Epik API support

[twiki]

These days I've finally decided to try out Epik, having domains about anywhere else.

Registered about 40 domains in 2 days, but now I am REALLY disapointed. Side note the context is drop catching and using their API for regging expired domains.

First off, as a note, I was not able to contact support at all. It's like trying to reach a black hole. All calls never reached a rep. I can see they also don't reply to emails. Tried calling many times - it's impossible. You just wait for 2 minutes then the call hangs up on you. No I won't leave a message, sorry; the whole experience makes me suspect nobody will ever call me back. The site is also made BTW so you don't actually find how to contact them, apart from calling the numbers nobody replies to.

Side note if I could call support, OR find any kind of documentation answering my problems listed here, this post would not have existed. But I'm left to my own devices with this. Hence this post.

First day, 2 domains didn't go through. Yeah, perhaps someone else was quicker, that's alright, I understand. But the funds were taken from the account. I mean, what? The inability to register the domains should automatically cancel the transactions, Paypal supports that. And they know instantly they couldn't reg the domain.

I can't really watch if each transaction is matched by a correct domain registration. Have better things to do. Any other registrar automatically sees such errors and reverts the transactions without me having to manually point each to them.

Mailed their support, received note somethone actually received it, and later that day the funds went into account credit. No email replies regarding problem solved, no warning that they actually did this. You have to discover on your own that actually something went into credit. Fortunately I took a look at it.

The worst thing by far is the API.

As a domain investor, I watch for expired domains and I use registrar API to quickly snatch what I need.

Unfortunately, that is not possible with Epik. Their API will not register any freshly dropped domain, although the manual bulk register interface allows for it. This is because, as I can see, the domains ARE NOT AVAILABLE IN REALTIME VIA THE API. While at the same time any other registrar I'm using shows them as available so you can register now. I could register 0 domains via their API. ( Edit: manual regs work though, but not freshly expired ones).

I have given up trying registration after a few minutes so then I'm doing manual regs via the bulk manual search. This meant for me, pointless work for hours at something that any other registrar API offers. Even GD is quicker than this and a more or less functional thing by comparison.

I suspect they only offer CACHED registrations via the API. Yeh, you can definitely register the same domain next day... if it's a crappy one therefore still left available. Sorry - but for a domain investor, 30-60 seconds later anything still worth picking (and not sniped by DropCatch/SnapNames) is looong gone.

Furthermore, you are limited to 10 domains max per API call. (edit: when searching for available domains, cause for registration it's obviously individual).

I mean, seriously? I often monitor up to 60 domains per day, this will likely go soon to hundreds (as I'm currently expanding), so what can any serious investor do with a 10 domains limit?? They know I'm that kind of user cause I've told them on signup. Okay, so be it - disabled search completely and broken the list in batches of 10 or less and tried even that as direct reg attempt. No luck. It won't reg anything. Even if it's just 1 domain call via the API. Minutes later, the domain is still not available. And yeah, it is available via any other registar's API already... sometimes for minutes already... (watched that unfold) but not on Epik.

I'm sorry but this is NOT how the swiss bank of domains should perform.

I'm not sure right now exactly who will actually use this API, who is this for? Us domain investors, certainly not - given the situation.

I hope that Epik takes this post as it should and as intended (as positive criticism from a domainer), and fix their service.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

How to do that?

Authorize... LiveChat and ask...

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Regarding API...
It is not effective to catch any good .com
Just waste of time... even if you use NameSilo or Dynadot API.

So backorder at fee for domainers.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Are there any other things thar are discounted for NP members?

I started using Epik recently 1 month ago and still not familiar with their platform.

There is separate thread about Epik escrow for NP members.

 

[tonyk2000]

It is becoming clear that the industry expects Epik to be increasingly perfect in every area. Fine. That is a good benchmark. We'll see how close we can get.

... and make Epik vulnerable to end up in hands of some private equity firm or some other "shark". Who will stop developing and downgrade existing platform. Such things happened before. Not exclusively in domaining, also in IT in general (hosting)... *I do not mean to say that Epik should not grow now*

 

[Samer]

Thank you for appreciating the feedback. Glad to be of help - although I know I stepped on some toes by doing so. Hopefully not that hard.

Although my post has been indeed quite critical, they say there's no such thing as bad publicity. In fact there's yet one opportunity to shine, well, has been captured.

Side note, nobody is perfect so it's pointless to aim for perfection (that's not what needs to be done). But you have to always look at competitors and not remain behind on certain aspects. That's tough - the number of details to care for is always mind-blowing - but also the competition is always keeping a business on its toes and, in essence, pushing quality forward for the benefit of all users.

i agree with everything except no bad PR
.
thankfully got worked out.

Sorry if i stepped on your toes in initial post

Samer

 

[twiki]

i agree with everything except no bad PR
.
thankfully got worked out.

Sorry if i stepped on your toes in initial post

Samer

No worries

 

[JB Lions]

This experience (with its pros and cons) has brought to me some interesting views, actually from both sides of the situation. Yes I've been on the other end, as an entrepreneur (doing different business).

First off, the negative feedback poster's end.

Most users will never give you this kind of feedback. They simply walk away and the problem stays hidden, driving away yet more valuable users. In the end, it's the business that loses. And the first reaction is, inevitably, to dislike the negative feedback commenter and to tell them they're not doing something nice. It's human to do so.

People are too afraid to voice out their negative feedback. And for good reason. It's quite stressful to do so, especially on a public forum; and especially when the business is quite loved by the community. Inevitably someone will go straight for the jugular, and in some cases you might even get eviscerated in public. The online world is great, but we are too judgemental - and this hurts everybody.

I'd love people to give me their precious negative feedback. Yet they don't.

I remember how many campaigns we had in the past to get such feedback, only to see clients keeping their teeth clenched and not saying a single world. We don't need a tap on the back - you gave us that by purchasing. Tell us what we do wrong instead, and why you walk away this time.

Example, we had our office phones set to ring while on call, so we can see there's another customer on the line and call them back when we're off the call. But this backfired. At times our lines are so busy that every line is on call, and the callers think nobody is taking any phone at this firm.

One such caller left an angry 1-star review on Google for the issue. We replied and apologized and thanked. Now the phones ring busy if we are all on call, well the callers now know they simply need to retry in order to get through. This has cost us some rating at the moment, but brought more clients on the long term.

But it's so rare to get this kind of feedback. Anyway, food for thought.

A lot of people here have been greased, hence the replies you're getting.

I've always had great support at GoDaddy since I have my own rep, but if someone doesn't, then that's their experience.

I've always been paid every month on time by Namejet but some people have posted they have payment issues. I don't jump in those threads attacking them, pointing out I've never had issues therefore you must be full of it. I say, I hope it gets worked out and they should have better communication with you.

So if you or anybody else has issues with anybody, or any company, you can post about it. Don't let people try to make you feel bad about it.

 

[Samer]

My post is on topic, learn to read.

Godaddy has inferior customer service supp — even if you have ur “own agent”— learn read

Rob personally handles all inquiries and has my business over GoDaddy’s any day of week

 

[Ja Kai]

This experience (with its pros and cons) has brought to me some interesting views, actually from both sides of the situation. Yes I've been on the other end, as an entrepreneur (doing different business).

First off, the negative feedback poster's end.

Most users will never give you this kind of feedback. They simply walk away and the problem stays hidden, driving away yet more valuable users. In the end, it's the business that loses. And the first reaction is, inevitably, to dislike the negative feedback commenter and to tell them they're not doing something nice. It's human to do so.

People are too afraid to voice out their negative feedback. And for good reason. It's quite stressful to do so, especially on a public forum; and especially when the business is quite loved by the community. Inevitably someone will go straight for the jugular, and in some cases you might even get eviscerated in public. The online world is great, but we are too judgemental - and this hurts everybody.

I'd love people to give me their precious negative feedback. Yet they don't.

I remember how many campaigns we had in the past to get such feedback, only to see clients keeping their teeth clenched and not saying a single world. We don't need a tap on the back - you gave us that by purchasing. Tell us what we do wrong instead, and why you walk away this time.

Example, we had our office phones set to ring while on call, so we can see there's another customer on the line and call them back when we're off the call. But this backfired. At times our lines are so busy that every line is on call, and the callers think nobody is taking any phone at this firm.

One such caller left an angry 1-star review on Google for the issue. We replied and apologized and thanked. Now the phones ring busy if we are all on call, well the callers now know they simply need to retry in order to get through. This has cost us some rating at the moment, but brought more clients on the long term.

But it's so rare to get this kind of feedback. Anyway, food for thought.

Try an API at Godaddy and let us know how that works for you.

Also, domains drop at specific times. Are you runnning your API for the full hour and 15? Or, for a couple minutes?

 

[twiki]

The transfer pricing, great, all registrars have deals to get people in. GoDaddy used to have $1 transfers.

It still baffles me how GD got this big. My thought so far is, has to be related to their $1 deals, including new $1 registrations.

 

[Silentptnr]

Other registrars and service providers have taken the brunt of frustration and this is no different. Just ask Joe Styler.

Rob has taken the opportunity to respond publicly. And with a service oriented attitude. Not with fluff.

Seems a win win even with the post title. I dont think its rude. It wasnt a personal attack. Rather, an opinion.

Hopefully the op is satisfied in the end.

 

[twiki]

I tend to agree here.

There is the point of building programmatic software that finds exploitable niches and then registered available names. It may be trending keywords on Twitter or whatever but if there is a way to programmatically identify patterns and register the associated names, it can work.

The API is already good, but in light of helpful feedback, expect some fast-track upgrades.

@vitigo
@Gube

Agreed. I must observe, however, that success with programmatic software when domaining still depends a LOT on inspiration and knowledge of the user.

Without extensive knowledge of many niches, even with software, tough job. Cause you don't know what to look for, and therefore you can't even configure your software properly.

 

[twiki]

Estibot is a dull knife, especially for brandable names.

The fact is we need more intelligence in these appraisal engines that looks at things like:

- Traffic growth trends of logical buyer (s)
- Enterprise value of logical buyer (s)
- Social media footprint and trend of logical buyer(s)

We are not there yet but @Gube is looking at this, e.g. making use of private subscription API data to evaluate domains. That info should eventually be made public.

Appraise.epik.com is currently Estibot re-heated but I am inclined to release a smarter appraisal that more accurately portrays fair value based on known structured data.

Appraisal tools need to move forward indeed. But I still have little hope they will indeed hit the nail in the head anytime soon. It's much more complicated I'm afraid. You really have to know the niche well, the companies, the people and the inclination of any potential buyers, make a full persona beforehand etc.

Give you an example.

There is a highly lucrative industrial niche I deal in. I know the companies as I've traveled all across Europe in the last 10 years (dealing in several industrial verticals and this is one of them; each is different).

The trick is, nobody in this industry will buy a related domain. They won't touch it with a long pole. They don't buy domains at all. They even won't buy a website that brings leads daily, when an individual lead can bring an 100K or 1M sale. They say to you, use the website and bring us the orders, not leads.

It's common in that industry. So whoever buys this kind of domain by growth, enterprise value etc. is at a loss.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

API has no sense if you can backorder for almost the same budget fee at Epik, Hexonet etc.
So-called Tier2 backorders, slightly higher than regfee.

 

[twiki]

API has no sense if you can backorder for almost the same budget fee at Epik, Hexonet etc.
So-called Tier2 backorders, slightly higher than regfee.

With this I more or less can agree, with the note that since I did not use backorders nor Epik I was unaware of the offer.

But since there is a money difference, by regging yourself, at each x domains you get one for "free". And you already know that numbers matter in domaining. Not to mention that you can take advantage of current offers at a certain registrar.

 

[twiki]

But if you don't value your time, efforts and health - you may continue to use API...

Efforts? What efforts? It's an activity I enjoy. I said hard work cause many domainers are rather passive about it. And it's alright - everyone has their own style.

Time - my time spent at this is well paid for. And it has nothing to do with health. I don't overwork and my health has never been better in the last 20 years. (excercise, good food and sleep combination). I spend about 1- 2 hours per day at it. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes not at all. Just that hour or so is rather intense work, but again fully enjoyable.

Side note, I get your point. And we can definitely agree to disagree with no hard feelings. It's just that different persons have different methods. I'm the kind that goes against the stream and finds untapped opportunities this way. It's the way I ever succeeded at whatever I succeeded at - by doing things others said they don't work, and often to be impossible.

 

[twiki]

API limit is not a bottleneck... and this is 100% myth that limit can solve your problems.
The more important how many time is required for registrar to process any order... even 1 wasted second on the internal registrar's processing - and you fail.

I can agree with this.

I can only tell you that out of the domains I register, the ones I cannot get are secured by Dropcatch in 95%+ of cases. I rarely find myself competing with other backorders and users, but they usually get snatched later, however not in a second or 10 seconds. But in a minute or two, yes many get snatched.

But I'm okay with my methods. I get like 60-70% of what I aim for.

I think we're not actually disagreeing with each other. If I had a different style, might have been using yours. It's just about personal choices. My choices are different, suiting my own style and there's nothing inherently good or bad by having different choices.

So this being said, I think we can settle the matter. And if you disagree, I won't challenge your opinion further. I don't have a need to be right here and to prove something... just shared a different view and not expecting everyone (or most) to agree with it. But that's fine.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

1-2 minutes - it is not a dropcatching at all.
Just automated registrations.

So for such activity - modify your script to 1 API call per 5-10 seconds.
The simplest way to be within limits.

 

[Kassey Lee]

I want to thank @twiki for this very informative discussion. I understand very much the importance of being able to see things from a different angle. Thank you for your contribution. It has added to my knowledge.

 

[twiki]

1-2 minutes - it is not a dropcatching at all.
Just automated registrations.

So for such activity - modify your script to 1 API call per 5-10 seconds.
The simplest way to be within limits.

Well that's how I use it, good point as this whole thread is a bit off on timing. Good point - I do automated registrations, thanks for the term. (Edit - The term dropcatch is also commonly used for automated regs as well, hence this confusion; that's also why I used it; thanks for making the term clear, appreciated.)

Like a 10 seconds API call, sometimes 1 minute. Rob has used the term; he also supposed it's about throttling, and I believe it's not. There was a double assumption within this thread. He already knows it's not a throttle issue, as I've sent a longer private with some suggestions the team liked. But I haven't posted that here as the thread went in all sorts of directions.

But the API problem was again not related to throttling, but the fact that domains that have already dropped were unavailable for registation, not even 5 minutes later (tested some for that).

I was unable to automatically register any via the API. Switched to bulk manual registration (via their website interface) and that worked.

Otherwise, real dropcatching via API is 100% pointless - doesn't work. For that I would use a registrar service (low desirability domains) or Dropcatch (high value sought domains). My best reg window is generally 1 minute. Some are available for 5 minutes or so.

 

[twiki]

I don't know this Epik API v2 performance...
I used it in the past when it was v1, were no problems. It was also unlimited in the past.

This is why I was really downed initially about the performance. It was baffling (still is) why it didn't reg anything.

After a while, I went 100% light and only sent calls when external Whois told me domain is available. Epik continued to say it's not available, like forever. So I either registered it elsewhere, or (later) chosen to do it manually via the bulk registration window.

I'm currently modifying tools to do external whois and only send the reg call when needed. This is going to be as light as possible, just as a manual reg for example, and still be good for my needs.

 

[twiki]

Did you set your IP address in Epik API settings?
Calls only from this IP are allowed.

And recheck your API signature/key...

If both are correct - then very strangely that it doesn't work for you...

Yes I did set API IP's correctly. There is no error, just that they are unavailable (said "this domain is in dropped window") but never allowed you to reg it.

And yes it is indeed very strange. Please note that the API works, actually; but not for freshly dropped. I did some manual regs and a couple late yesterday dropped nobody took (leftovers). Those worked.

So again, only those just dropped were unavailable. Anything else not recently updated can be reg via the API. This is why I supposed it must be either a caching issue or similar.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Use NameSilo API...
It is available in 2 modes: for dropcatching and for regular usage.

 

[twiki]

First of all if you really knew about Epik you can contact @Rob Monster and the other Epik employee’s over here @Gube etc at any time.

They do also respond to emails as I have written often. They have caught domains for me for (the lowest price in the industry to NP members.)I would say they have caught more than half of what I asked for in the last 3 months. If they don’t catch the $8.49 goes back into your account the same day.

If you and many others wanted the same name, which happens with any good name, don’t blame Epik and go fight for it over at DropCatch etc.for a hefty price tag. If I really want a name I ask for it at multiple places.

There are some names I like but don’t think are worth what other places charge to do a backorder. Epik fits nicely into those kind of names for me. I have no complaints for the price.

I'm not blaming anyone, but sharing the experience. I'm new at Epik. And yes that API has a serious problem. Your comment is about something else. And you missed the part of constructive criticism, that's not blaming.

Edit: Didn't knew they have an catch offer for NP. Anyway. I rely on my own tools and always use the API with different registrars, and have a caught rate of 65-70% or so. That depends on the domains though.

 

[Ja Kai]

Thanks for the comment. Some notes:

- It would have been useful if there was at least some hint in the docs that the API is not intended /cannot be for dropcatch. Over utilization - I'm alright with a call at one minute, but that also didn't work. Don't need a calls per second or whatever. I just need to automate the registration of names I have in my list. And for certain reasons due to the way I register and manage my portfolio, I don't pay extra for registering (expired) domains, unless there is an auction involved, different thing.

- Backorder service - Thanks for the offer, probably the lowest in this line, but I rely on my own tools.

- Support - Maybe I've simply been unlucky. Will retry.

This was not intended to blame anyone or paint a bad picture. However the whole experience was the opposite from expected so it was really frustrating.

Other parts of the platform are good; my problem was the API and the inability to contact support.

You go after 60 targets a day - so you say. What were your targets today? What was successful and what was not. I'm calling bs on your purported API knowledge.