HugeDomains.com is Buying 50%+ of Expiring Domains at GoDaddy.com

[Arca]

I've been wondering about the competition in auctions for expiring domains over at GoDaddy.com, because somebody is paying hundreds for seemingly every domain that gets a few bidders.

I’ve also noticed a clear pattern, with the last bidder (or one of the last bidders) entering the auction winning most of the time, which made me think that there is one large corporate buyer piggybacking of whatever domains other people find and bid on. Turns out that is the case: HugeDomains.com is buying most domains over at GoDaddy.com expired auctions. I looked up the WHOIS of the past 150 auctions I have lost at GoDaddy.com, and 84 of those are now owned by HugeDomains.com and listed for sale on HugeDomains.com.

While 50%+ may not be representative of overall domains bought at GoDaddy, they do seem to buy far more domains than anyone else. The 66 names not bought by HugeDomains.com were bought by a number of different individuals and companies (BuyDomains.com bought 6 of those 66, for example), so 50%+ were taken by HugeDomains, while "the rest" of the auction wins were by a number of different individual domainers and companies.

This might not be news to some, but I've never seen anyone mention that HugeDomains is this active over at GD expired auctions, so I thought it might be interesting for some people to know who is outbidding everyone in the lower range over at GoDaddy. I've read people mentioning that HugeDomains buy names in close-out status over at GoDaddy, but never that they buy most of the domains in auctions too.

HugeDomains absolutely dominates all auctions below $5XX, and they only picked up a single name above $5XX (cakemart.com) in my sample of 150 names, so $5XX seems to be a self-imposed limit for them. If I only checked domains sold below $5XX, the percentage bought by them would be even higher. I've been the second highest bidder in lots of auctions that HugeDomains.com won, and in my experience they will keep bidding until you give up or until the price passes $5XX. By outbidding most bidders in the lower end, and acquiring more than half of the domains other people also have interest, it leaves a far smaller pool of names for the rest of the domainers to compete for, so I guess that's part of the reason why the reseller prices for names keep increasing so much for names in this range.

The only way to buy cheap domains at GoDaddy auctions now seems to be to let domains expire with 0 bids, so that they go to close-out status, and then try to snipe them as soon as that happens. However, some domainers seem to think it's smart to bid $12 on any decent name when there is 1-15 minutes left, hoping that nobody else is going to place a bid, so fewer and fewer decent names are let to expire with 0 bids. However, that strategy never seems to work (I've tried it myself lots of names, and it did not work even one time), because there are always other people watching and waiting for the name to go to close-out, and they jump in and bid if you make a $12 bid, and most of those names are eventually won by HugeDomains.com. What experiences do other people have at GD recently? Anyone else have any good strategies for buying expiring domains @ GoDaddy.com these days?

Some examples of expired domains bought at GoDaddy.com auctions by HugeDomains:
Domain: skillsharing.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $540
Asking price (at HugeDomains): $2995

Domain: ledmaster.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $537
BIN price (at HugeDomains): $2195

Domain: cyberstrategies.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $262
Asking price (at HugeDomains): $2895

Domain: crablab.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $320
Asking price (at HugeDomains): $1895

Domain: dailyportal.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $560
Asking price (at HugeDomains): $2895

Domain: fivesecondrule.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $42
Asking price (at HugeDomains): $2695

Domain: deltacloud.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $365
BIN price (at HugeDomains): $1795

Domain: itace.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $499
BIN price (at HugeDomains): $2595

Domain: sunnykitchen.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $200
BIN price (at HugeDomains): $2595

Domain: baristaschool.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $449
BIN price (at HugeDomains): $2895

Domain: cakemart.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $695
BIN price (at HugeDomains): $3495

Domain: visuala.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $315
BIN price (at HugeDomains): $2795

Domain: massanalytics.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $130
BIN price (at HugeDomains): $2095

Domain: edusport.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $535
BIN price (at HugeDomains): $2995

Domain: acneguru.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $52
Asking price (at HugeDomains): $2495

Domain: stylefolio.com
Purchase price (at GoDaddy): $195
Asking price (at HugeDomains): $1995

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Related: HUGE DOMAINS SNIPING GODADDY CLOSEOUTS

 

[Recons.Com]

They cannot realistically do that. Even with their huge portfolio, and especially given that it is mostly trash, it is a drop in the ocean.

The owners have money and have low requirements for return on the capital employed. They could easily double/triple their profitability with better name selection, cost reduction, improved portfolio, user friendly website etc.

 

[wwwweb]

drive domainers out of Godaddy to Dropcatch backorders, destroy the market?

Dropcatch is insane, you don't get anything cheap there, someone always makes you pay thru the nose, I don't know if it is the Chinese bidders pooling their money, but a lot of these high auction purchases, are probably funding huge domains buys.

 

[DomainVP]

drive domainers out of Godaddy to Dropcatch backorders, destroy the market?

Or to make DC prices seem 'normal' as they continue to shill auctions.

 

[Asfas1000]

When a murder is committed, and the murderer is not known, the police are looking who benefits from it....

 

[urlurl]

Dropcatch is insane, you don't get anything cheap there, someone always makes you pay thru the nose, I don't know if it is the Chinese bidders pooling their money, but a lot of these high auction purchases, are probably funding huge domains buys.

You may have hit the nail on the head here - remember the CHIP craze... maybe they have decided to invest in something else... brandables maybe

my last couple of sales were by Chinese buyers ($x,xxx range)

 

[wwwweb]

You may have hit the nail on the head here - remember the CHIP craze... maybe they have decided to invest in something else... brandables maybe

my last couple of sales were by Chinese buyers ($x,xxx range)

Chinese buyers are extremely hard to negotiate with, you basically have to stay strong on your number, as they will keep saying to high to high, and walk away, and let them come back to you.

 

[urlurl]

its just point them to where they can buy it at a fixed price or i will push the name to auction

 

[joro001]

I was monitoring 3/4 different auctions at Namejet in the last couple of days I was interested in and all of them either had a Chinese bidder winning or pushing the high bidder to pay through the nose to get the names. One mustn't forget just how much money Chinese buyers are pouring in for keyword domains as well now not just numeric or short domains. Way too high for me on all these names, wasn't even close to what I was prepared to pay.

 

[urlurl]

i don't mind when they buy my names

 

[wwwweb]

I lost to whom I believe was a Chinese bidder at dropcatch based on username, in the end it was me, and him, and I might have bid more than I wanted, but he kept outbidding me, and he won, sure enough it gets relisted for non payment. I guess they will just open a new account, and have at it again. You have to watch some of these guys, they can use proxies, and so many different id's if you get stuck on the winning side of one of their crazy bids.

I mean I was bidding against someone who had no intention of paying, imagine if I won that bid, that person basically out of thin air took hundreds of dollars from me, for just a few clicks. End of the day they walk away.

 

[urlurl]

i have been avoiding dropcatch of late, to much competition

 

[wwwweb]

i have been avoiding dropcatch of late, to much competition

I have seen a few auction relists at dropcatch in the past few months, when someone else is playing with your money, that is a scary thought.

 

[urlurl]

another reason not to bother.

There are only a few names that end up at dropcatch i want but the prices are bid to ridiculous amounts.

 

[Mister Funsky]

is ther anybody understanding what they do

It seems they are looking 2-5 years down the road...taking a gamble on what they think the market is going to do. Deep pockets means they can sit on domains for a while and let the market catch up to them and not worry about sales in the short term.

 

[urlurl]

still makes no sense, there are 100's of millions names out there and even more available to register. I would rather gamble on a $20-$100 purchase than putting up $3,000 in hopes it will sell.

Im not getting all the names i want but im still getting some nice one's

 

[Mister Funsky]

1600 makes no sense to me either...but 2-300 is not too extreme...it sucks cause it is pricing me out of names that 6 months ago would have gone for 40-50.

 

[urlurl]

agreed,

I Managed to get

M i n i B i n .com

at a decent price - so there are still some deals out there

 

[dordomai]

still makes no sense, there are 100's of millions names out there and even more available to register. I would rather gamble on a $20-$100 purchase than putting up $3,000 in hopes it will sell.

Im not getting all the names i want but im still getting some nice one's

maybe they don't want to make money. they want to hide some of their assets in domains.

domains are not viewed as valuable unless really great, if you hold some domains overseas in an account, your wealth is invisible and can be liquidated at any time.

 

[urlurl]

i was thinking the exact same thing.

CHIPS
Bitcoin
Brandables????

 

[wwwweb]

maybe they don't want to make money. they want to hide some of their assets in domains.

domains are not viewed as valuable unless really great, if you hold some domains overseas in an account, your wealth is invisible and can be liquidated at any time.

These guys were buying 4L.com chips from $1200-$2500, 3L.com chips from $40-60K, by doing so most have lost a commission to 50% of their money, when are they going to learn. If they are chasing bitcoin, the bottom will fall out when they all run in another way again.

 

[urlurl]

bitcoin was their play a couple years ago when it first peaked at $1,300 - then the gov't go involved and the price dropped like a rock.

the domain market is very volatile and subjective. good to invest in but not to just hold wealth

 

[Asfas1000]

I for one just don't believe all these bids are legitimate.

 

[urlurl]

neither do i, especially when they get relisted (inside job, shill bids, etc)

 

[Asfas1000]

neither do i, especially when they get relisted (inside job, shill bids, etc)

Exactly.

But also happens in cases where someone eventually buys the domain (ie. the trick worked)

I get it that some times an end user may appear and buy the domain paying through the nose...but what about the outbid party (or parties) who also went very high...

 

[urlurl]

maybe a penny auction system may work better - if you know how they work, it would eliminate shills 100% of the time.