont acquire it, ha

But I always wondered how much more room in that millisecond there is to grab that domain, how much more faster could you be?

 

[DomainVP]

DropCatch sure does have frequent 'fraudulent' bidders...

When things like that happen, you always follow the money; as they say.

You can ask two questions:
#1.How does a non-paying bidder benefit by having a frequent auction prices go extremely high?
#2.How does a registrar benefit by having frequent auction prices go extremely high?

The one that has the most sensible answers in the path we should all be sniffing down.

I used to see this on eBay all of the time, it was actually pretty common practice. List an item, bid it up with a secondary account with an unrelated I.P., guarantee a sale for above market value every time.

I don't use DC much, and I have been involved in 3-4 'fraudulent bidder' auctions where the domain was re-listed.

Smells familiar...

 

[Michael M]

CBK, I wasn't saying Godaddy "held their dropped domains for personal use." That is not exactly how I meant it. They merely auction/sell the registered domains off to make the profit themselves before the pendingdelete (if owner does not renew before delete) - therefore keeping anyone from getting the drop for a reasonable price if it is a name worth having that godaddy had on registry. If it wasn't worth having noone will bid or buy that domain, then it will drop.

Whereas dropcatch seems to grab that majority of names worth any decent value that is with a registrar that does not do their own or they work with an auction house on expiring domains. Therefore boxing out the small domain guy and keeping all profits at these auction houses.Seems like DC managed to close the niche of grabbing domains buy using a large network of registrars and looking a little deaper into his regging - into many different LLCs.
Example of 2 domains names caught by DC:
Registrar: DropCatch.com 462 LLC
Registar: DropCatch.com 354 LLC

So does he have 500+ LLCs registered so he can submit 500+ regs for each domain with each registry he works with? If so, good thinking on his part - but maaaan what a ### move.

Seems there must be a way for us to get together and level the playing field a little better. Things seemed much better from my perspective years ago, when I had as about as good of a chance as anyone else at snatching a domain name on delete.

I prefer the old models or something like Dynadot where ONLY the people who placed a backorder could bid on that domain. Seems fairer for everyone involved in the domain market except for the auction houses.

 

[Name Trader]

The 5 day buy now is the last chance and cheapest way to buy the domain before the drop for which we are talking about.

I will say it again the cheapest way to somewhat combat the drop kings is buy it in the $5 closeout since nobody bid on it.

The OP could more than likely bought those domains he was interested in for $5

I do it all the time and buy $5 closeouts of domains I know Andrew and others would have snagged on the drop.

What do you do about all those dropping domains which never make it into the Closeouts? The cream of the drop.

 

[Michael M]

So I guess my lack of knowledge of current reality was from me being out of the game for a few years - but in further research and reading my hunch was correct. DropCatch as of Dec 2014 owned 1/3 of the registrars registered with ICANN.

So basically they can get any domain name they want and us little guys can do nothing but hope for luck or move on to domains their service doesn't look at.

Sad someone managed to edge out thousands of peoples sales into their own pocket - and it wasn't me...

I have put some thought into how to beat their system but it would be either extremely labor intensive with a 50/50 shot of success or cost millions in licensing from ICANN and insurance to beat them at their own game.

 

[Michael M]

To add - programmatically you can not beat them to the drops without 500+ registrars of your own to shoot out thousands of requests at a time and make sure to secure the name.

Snapnames which I believe owns/works with the next most registrars (I think I read it was right at 200) is not catching any of the domains I have been watching in the last week. ALL have gone to DropCatch except for the one that the best I can tell renewed the day before the drop.

So seems DropCatch managed to secure enough registrars to edge SnapNames out of the majority of any domain they desire. SnapNames gets the most of the rest. And Godaddy has their racket with their massive client list of domains expiring daily. That seems to leave only the domains with not enough margin to mess with and only the most clever can find gems by using alternative thinking.

 

[Kate]

I am actually surprised that they devoted so many resources to catching domains, given that the quality has seriously dried out over the years. I know of one registrar or two that ceased dropcatching activities years ago because it was no longer competitive.
Pool also withdrew from the game in a less than glorious manner.

 

[Name Trader]

This maybe a one-off example, but how much did that LLL.COM sell for that they caught recently $20+k? $8.05 to $20+k. Hmm. Not bad. But it must be a profitable business for them when they double the amount of registrars, almost overnight.

 

[Lightthrower]

This maybe a one-off example, but how much did that LLL.COM sell for that they caught recently $20+k? $8.05 to $20+k. Hmm. Not bad. But it must be a profitable business for them when they double the amount of registrars, almost overnight.

vvv? 136k

 

[Jasonn]

This maybe a one-off example, but how much did that LLL.COM sell for that they caught recently $20+k? $8.05 to $20+k. Hmm. Not bad. But it must be a profitable business for them when they double the amount of registrars, almost overnight.

from watching their sales daily i would guess they make about 15-20k a day. that LLL they caught went for almost 30k.

 

[Kate]

LLL.com don't drop every day

 

[Domain Lead Finder]

Dropcatch does a good job IMO but you have to submit your order very very late or HugeDomains will cherry pick your back orders and slap on some ridiculous price. I am not accusing Reberry of actually cherry picking domains himself, but its more likely to be some rogue employee trying to make a quick buck by lurking on other peoples back orders and following what they order. I have a strong feeling that Dropcatch and HugeDomains are the same company.

 

[Jasonn]

Dropcatch does a good job IMO but you have to submit your order very very late or HugeDomains will cherry pick your back orders and slap on some ridiculous price. I am not accusing Reberry of actually cherry picking domains himself, but its more likely to be some rogue employee trying to make a quick buck by lurking on other peoples back orders and following what they order. I have a strong feeling that Dropcatch and HugeDomains are the same company.

any place that has public backorders has the possiblity for others to use that info to get the domains for themselves on other platforms. i don't use any system that publicly lists backorders.

 

[Name Trader]

@Jasonn - Could you be more specific about which platforms you avoid which have publicly listed backorders?

@Domain Lead Finder - DropCatch and HugeDomains are separate companies with the same ownership.

 

[JustBusiness]

Hi...If I buy a closeout domain will it retain the age in WHOIS?