question How does drop catch work technically?

[domaindevil]

Why are some drop-catching services more successful than others? What is it that they have that the unsuccessful ones do not have?

Is there any article or guide on how they work technically? I have googled but have not found anything good yet.

 

[evil]

When a domain name expires, there's a time period of a little over sixty days when it's inactive, but could still be renewed by its current owner. During this time period, the domain cannot be taken by anybody else, but if it isn't renewed, it gets into the so-called Pending Deletion period which lasts five days. This is when ICANN-accredited registrar firms take backorders for such domains. When a specific name is backordered, the registrar will make an attempt to register it for the customer right after it's deleted and accessible to the public, which gives people a chance to obtain a short and easy to remember domain that may have been used by someone else until now. In case the domain is rather appealing, a number of companies can try to register it in the same time and due to the fact that this happens on a first-come, first-serve basis, there's no guarantee that a particular person will get that domain name. Nevertheless, using a backorder service will give you a lot better chance to obtain a specific domain than if you attempt to register it manually [Source].

The power of a backorder service depends on the number of registars they own. Multiple registars allow them to increase the number of queries and therefore increase the win rate, beating the competition.
You can understand why DropCatch is the service that captures the most disputed domains if you take a look at this list: https://features.icann.org/compliance/registrars-list

 

[akos]

Basically, the time at which a domain is dropped is randomized

This sentence reminded me of a little experiment I did a couple of years back. I was trying to find a pattern to determine if there is some orderliness when it comes to how .com domains drop on a given day. After a few days and thousands of domain drops analyzed, I realized that there may be.

When a domain enters the pendingDelete phase, the Whois timestamp is updated. I compared that to the actual drop time of domains and it turned out that it is highly correlated. Meaning that the order in which .com domains are updated to have the pendingDelete status roughly translates to the order in which they drop. More statistically speaking I got a Spearman's rank correlation coefficient of something like 0.98-0.99 (ie. near perfect) when I checked this on n=500 (approx. can't recall exactly) domains like 4-5 years ago.

I utilized this info heavily back then to manually catch not that valuable but still catchworthy domains. I am not sure whether it is the same mechanism in place today but I thought I would share this, maybe someone will find it useful.

 

[AEProgram]

When a domain name expires, there's a time period of a little over sixty days when it's inactive, but could still be renewed by its current owner. During this time period, the domain cannot be taken by anybody else, but if it isn't renewed, it gets into the so-called Pending Deletion period which lasts five days. This is when ICANN-accredited registrar firms take backorders for such domains. When a specific name is backordered, the registrar will make an attempt to register it for the customer right after it's deleted and accessible to the public, which gives people a chance to obtain a short and easy to remember domain that may have been used by someone else until now. In case the domain is rather appealing, a number of companies can try to register it in the same time and due to the fact that this happens on a first-come, first-serve basis, there's no guarantee that a particular person will get that domain name. Nevertheless, using a backorder service will give you a lot better chance to obtain a specific domain than if you attempt to register it manually [Source].

The power of a backorder service depends on the number of registars they own. Multiple registars allow them to increase the number of queries and therefore increase the win rate, beating the competition.
You can understand why DropCatch is the service that captures the most disputed domains if you take a look at this list: https://features.icann.org/compliance/registrars-list

did I count correct?

2384 registrars on that list, 1204 of them are dropcatch?

 

[enterscope]

Basically, the time at which a domain is dropped is randomized and drop catch services will attempt to "brute force" register the domain over and over until successful.

There are softwares you can purchase to do it yourself, but you will not be able to compete with the large data centers and apis that most registrars use. It isn't worth it imo for most people.

Auctions are the way to go or submitting a drop catch order yourself through one of the top companies.

 

[akos]

With your info, we can try to catch non superpremium domains by using the order. So dropcatching can be domainers' job for something like 1 word .me, .us, those good and not interesting to big players.

I did that back then for non-premium .coms. If I recall correctly I was mostly able to pinpoint the exact drop time of .coms with an avg. error of 1-2 minutes. That way a lightweight brute force catching script made sense as it only had to run for a couple of minutes per domain.

Not sure what the mechanism is for .me or .us, maybe it's worth taking a look at.

 

[viktorleo]

The power of a backorder service depends on the number of registars they own.

is the same rule for catching domains in .FR .DE .ES ??

 

[Surya Giri Kurniawan]

The Dropcatch companies are using software that attempt to register the domain many time in just a second. But there are still no guarantee which service will get the domain.

It seems that Dropcatch services also have cooperation with registrars so when someone order a domain, which is expired, the registrar can help them in auction. So if it is not renewed, the domain is not dropped and strightly go to Dropcatch service.

But if it is dropped, the dropcatch services have to compete each other with software to register the domain, the fastest will get the domain.

 

[enterscope]

This sentence reminded me of a little experiment I did a couple of years back. I was trying to find a pattern to determine if there is some orderliness when it comes to how .com domains drop on a given day. After a few days and thousands of domain drops analyzed, I realized that there may be.

When a domain enters the pendingDelete phase, the Whois timestamp is updated. I compared that to the actual drop time of domains and it turned out that it is highly correlated. Meaning that the order in which .com domains are updated to have the pendingDelete status roughly translates to the order in which they drop. More statistically speaking I got a Spearman's rank correlation coefficient of something like 0.98-0.99 (ie. near perfect) when I checked this on n=500 (approx. can't recall exactly) domains like 4-5 years ago.

I utilized this info heavily back then to manually catch not that valuable but still catchworthy domains. I am not sure whether it is the same mechanism in place today but I thought I would share this, maybe someone will find it useful.

Makes sense, thanks for sharing

 

[Surya Giri Kurniawan]

This sentence reminded me of a little experiment I did a couple of years back. I was trying to find a pattern to determine if there is some orderliness when it comes to how .com domains drop on a given day. After a few days and thousands of domain drops analyzed, I realized that there may be.

When a domain enters the pendingDelete phase, the Whois timestamp is updated. I compared that to the actual drop time of domains and it turned out that it is highly correlated. Meaning that the order in which .com domains are updated to have the pendingDelete status roughly translates to the order in which they drop. More statistically speaking I got a Spearman's rank correlation coefficient of something like 0.98-0.99 (ie. near perfect) when I checked this on n=500 (approx. can't recall exactly) domains like 4-5 years ago.

I utilized this info heavily back then to manually catch not that valuable but still catchworthy domains. I am not sure whether it is the same mechanism in place today but I thought I would share this, maybe someone will find it useful.

Thanks for the info.

Suppose to be the same. They are not processing by inputting random domains, but must be from a list, so mostly are in the same order with drop list. The question is, is it process 100% by system or there are some parts manually processed. If manually, there can be some internal game between them to help special dropcatch service to get the dropping domains.

With your info, we can try to catch non superpremium domains by using the order. So dropcatching can be domainers' job for something like 1 word .me, .us, those good and not interesting to big players.

 

[DomainsGENERAL.com]

how they work technically?

Technically, it seems quite basic: It's the same as if you were on a registrar search function, ask to register a domain, and it returns "not available". You press continuously F5 to refresh the page and you hit the "register" button as fast as possible as soon as it becomes available.

It's this, automatically.

As @evil mentions, the more "friends" you have doing the same thing as the same time, the more it increases the odds one of you will actually be faster than the competition doing the same.

 

[kam]

Is there any article or guide on how they work technically? I have googled but have not found anything good yet.

I have explain what behind the scenes about dropcatch in this post.

https://mydomaintool.com/dropcatch-software/

 

[DomainsGENERAL.com]

I did that back then for non-premium .coms. If I recall correctly I was mostly able to pinpoint the exact drop time of .coms with an avg. error of 1-2 minutes. That way a lightweight brute force catching script made sense as it only had to run for a couple of minutes per domain.

Not sure what the mechanism is for .me or .us, maybe it's worth taking a look at.

Everybody is capable of determining the time with a few minutes margin error.
It all depends how many services are trying to catch the domain. We're talking milliseconds here. Your internet connection is probably already making you can't win, because you are too far from the servers managing the registration compared to (good) dedicated services. You can only win domains no such service is trying to catch.

They are not processing by inputting random domains, but must be from a list, so mostly are in the same order with drop list. The question is, is it process 100% by system or there are some parts manually processed.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Which domains are tried to be catched are usually the ones requested by customers. That's done with their website.

As for the catching itself, nothing is done manually. Humans are far too slow compared to computers.
If several domains are to be catched around the same time, there is no "order" involved.