HUGE DOMAINS SNIPING GODADDY CLOSEOUTS

[wwwweb]

So annoying Godaddy hasn't stopped Huge Domains from sniping Godaddy Closeouts with their automated tools, no way a human bidder can win a even closeout.

First they were sniping with the backorders, now you cut that out, and you are letting them snipe via automated tools.

So what do you say @Joe Styler , you want to even the playing field a bit, as your partners are bidding everything in a split second, from $12, to $11, and bidding everything else into the hundreds from a simple bid. I would rather pay a Huge Domains surcharge at checkout.


Huge Domains has an unfair advantage on the auction platform, essentially taxing every user for using it with their automated access advantages given to them thru the house.

 

[wwwweb]

Whole lot of info in your post, most of which I agree with and I am late for a meeting...so, if I understand the first sentence correctly, my response would be that the auction format/formula for daddy utilizing buyouts has been extremely profitable for them...any bulk acquisition with the low values paid for domains on an individual basis will give them more fodder for their profit cannon.

I agree but they control basically all expired inventory flow now, why spend the money when you can get a cut of all the action regardless, and you have people like Huge Domains just bidding up every auction, it is an amazing system for sure.

The portfolios godaddy has bought have had a lot of liquid 2L.com, and 3L.com names in the past, given Huge Names has some decent names in their inventory, they also have a large portion of junk, which would be dead weight. I am sure Godaddy has their stats as they probaly sell a good portion of their inventory thru the Godaddy sales channel. Godaddy never seemed to involved in acquiring registry connections to be in the actual Dropcatch type business, their numbers did disappoint in recent release, so I guess they will be looking to find ways to increase revenue. I don’t think the Reyberry’s are ready to sell, it would probably have to be a huge premium, which I don’t think anyone in this industry would
pay given how Verisign, and icann are acting right now.

 

[mr-x]

I've also offen wondered about how legal it all is. The problem is that there is zero downside for GD so why would they do anything to even the playing field.

According to GD, ENOM, etc... they aren't even "auctions". The TOS carefully skirts responsibility for anything.

Thumb on the scale makes GD money in the long run because it increases prices small investors pay. HD and other large accounts get preferred access, fewer domains are left to drop, higher average sale.

If they gave API access to everyone, it would raise operating cost, degrade performance for their large customers.

I've said in another thread about HD that if the time and effort was put in and enough data was gathered on the auctions they bid on (and preferably get outbid on) I sure there would be a way to crack their algorithm. That would in turn allow them to be bid up on worthless names or at least let us know what they will bid to on a name and whether its worth taking part in the auction or not.

 

[MapleDots]

HD is impossible to compete with whether it is closeouts or action - For fun I followed about 15 minutes of GD action and here's what they won:

sengongpm.com - $22
srclean.com - $59
buylocalsandiego.com - $17
kaizenculture.com - $15
ocstaff.com - $15
sfseg.com - $15
reclaimedcleveland.com - $35
tradedentist.com - $15
femdoll.com - $15
floatersociety.com - $17
talniri.com - $116
coworkingon.com - $32
t1rates.com - $28

They became 2 highest bitter on the following names (their price)

centropay.com - $110 - (105)
everythingnicechristening.com - $49 - (45)
pureconcrete.com - $241 - (238)
fantasticresorts.com - $207 - (203)
exclusivecourses.com - $100 - (95)
lingasiabeauty.com - $50 - (45)

Lowest GD valuation was $253 and highest $2712

I was not interested in any of the names above, but last week I lost 12 auctions to them between $100 - 800

I would not say impossible, I won a few domains where I knew I was bidding against them and if I look at your list the pricing on those domains is fairly reasonable.

So if I truly needed centropay.com I would easily have paid more than the $110 and even id they bid it up to $800 that would still be a reasonable price for a domain I had a use for.

I know I won a couple but I had to bid up fairly high.

HeHe, I also bid up a couple fairly high and then bowed out on purpose. I checked later and sure enough the domains ended up at Huge Domains. I was very glad to return the favor and have them waste some money for a change.

 

[MapleDots]

They must pay GD millions in auction fees and must easily be their biggest customer across all channels (just a guess). If there's no collusion or sweeteners of some sort I'd be very surprised.

Not only that but they are also partners when it comes to sales. You can buy your Huge Domains straight from GoDaddy and have it in your account by days end.

I did that recently and it shows how closely godaddy and huge domains are linked.

 

[MapleDots]

Maybe @Joe Styler @Paul Nicks are on vacation, or don’t want to open up a can of worms.

It would be interesting to see how many domains are purchased by huge domains vs all domainers together on any specific month.

I would almost say that our opinion probably does not play any significant part in the decision making process between these two companies.

 

[D Haynes]

Not only that but they are also partners when it comes to sales. You can buy your Huge Domains straight from GoDaddy and have it in your account by days end.

I did that recently and it shows how closely godaddy and huge domains are linked.

I'm sure this must be some sort of conflict of interests or collusion to be given special access to tools and information (API etc) by a business partner to bid in a public auction.

 

[D Haynes]

It would be interesting to see how many domains are purchased by huge domains vs all domainers together on any specific month.

I would almost say that our opinion probably does not play any significant part in the decision making process between these two companies.

I think its safe to say that GD don't give a single sh*t what the individual customer thinks in a situation like this lol.

 

[Joe Styler]

As a side note, I tried to imagine what will happen without Huge Domains @ GD (or at all). We'll all celebrate, no doubts.

But then -

As confirmed by Joe and Paul, GD employees are allowed to purchase closeouts (if no bidding is involved). So there is nothing that prevents GD-owned companies from "purchasing" closeouts, and they have each and every opportunity to do so without any competition. Indeed, the same entities did purchase portfolios (such as from Michael Berkens), so why not to add fresh closeouts? Yes, ICANN accrediation explicitly prevents registrars from doing so, but ICANN does not care... and GD can always open another company for their aftermarket activities. Such an outcome is not impossible. Moreover, we do not know - maybe it already happens, with domains that Huge Domains did not like. Such domains will be always renewed, set to private whois and appear on afternic / godaddy almost instantly (would be natural outcome). And, GD may well be successful with this intiative - they have good db of previous sales (afternic/auctions), they have access to auction watchlists, and also to day-to-day handreg trends.

We are not buying closeouts as a company. Why would we? We could just keep the domains we liked and not send them to auction in the first place. We don't do that either by the way. We don't watch what people watch, or search for, or anything else for that matter. We do not compete against customers in our name or any other company name.

 

[Joe Styler]

If they arent permitting API access anymore then they should remove it for all, thats insane.

We do permit API access. I just gave someone access this week in fact. If you are an active auctions user and a known good customer reach out and we can get you API access.
However it is important to note, we do not allow "drop catching" on closeouts. We limit requests via the API on closeout domains. We do this for two reasons. We want it to be fair across the board for anyone to get them. We do not want our servers "ddos" attacked by our own API customers trying to grab closeout domains. So getting API access is not a silver bullet for getting good closeout domains. I get asked this a lot which is why I am bringing this up. Closeout domains are very competitive.

 

[Joe Styler]

I think its safe to say that GD don't give a single sh*t what the individual customer thinks in a situation like this lol.

I thought the expression was two shits, and we do. That is one of the reasons I spend so much time here. I want to hear what customers think and take action on that. We've implemented a lot of changes over the years from feedback on here and elsewhere directly from customers regardless of how much they spend or how many domains they have.

 

[BaileyUK]

I don't wish to offend anyone on Namepros. But is this just not a case of 'Scalpers' being beaten by bigger scalpers with greater resources (I don't like the term Scalpers but I can understand why it is used by some)

Maybe I'm just familiar with the UK scene where API access is fairly common place (for a fee) and Drop-Catching has been the norm for years

 

[tonyk2000]

Closeout domains are very competitive.

Between 2 or more API customers? Joe, are you aware of cases where the closeout domain was successfully purchased by a normal web based customer, but with 1 or more API customers also sending (unsuccessful) requests to purchase it (within their API limits) at the same time?

If you are an active auctions user and a known good customer reach out and we can get you API access.

... wouldn't this convert auctions to a war between bots?

We want it to be fair across the board for anyone to get them.

For this purpose (in common binary logic sense) GD should either:

- instantly provide API access to any and all customers, by adding appropriate section into "manage my account" interface

OR

- revoke any and all API accesses previously provided, make relevant code changes to prevent "home-made" automation via https, and politely ask all customers only to use their web browsers for auctions.godaddy.com

Am I wrong here?

 

[Optimal Names]

We do permit API access. I just gave someone access this week in fact. If you are an active auctions user and a known good customer reach out and we can get you API access.
However it is important to note, we do not allow "drop catching" on closeouts. We limit requests via the API on closeout domains. We do this for two reasons. We want it to be fair across the board for anyone to get them. We do not want our servers "ddos" attacked by our own API customers trying to grab closeout domains. So getting API access is not a silver bullet for getting good closeout domains. I get asked this a lot which is why I am bringing this up. Closeout domains are very competitive.

That is very good to know, thank you for that information Joe!!

 

[wwwulff]

Congratulations to HD with their latest auction purchase xwgdyq.com - Maybe they are considering a rebranding

 

[D Haynes]

We do permit API access. I just gave someone access this week in fact. If you are an active auctions user and a known good customer reach out and we can get you API access.
However it is important to note, we do not allow "drop catching" on closeouts. We limit requests via the API on closeout domains. We do this for two reasons. We want it to be fair across the board for anyone to get them. We do not want our servers "ddos" attacked by our own API customers trying to grab closeout domains. So getting API access is not a silver bullet for getting good closeout domains. I get asked this a lot which is why I am bringing this up. Closeout domains are very competitive.

Are you able to share the request limit? Are you able to share any stats on the volume of closeout domains HD grab within say a minute of entering closeout status? A percentage of the total number maybe? Or a percentage of expired auctions they win? Only you say its very competitive but I'd say its killed the competition as its hardly worth bidding on names any more.

I thought the expression was two sh*ts, and we do. That is one of the reasons I spend so much time here. I want to hear what customers think and take action on that. We've implemented a lot of changes over the years from feedback on here and elsewhere directly from customers regardless of how much they spend or how many domains they have.

It is certainly noted that you come on here to try and answer any issues and grievances people have and it is much appreciated.

 

[Joe Styler]

Between 2 or more API customers? Joe, are you aware of cases where the closeout domain was successfully purchased by a normal web based customer, but with 1 or more API customers also sending (unsuccessful) requests to purchase it (within their API limits) at the same time?



... wouldn't this convert auctions to a war between bots?



For this purpose (in common binary logic sense) GD should either:

- instantly provide API access to any and all customers, by adding appropriate section into "manage my account" interface

OR

- revoke any and all API accesses previously provided, make relevant code changes to prevent "home-made" automation via https, and politely ask all customers only to use their web browsers for auctions.godaddy.com

Am I wrong here?

yeah you are wrong. I stated already that we limit the amount of api requests at any given time for closeout domains. So yes people do beat the API all you have to do is click the buy button first that puts it in your account with a hold any API call that tried wouldn't work even if you didn't pay for it yet. Like I also already stated. I get asked this a lot so I have looked into it and closeouts are very competitive. No it won't lead to a war of bots, because we limit that on purpose by limiting the calls. Will it stop the competition, no not even close, closeouts are going to remain very competitive. There are people sitting at home with their computer or multiple computers refreshing that screen on the search for that closeout just like you if it is a good name. We also limit scripting the site or hitting that too much same reasons, no ddos like actions are allowed. So logically you can only try as hard as we allow without getting blocked by a firewall. Everyone can try just as hard as anyone else those limits apply across the board.
I think the issue is everyone knows Huge Domains buys a lot of domains. With the bidder IDs out now you should also be aware there are a lot of people who buy a lot of domains. It may seem like they are always winning but they cannot be everywhere at once even with the API due to limits on calls. The bigger buyers buy a lot because they spend a lot but they also miss out on a lot of domains too just like anyone else.

 

[D Haynes]

OR

- revoke any and all API accesses previously provided, make relevant code changes to prevent "home-made" automation via https, and politely ask all customers only to use their web browsers for auctions.godaddy.com

This would be the only true way and in my opinion the best. The upshot is that it would cost GD millions in lost revenue soooo...

 

[wwwweb]

We do permit API access. I just gave someone access this week in fact. If you are an active auctions user and a known good customer reach out and we can get you API access.
However it is important to note, we do not allow "drop catching" on closeouts. We limit requests via the API on closeout domains. We do this for two reasons. We want it to be fair across the board for anyone to get them. We do not want our servers "ddos" attacked by our own API customers trying to grab closeout domains. So getting API access is not a silver bullet for getting good closeout domains. I get asked this a lot which is why I am bringing this up. Closeout domains are very competitive.

This is not true, Huge Domains has figured a way to shoot that silver bullet in the closeouts. I hit refresh every second, and they still beat me, the second it came up at $11, and by the time I hit add to cart, within a second it was gone, a week later sitting with Huge Domains, seen this happen a few times, so its not a one time thing. API access accounts are gaming the closeout process, the same way you allowed them with the backorder loophole. Which took years to abolish.

It's one thing to have time to respond to a bit, but there is no way a human user can beat a bot in the closeouts. Look at the open of the auction, and the close time of the auctions, they are gaming a lot of the closeouts, maybe you need to watch their access a bit closer. The closeouts should be a equal playing field as their is no added revenue to be achieved by over active bidding, the api access should be blocked for closeouts.

I understand Huge Domains is a great partner/customer and they can get away with a lot more than the average user, but in an auction format, you have to play equals, as systems can be gamed very easily.

 

[Joe Styler]

Between 2 or more API customers? Joe, are you aware of cases where the closeout domain was successfully purchased by a normal web based customer, but with 1 or more API customers also sending (unsuccessful) requests to purchase it (within their API limits) at the same time?



... wouldn't this convert auctions to a war between bots?



For this purpose (in common binary logic sense) GD should either:

- instantly provide API access to any and all customers, by adding appropriate section into "manage my account" interface

OR

- revoke any and all API accesses previously provided, make relevant code changes to prevent "home-made" automation via https, and politely ask all customers only to use their web browsers for auctions.godaddy.com

Am I wrong here?

Also if you want API access just ask for it. No one is saying anyone can't compete on the auctions the same way. I'm saying it isn't the silver bullet people may think it is.

 

[tonyk2000]

The upshot is that it would cost GD millions in lost revenue

Why? If a closeout domain is wanted by at least one customer, Huge Domains or not, it will be purchased and GD will receive the same $$$.

Correcting myself: It may indeed change the revenue from non-closeout expired auction sales. It would be harder to place bids based on somebodys interest, third party websites will no more post "listings with bids", etc.