information GoDaddy to increase closeout starting prices to $50

[JudgeMind]

Godaddy will be increasing their starting price of closeouts to $50. The pricing structure will go as follows:

Day 1: $50

Day 2: $40

Day 3: $30

Day 4: $11

Day 5: $5

This news is causing a stir in the industry and some are pretty upset. You can read in more detail about the price increase here, courtesy of domainnamewire - GoDaddy to change closeout auction pricing - Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News

 

[wwwweb]

This is a finely calculated chess move, now you have a $12 auction coming onto close, do you bid $12, or do you wait to closeouts to bid $50. Newbie thinks ok let me bid $12, save myself $38, we all know what happens when we bid, the HugeDomains Monster Bot rears his ugly head, and puts his $1xx bid in place, now you got a new problem, do I pay $150, or do I let it go?

At this point there is no point in waiting 5 days, and paying $5, instead of $12 if name is still there at that point. Really the system is designed to inflict maximum financial pain.

Congrats to all the API closeout snipers, you have had a great 3-4 years, uncontested.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

While Dutch auction formats have some fairness, it seems that the main effect of this will simply be domain investors paying more for domains that passed auction without bid. The automated bids make the auctions challenging as is, and now one pays much more for closeouts, in most cases. And if you don't have a discount cost membership, high renewal/transfer tacked on as well.

Instead of this route, why not go full Dutch auction and dispense with the normal auction first? Start at some price, maybe based on their estimate of worth, then have the auction count down steadily in price by the hour. This down auction only would mean that as far as I can see the bots with API access would lose most of their advantage in that system. Once someone meets the price it has gone down to, the domain is sold. If the increments were small, then any speed advantage of the bot would largely dissipate. Anyone could place a private bid that would be placed once the price reached that level. Everyone on equal footing.

To make it really fair, a portion of the proceeds should go to the person/business/organization who held the domain prior to expiry, who created it in many cases. But now I am dreaming...

Someone should invent a system like that. Oh wait a minute, someone did! Thanks @DanSanchez !

Bob

 

[Ostrados]

It is bad news and good news at the same time. Bad news because it means higher cost for domainers, good new because it means higher cost for HD.

Maybe this will stop closeouts snipping and domainers will have some chance in GD auctions. However many domainers buy only from closeouts and don't buy from auctions, and this change will be very costly for them.

 

[wwwweb]

Hope you're right.

Get ready for this post to be quoted in every Domaining blog

Scoop Plugged in You're the man. FINALLY!!

Unless you think it foreshadows it's demise, i hope you're right.
Why not announce it with the Closeout Price restructure? makes no sense

Samer

I spoke to Paul Nicks just now and it's not going away. No changes to the API.

Thanks, for doing the extra leg work. My previous comments came from someone I know talking to Joe Styler, I guess things changed.

Then this whole process is for nothing then, HugeNames has no issue paying $50 all day in sniping the best. Godaddy is not interested in keeping a level playing field, but keeping in good with their largest partner/bidder, or whatever you want to call their relationship. I would assume HugeNames would be not to happy with losing their closeout sniping ability, and they would not want to make their largest auction buyer unhappy.

In the case you do happen to get brave and place a $12 bid, their auto bot, will sense it, and come bid you up into the hundreds. If you see something good, most likely it will be gone before you blink at $50.

So what good are we to Godaddy, we are simply click happy lemmings there to ensure HugeNames pays somewhat wholesale for the names they bid on. As most domainers have exited Godaddy as they don't want to sit there for hours on end, placing bids on a bot that resets the clock every 5 minutes, with min bids.

Lose Lose

 

[Ostrados]

GoDaddy likes to add many layers to your purchase. What you initally thought you would pay ends up being much more. The 1 year of registration is often for much higher than the average registrar. And if you're using a different currency than USD you bet the price will be even higher.

On top of that the 1 year renewal you pay after buying from closouts is not full year of 365 days! You get something like 10 months only.

 

[wwwweb]

Like how many people have completely or like scaled back even participating, or checking godaddy auctions?

Any bid you place is countered by some sort of auto sensing bot, the closeouts are auto bidder by bots before you can blink. Really one major vendor has a monopoly on an auction platform?

Do they sense that active regular bidders has just checked out, not like it matters as prices are still sky high, and it just takes 2-3 constant parties who seem to be outbidding each other.

Who really enjoys bidding over there because you have a bot that drops a min bid on every countdown clock, opportunity cost of time of completing an auction taking hours per day. Sure you can drop your max bid, and the bot can keep tapping your max bid, until it bids it up, and bails.

The experience has become a soured one, and I really find it surprising that auctions are very scared, and impartial but some parties have been given tools to give them Demi God advantages.

 

[GeorgeQuang]

Domainers or Big Companies who has API access must pay high 5 figure cost for GoDaddy monthly. So $50 for quality domains still affordable and cheaper than DropCatch.
I think that the purpose of increasing their Close Out price is just maximize their profit. That's it.
Big whales still catch quality domains on Close Out at $50 like they do daily.
And small domainers will be kicked out off the hunting game.
Welcome to 2021 with the basic prices are increasing (acquiring cost and renewal fee).

 

[pb]

Negatives are obvious, so I focused on the positives:
1. possibly less sniping, we have to wait and see
2. less impulse buying of crap domains
3. $5 domains are still $5

 

[bmugford]

Like how many people have completely or like scaled back even participating, or checking godaddy auctions?

Any bid you place is countered by some sort of auto sensing bot, the closeouts are auto bidder by bots before you can blink. Really one major vendor has a monopoly on an auction platform?

Do they sense that active regular bidders has just checked out, not like it matters as prices are still sky high, and it just takes 2-3 constant parties who seem to be outbidding each other.

Who really enjoys bidding over there because you have a bot that drops a min bid on every countdown clock, opportunity cost of time of completing an auction taking hours per day. Sure you can drop your max bid, and the bot can keep tapping your max bid, until it bids it up, and bails.

The experience has become a soured one, and I really find it surprising that auctions are very scared, and impartial but some parties have been given tools to give them Demi God advantages.

Yeah, I have not been an active bidder in quite some time. The math does not make sense when it comes to sell through rate.

I would like to see an entirely new process when it comes to expired domains. These registrars act like it is their God given right to insert themselves as the middle men and make profits on "pre-release" domains.

They did nothing but be the registrar. They did not come up with the idea, they did not registrar the domain, they did not pay renewals. It is pretty unreasonable in my view that they are the ones keeping all the profits.

I have almost my entire portfolio at GoDaddy, but what I consider their greedy moves lately are concerning to me. Starting with their high stock registration rates, doubling the cost of DDC, doubling the cost of buy service, now this.

Brad

 

[Mister Funsky]

Godaddy will be increasing their starting price of closeouts to $50. The pricing structure will go as follows:

Day 1: $50

Day 2: $40

Day 3: $30

Day 4: $11

Day 5: $5

This news is causing a stir in the industry and some are pretty upset. You can read in more detail about the price increase here, courtesy of domainnamewire - GoDaddy to change closeout auction pricing - Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News

Thank you for the post. After years of buying auction names and immediately moving them out when possible, I started leaving/renewing names there because they added partial privacy. Now, I will begin moving them out again to more investor friendly registrars. The new guy might not be as sharp as some think.

 

[NickB]

The below comment below the name wire article summed it up perfectly for me......

"Is funny to read the comments that are angry and this is a “money grab” . D’uh, of course it is why are you surprised.

GoDaddy is a business and their business is to make money , the more they take from your business and the more they put into their own pocket is their fiduciary duty to their shareholders.

As a domain investor , you are seeking your maximum return and would not hesitate to take as much money from the buyer as you possibly can , why do you expect GoDaddy to act any different."

If you really think a domain is a quality acquisition either bid at it at the auction stage and be prepared to pay a premium or be prepared to pay more at closeouts (unless the bots still continue their rampage, then continue to look for their scraps - some people seem to be doing very well this way, so nothing is going to really change except people paying a few $$ more at closeouts) so put your mark up accordingly - otherwise use another service like DropCatch or Dynadot etc etc

 

[D Haynes]

It is bad news and good news at the same time. Bad news because it means higher cost for domainers, good new because it means higher cost for HD.

Nobody but GD will a gain anything from HDs higher cost unfortunately.

 

[Page Howe]

This is a finely calculated chess move, now you have a $12 auction coming onto close, do you bid $12, or do you wait to closeouts to bid $50. Newbie thinks ok let me bid $12, save myself $38, we all know what happens when we bid, the HugeDomains Monster Bot rears his ugly head, and puts his $1xx bid in place, now you got a new problem, do I pay $150, or do I let it go?

At this point there is no point in waiting 5 days, and paying $5, instead of $12 if name is still there at that point. Really the system is designed to inflict maximum financial pain.

Congrats to all the API closeout snipers, you have had a great 3-4 years, uncontested.

but the API still has the advanatge as the first to pay the $50, so nothings changes to solve the probelm we cared about..

 

[Mohit Singhania]

Increasing the closeout price won't change a thing for the big players with large funds. HD bots can just snipe away domains at 50$.

Problem will be for small players with limited funds who look for domains that somehow go unnoticed and falls through the cracks. Now they have to pay 4 times as much.

 

[D Haynes]

Thank you for the post. After years of buying auction names and immediately moving them out when possible, I started leaving/renewing names there because they added partial privacy. Now, I will begin moving them out again to more investor friendly registrars. The new guy might not be as sharp as some think.

I move every name I can out. I used to only buy names at GD now I buy about 1 a year. GD auctions and closeouts are essentially a scam.

 

[urlurl]

yup, GD auctions were a lot more fun 5 + years ago, i stopped looking at the clusterfuck prices a while ago - made no rational sense, and no FOMO from me

 

[domain hacks]

GoDaddy stock was $25 four years ago. It is $85 now. GD stockholders couldn't care less if a domainer on Namepros cries about Closeout price on GD Auctions. Only thing they are interested in is how many dollars they earned in these 4 years. On each invested dollar they earned more than $3.

 

[DanSanchez]

Thanks for the mention @Bob Hawkes! - I would agree that model works really well to get investors max possible return capital using NL, I'm not sure GD will adopt it though because it is a bit more involved than a regular auction.

I suspect the main reason this is happening is pure monetary inflation, we are about to see what printing trillions (30%+ of total dollars in existence) in 2020/2021 will do to the purchasing power of your dollar. It's one of the main reasons why I've advocated for all domainers to adopt a foundation of sound-money with Bitcoin. Having savings is one of the most overlooked aspects of being a domain investor.

 

[Ostrados]

Why dont GD just prevent API from accessing the closeouts? This will completely resolve closeout snipping and API bots can still access the auctions which is the main purpose of the API in first place.

The more I think about it the more I realize that this move has nothing to do with preventing closeouts snipping. Moreover HD bots can simply snipe again when the price reaches $11.

 

[DomainVP]

Most closeouts are trash.

I stopped buying them last year, even with the ability to snipe with a high success rate.
*(Still can't beat that API with a 1 second purchase time)

There were also some real suspicious moves where I would win, submit payment, domain would land in my panel as won, then would vanish a day later and they would say someone else won... **cough**aSubsidiaryOfGoDaddy **Cough** not going to get into that.

I bought about $3k in closeouts last year, and covered those costs in the sale of 4-5 names.

Most of them I will drop, but there are a few I have added to my permanent portfolio as I believe they will have solid future returns for long term holds.

As they put the pinch on the price it just makes more sense to go to auction and spend that $3k on quality names that people would want. I suggest that anyone interested in playing the closeout game have the best analytics they can find - don't jump in there blind at $50 per name.

Right now I would much rather spend $3k on GOOD auction names and play those odds.

I will gladly go to auction for a domain worth buying - you get what you pay for.

 

[pablohc86]

From the OP article:
"People with access to GoDaddy’s legacy API have been able to take advantage of this opportunity, but bidders without API access and computing power/development resources have been left out. Smaller domain investors, in particular, have felt disadvantaged."

So now Godaddy is caring the poor smaller investors with less resources and want to help them
they are so sweet
thanks Godaddy

 

[Compassion]

Seems par for the course for GD.

 

[Nerevar]

It's the natural order of things. Become monopolist -> raise prices -> people leave -> stop being a monopolist.

 

[Ostrados]

Monopoly leads to arrogance and arrogance can lead to wrong business decisions.

Look at what is happening to WhatsApp, suddenly I have many contacts appearing in my Telegram lol