discuss Idea: GoDaddy Expiring Domains - Take One For Free, Give One Away

[MapleDots]

GoDaddy Expiring Domains - Take One For Free, Give One Away - Support your fellow domainers

Do you have any domain names sitting at GoDaddy that you will not be renewing?

Why let HugeDomains and the likes suck them up

Why let GoDaddy profit on your domains

GoDaddy makes money on the domains when they go to expiring auctions and we as the domainers bid against each other to get them back. Companies like Huge Domains suck them up and the whole domaining industry suffers.

If you have no use for the domain, why not eliminate the middle man and give the domain to your fellow domainer.

Maybe we can use a central topic like this where anyone can post their expiring godaddy domains and allow other members to claim them for free.

I understand we can each make a topic for this but it would be nice to have a centralized area where we could keep track of all of them.

Additionally it would be nice if a mod could put this topic into a section where everyone can update their post at any time when the domains get claimed.

Thoughts about this by anyone?

 

[Bravo Mod Team]

Due to nature of the idea in question (_expiring_ domains)

Expired and expiring domain names can often be given away for free in the same way as domains with other statuses. Free Domain Names is the section designated for them to be given away for free. Ideally, the title will be worded in a way that avoids confusion if it is limited to expiring/expired domains.

"Include at least one domain name (from the domain list) in the title of the thread"

In this scenario, the thread starter can begin the thread with a domain name of their own that they are giving away and include it in the title. The example domain name in the title doesn't have to be updated, but it could be updated as often as the thread creator wants to edit it.

I am also wondering what (if any) extra possibilites (such as integrated shop with $0 pricing for example) can the forum software or its addons provide for better setup and management of these specific domain lists. For example it might be more practical to have just one thread and one list inside, which would show accumulated "portfolio" of free expiring domains from all members who wished to include their expireds... and updated from time to time. Or, maybe, various threads - one per registrar.

That's an excellent question. We're open to ideas, and yours sound good.

It would also be interesting to understand would NamePros itself (on ownership / mods / etc. level ) be willing to participate in any aspect, for example by rewarding members who are giving the domains for free to other members - with stars/points, membership upgrades or anything similar, etc., etc.

That's another good idea. We'd likely need to automate it if we were going to add it, because we wouldn't have time to add more manual work to our plate, but we can look into it.

 

[MapleDots]

Yes, I have a few pm's where I was asked about a small fee.... lets say 5 or 10 bucks but I have to reiterate that what I am talking about here is already past that.

I am talking about domains where we have done everything to sell and the decision to drop has been made.

Now the question is why drop it, give it away to a member, it does keep it away from godaddy. Maybe one day godaddy has to pay us 5 bucks to get these domains because why should they be the only one to profit from expires. Imagine.... we give them the domain and they sell it for 1k or something. There is no thank you or kickback to the domainer.

In our own system if I got a free domain and made 1k I might be inclined to give a little kickback to the domainer that was so kind to give it to me.

 

[BrandMart]

I'm at fault here too, I just let a .com expire and godaddy values the domain at $1028.

Now that may or may not be a realistic value but I can almost guarantee the domain will be picked up by HugeDomains and GoDaddy will profit from it.

I should have given it to a fellow domainer who would have had a use for it.

A lot of times my portfolio gets too big and I let some pretty decent names drop.

From here on forward I will offer them to my friends here first.

I had a couple at GD. Never liked GD. The domains were about to expire, gave some to fellow domainers here. Had 1 more, but no one claimed so it got expired.

Remember, not all domains that you give for free will be taken here. Since all of us want something that has a fast return value, many unclaimed free domains will expire and go to GD auctions or get snatched by HD.

 

[MapleDots]

Remember, not all domains that you give for free will be taken here. Since all of us want something that has a fast return value, many unclaimed free domains will expire and go to GD auctions or get snatched by HD.

That is true but those are the domains we won't be bidding on at godaddy anyways. The ones other domainers will snatch up for free are the ones we would have bid on at expiring auction.

The big difference is that now the profits stay in our community instead of in godaddy's bank account.

 

[MapleDots]

OK everyone,

I have been contacted by namepros to see if we can implement this NO COST giveaway of expiring domains.

It is completely voluntary and I would like to get feedback on how we should proceed.

As a bonus, our techs increased the active thread limits in all Domain Lists sections to 3 active threads in each forum (9 total), so that creating a thread like this won't prevent you from creating other threads in the section in the future. Also, "active" means that you can always open and close threads to have more than 3 threads in the section, but only 3 can be open at a single time.

As you can see above namepros has made changes for to accommodate us and at this point the topic has changed to discuss how we can best implement this.

 

[MapleDots]

Looking for feedback from members here

 

[Joe N]

Fantastic idea! I agree that there need to be some limits in place. I think that:

1. Members should have been at NP for 1+ years to make a claim.
2. Only one claim per member per 24 hours should be allowed.

 

[MapleDots]

Fantastic idea! I agree that there need to be some limits in place. I think that:

1. Members should have been at NP for 1+ years to make a claim.
2. Only one claim per member per 24 hours should be allowed.

Valid point but you have to keep in mind that some members here have vast inventories and it only takes a couple of members to house clean and hundreds of domains can go to drop. Combine that with all the noobs and we could theoretically have thousands of domains per month.

Being too restrictive means a lot of domains would be left over and hit the drop. That means godaddy would make the profits from those instead of another member. The object is to keep them here with the members.

Mind you we could make a couple of sections.... ie.

Domains expiring in over 3 months

Domains expiring in under 3 months

The ones in under 3 months could have a higher giveaway rate where 1 person could pick up several per day while the over 3 months ones could have tighter limits.

If I look at my domains, I flag my spreadsheet well in advance for the domains I'm going to drop. I don't think I would give any away with over 3 months dating though just in case a buyer comes along.

At under 3 months I could theoretically let a few dozen go at a time and I don't wan't to restrict them too much because if the expiry comes along and they are not all grabbed then they go to expiry.

Remember the object is to give them away, we want to encourage another domainer to register them so that they do not drop or got to Huge Domains. I don't know about you but if someone sold one of my drops I would be very happy for them but if one of my drops fetched 1k at auction or huge domains then I would be a bit peeved because the last thing I want to do is to contribute to their profit margins.

Keep them in domainer hands and let a fellow domainer reap a profit. Just because I could not sell the domain does not mean another domainer can't. He may know just the right end user for my drop.

 

[Name Trader]

Is there a thread for this to post already? Typically I don't have any domains at GoDaddy except for domains awaiting transfer to my preferred registrar. But I have 1 "sticky mouse" error that I won't be transferring. Which I'd like to post.

In my opinion you should probably keep the rules to a minimum. And let the poster decide, about their TR rating and length of time the buyer has been a member. I probably would let the poster also decide if free or not. But personally, I cannot see this proposal getting by the NP staff, with or without any rules. The NP staff will just tell you to post in the appropriate forum already available (free or paid).

 

[Name Trader]

Ok. I posted my available domain on Free Domains Names and it was picked up in 9 minutes. https://www.namepros.com/threads/sold.1076818/#post-6676016

 

[Name Trader]

Err.. link changed.. https://www.namepros.com/threads/claimed.1076818/#post-6676044

 

[MapleDots]

Is there a thread for this to post already? Typically I don't have any domains at GoDaddy

Thank you

It can be any domain, I was just using godaddy auction as an example of where we don't want the domains. As in letting them profit instead of a member.

THE OTHER THING IS DON'T DO A PUSH BECAUSE THE MEMBER CAN STILL DROP THE DOMAIN. You want to give the transfer code so you are assured the domain gets renewed and not dropped.

I am just now working with the namepros staff to decide where to put the topics so the owners can edit the posts and keep them updated without a time limit.

 

[BrandMart]

THE OTHER THING IS DON'T DO A PUSH BECAUSE THE MEMBER CAN STILL DROP THE DOMAIN. You want to give the transfer code so you are assured the domain gets renewed and not dropped.

This will keep the domain alive and can change owners, keeping GD and HD out of the game. I think this idea will work, but not many would want to pay extra for a free giveaway. Since it's a free domain giveaway, people want it for free. Auth codes mean investment and some may skip it

 

[anantj]

This will keep the domain alive and can change owners, keeping GD and HD out of the game. I think this idea will work, but not many would want to pay extra for a free giveaway. Since it's a free domain giveaway, people want it for free. Auth codes mean investment and some may skip it

Which should be fine as the entire point is to get the domain out of the GD/HD ecosystem

 

[MapleDots]

This will keep the domain alive and can change owners, keeping GD and HD out of the game. I think this idea will work, but not many would want to pay extra for a free giveaway. Since it's a free domain giveaway, people want it for free. Auth codes mean investment and some may skip it

If a domain has a week left and is pushed then the new owner can still decide drop it and that defeats the whole purpose of the exercise. We can let the domains drop ourselves, we want to assure the domains stay within the domainers hands so transfer codes are the only way to assure that.

Still... everything is a debate at this point and now is the time to get involved and shape the outcome.

Chime in, don't be shy because we have a unique opportunity to shape this part of the forum to our vision. Namepros is willing to work with us to put something into place.

Remember just because a decision gets made does not mean it can't be tweaked, it's a bit of a learning curve to find out what works best.

 

[Name Trader]

I think trying to convince a recipient to accept the domain at a registrar other than GoDaddy is going to be very difficult, unless they are an experienced domainer. Not only because, they are probably not going to want the domain in the first place, probably because of it's quality.

 

[MapleDots]

With the transfer code it is irrelevant where the domain comes from because it ends up where you want. The godaddy push could be discussed with domains at godaddy but noobs might no realize the domain is not renewed unless they add a renewal to the pushed domain.

 

[namemarket]

...They are a runaway train and we have to be careful to hand them too much power.

They already have immense power and dominate the market. Almost every end user wants a transfer to godaddy and very rarely will accept a push to the current registrar, if not GD. Even if this idea gets traction I don't see how it could put much of a dent in GDs business.

 

[Name Trader]

@MapleDots - I think your expectations are way too high to expect most people attracted to an unwanted free domain, to accept a transfer away from GoDaddy when their main registrar is GoDaddy.

Actually, I think the whole premise of this thread, to transfer unwanted domains away from GoDaddy, by people who are probably less experienced than yourself, by giving them a free domain is preposterous. And extremely limiting. IMHO.

I was onboard up to that point. But now I think this can be handled by the existing Free Domain Name forum. The domain I had, see link above, was taken within 9 minutes of posting in the Free Domain Forum.

 

[Name Trader]

They already have immense power and dominate the market. Almost every end user wants a transfer to godaddy and very rarely will accept a push to the current registrar, if not GD. Even if this idea gets traction I don't see how it could put much of a dent in GDs business.

This idea is dead in the water. There won't be any traction. There is no demand from the users end. All the demand is from the suppliers end, with an agenda. Means no traction, and can be handled by the existing forums.

Don't get me wrong. I don't like GoDaddy as a Registrar. Any domains I win at auction are transferred immediately the 60 day hold expires. I don't wait 1 year to make that decision.

 

[MapleDots]

You guys are not getting it exactly

I am not saying transfer away from godaddy..... the recipient of the domain can go anywhere they want.

We want to keep the domains out of godaddy auction hands. In other words, ok for a member to put to auction but godaddy gets all the domains if they sit at that registrar and they expire. They then send them to expiring auction and 100% of the profits stay at godaddy. If a member puts that domain on auction then the member gets 80% and godaddy only 20%.

You can give away any domains but we for sure want to keep all the ones sitting at godaddy to come back to domainer hands. Imagine all the free money godaddy gets when OUR domains expire.

That said a push of the domain then solves nothing because the recipiant (who gets it for free) may still not renew it. Therefore giving him the transfer code assures he has to renew it for at least a year effectively keeping it out of godaddy hands.

That said it can be applied to any domain at ANY registrar but it is especially important with domains at godaddy because that company is getting to be the monster in the room and soon they will call all the shots and dig deeper and deeper into our domaining business.

Together we can at least partially tame that giant by keeping some of the profits in our pockets.

 

[Name Trader]

You guys are not getting it exactly

I am not saying transfer away from godaddy..... the recipient of the domain can go anywhere they want.

We want to keep the domains out of godaddy auction hands. In other words, ok for a member to put to auction but godaddy gets all the domains if they sit at that registrar and they expire. They then send them to expiring auction and 100% of the profits stay at godaddy. If a member puts that domain on auction then the member gets 80% and godaddy only 20%.

You can give away any domains but we for sure want to keep all the ones sitting at godaddy to come back to domainer hands. Imagine all the free money godaddy gets when OUR domains expire.

That said a push of the domain then solves nothing because the recipiant (who gets it for free) may still not renew it. Therefore giving him the transfer code assures he has to renew it for at least a year effectively keeping it out of godaddy hands.

That said it can be applied to any domain at ANY registrar but it is especially important with domains at godaddy because that company is getting to be the monster in the room and soon they will call all the shots and dig deeper and deeper into our domaining business.

Together we can at least partially tame that giant by keeping some of the profits in our pockets.

That's a long spiel to mask the real intentions of this thread. Which is to remove GoDaddy's hands from the eventual expiry auction of a free domain. You/We don't have the weight to influence this in any material way.

Everybody knows that GoDaddy is the biggest registrar. Even beginner domainers know this, and WANT their domains at GoDaddy. It's got nothing to do with the 20% commission they will make either, if it EVER EVEN eventually sells if it drops. Any domain advertised will comeback into a domainers hands just by pushing it to their GoDaddy Account. Because most registrants at NP's are domainers. It sounds like you are trying to influence the outcome of a domain even after it has left your control. Giving somebody the Auth Code when they want the domain at GoDaddy isn't going to work.

Whilst I applaud the sentiment. This just isn't going to work. And certainly doesn't warrant a new forum just for this purpose. IMHO.

And we should be realistic in our expectations. If we as experienced domainers know the domain is worthless. Hence we are giving it away. It's 99.999% positive it's still going to be worthless in 1-2 years after it drops. And so we are talking peanuts to GoDaddy, even if the domain is again picked up in their closeout auctions.

Ok. You could say peanuts is peanuts, but mutiplied by 10,000 it could be a lot of money. But the number of domains is going to be peanuts. Let's be generous and say 100-200 a year. That's say 200 domains x $10 at auction + regfee = say $4k (being generous). You or I might lift our little finger for an additional $2-4K/year. But it won't influence GoDaddy's behaviour, 1 iota. So it's a pointless exercise.

Especially since it is adequately handled by the current forums.

 

[MapleDots]

Stub.... true intention is in first post and of course we won't put godaddy out of business and that is not the intention either. They serve a useful purpose but I will try one more time to summarize it.

Our domains drop and godaddy gets the auction profit.

We give our expiring domains away free to another member

That member can list at auction and most profits go to him.

Majority of profit stays in our community and contributes to our renewal funds.

The odd domain might even retail for a lucky domainer


Don't overthink it, just understand when we allow a godaddy domain to expire nobody profits but godaddy. If a member gets it for free and sells it either at auction or retail then the profit stays in our community.

As far as 100-200 a year goes I can guarantee you I know a few domainers giving up and they can give away hundreds of domains instead of letting them drop. Sure some deserve to be dropped but we can cherry pick because in most portfolios there are a few gems.

So yes I do want to keep some of the profits here. Will it hurt godaddy? Probably not and that is not the main objective. My objective is to make sure we have establish our own marketplace for expiries, regardless of how small that may or may not be and to keep the funds in the hands of the domainers instead of the big billion dollar corporations.

We need to be proactive and ask ourselves how we as domainers can give back to our own community to assure our profession flourishes into the future instead of being controlled by one company. Competition regardless of how small is good and this is at least a start.

 

[Name Trader]

Stub.... true intention is in first post and of course we won't put godaddy out of business and that is not the intention either. They serve a useful purpose but I will try one more time to summarize it.

Our domains drop and godaddy gets the auction profit.

We give our expiring domains away free to another member

That member can list at auction and most profits go to him.

Majority of profit stays in our community and contributes to our renewal funds.

The odd domain might even retail for a lucky domainer


Don't overthink it, just understand when we allow a godaddy domain to expire nobody profits but godaddy. If a member gets it for free and sells it either at auction or retail then the profit stays in our community.

As far as 100-200 a year goes I can guarantee you I know a few domainers giving up and they can give away hundreds of domains instead of letting them drop. Sure some deserve to be dropped but we can cherry pick because in most portfolios there are a few gems.

So yes I do want to keep some of the profits here. Will it hurt godaddy? Probably not and that is not the main objective. My objective is to make sure we have establish our own marketplace for expiries, regardless of how small that may or may not be and to keep the funds in the hands of the domainers instead of the big billion dollar corporations.

We need to be proactive and ask ourselves how we as domainers can give back to our own community to assure our profession flourishes into the future instead of being controlled by one company. Competition regardless of how small is good and this is at least a start.

As I said. I applaud the sentiment. I actually dislike GoDaddy immensely. If NP's decides to open up a forum for this, if I ever have any GoDaddy domains to give away. I would use it. But unfortunately these are few and far between, for me, because I don't keep my portfolio at GoDaddy. But IMHO, this doesn't warrant a new forum to me. If you want to do this now. You can just use the available Free Domain Names forum. I don't see this as requiring another forum. Why is nobody using this Free Domain Names forum for this already? Could you please explain why this requires a separate forum?

A correction to my last post. I said 100-200 domains a year at best. I meant a month. So multiply 2-4k by 12, to get the annual total. But it's still isn't enough to get some clerk to pick up a pencil at GoDaddy (either for or against this proposal).

I think the single biggest point of failure to your plan is trying to force the recipient to transfer out of GoDaddy. Most domainers/end-users have a strange fascination for GoDaddy. They only have a GoDaddy account to push to. The domainers like them because end-users, who have no idea about or how to judge a quality registrar, trust them because they are the biggest registrar on the planet. For no other reason. Name Recognition. I think this plan will not get any traction if you insist on the domain must be transferred out of GoDaddy.

** Deleted my opinion of GoDaddy, as being irrelevant to the topic in hand **, ** too many cusswords **

 

[Name Trader]

PS: My free GoDaddy domain which I advertised in the Free Domain Names forum (see link above). Was snaffled up in just 9 minutes. How long has this thread been running?

One thing I learned about that transaction, which I would amend the next time. Would be to insist the recipient changed the domain whois info to themselves within 24hrs.