PJ Baldwin
Established Member
- Impact
- 112
6 months ago, GoDaddy Auctions increased the starting price of its "closeout" auctions from $11 to $50, in an apparent attempt to curb "sniping" by automated API bots such as Huge Domains (HD).
For those of you who actively participate in the closeouts, have you noticed if this change has helped at all with the sniping problem?.. Or, are HD and others still sniping at the same rate as before?.. In general, what has been your experience with closeouts since the change was implemented?
Note #1: The reason I'm asking is that there's a domain I'm mildly interested in as a potential end-user, but I really don't want to pay more than $200 for it. Based on my experience (and as many here have learned), if you place a bid for it at the last minute then you end up in a bidding war with HD (which seems to go above $500 regularly now). On the other hand, if you allow it to go to closeouts (assuming there's no bids) then you risk it getting sniped. I assume the risk of that is less now at $50 instead of $11, but it also wouldn't surprise me if HD is completely undeterred by it and sniping at will.
Note #2: I'm only interested in discussing the impact of this change on sniping. I'm not interested in theories of why GD increased the price, what their actual motivations may have been, or whether you agree with the policy change. Those have already been discussed in other threads, ad nauseum.
For those of you who actively participate in the closeouts, have you noticed if this change has helped at all with the sniping problem?.. Or, are HD and others still sniping at the same rate as before?.. In general, what has been your experience with closeouts since the change was implemented?
Note #1: The reason I'm asking is that there's a domain I'm mildly interested in as a potential end-user, but I really don't want to pay more than $200 for it. Based on my experience (and as many here have learned), if you place a bid for it at the last minute then you end up in a bidding war with HD (which seems to go above $500 regularly now). On the other hand, if you allow it to go to closeouts (assuming there's no bids) then you risk it getting sniped. I assume the risk of that is less now at $50 instead of $11, but it also wouldn't surprise me if HD is completely undeterred by it and sniping at will.
Note #2: I'm only interested in discussing the impact of this change on sniping. I'm not interested in theories of why GD increased the price, what their actual motivations may have been, or whether you agree with the policy change. Those have already been discussed in other threads, ad nauseum.
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