NameCatch.com Official Thread

[Erdy]

NameCatch.com A free drop search tool.

1. Free expiring dictionary domain lists in 9 languages. We scan all expiring domains in all major dropcatchers for dictionary domains and make the scan results accessible for free. At any given time there over 1 million current auctions in our database.

2. Bulk search all major dropcatchers at once, in real time for up to 10.000 exact matches or 100 keywords. There are 3 search 100 buttons: "starts with", "ends with" and "contains". You can enter up to 100 terms for each. These search 100 buttons are designed to make it easy finding quality two word domains.

3. Save your bulk search lists inside your account and perform a search with a single button each time you visit the site. If you are tired of making multiple searches on multiple dropcatchers all the time, now it should be easier.

4. Get email notifications when any of your 10.000 exact match domains go to auction at namejet, snapnames or godaddy. You can enter your 10.000 terms. We will scan them daily and send you an email notification. Other monitoring services can't provide this service as they monitor whois changes. But partner registrar domains never enter pending delete status and most of the time they are renewed one more year while they are auctioned.

5. There are 14 different word patterns, CVCV, VCVC etc. available.

6. Free domain monitor. Works better than any other monitoring service because we don't scan whois changes. Instead we scan nearly all expired domain auctions and send you a link to the correct auction site. Whois changes can not tell you pre-release expired domains (63% of all expired domains are pre-release) because pre-release domains are auto renewed by the registry.

There were many technical difficulties involved in this project. Performing 10.000 exact match or 100 keyword searches in real time at such speeds wasn't possible with normal MySQL databases. Therefore a more sophisticated system was implemented. I've spend a lot of time designing the site. I hope you will enjoy it.

Erdinc

Edit: "Search 50" is now "Search 100"
Edit: If you want to support Namecatch please feel free to add one of these to your signature:
NameCatch.com - Makes you a better domainer. It's free!
NameCatch.com - It's free!
NameCatch.com - Best Free Expired Domain Tool
NameCatch.com - Domain monitor. It's free!
NameCatch.com - Bulk Drop Search. It's free!

 

[Erdy]

NameCatch now supports many more extensions than before. Here is a list:

asia
biz
ca
cc
co.uk
com
info
me
mobi
name
net
org
pro
tv
us
ws

So if you are interested in expiring domains in any of these extensions you can now find them on namecatch. You can use bulk search and domain monitoring as well for these extensions.

Some domainers are only interested in dropping (pending delete) expired domains but the majority of expired domains are not dropping. They are pre-release domains.

What does this mean to you as a domainer?
It means expired Dynadot domains are only auctioned on Dynadot.com and expired Godaddy domains only at Godaddy.com, Moniker domains at Snapnames.com, etc during pre-release, about a month before the expired domain reaches pending delete.

It means you need to check Dynadot.com, Namejet.com, Snapnames.com, Godaddy.com, Cira.ca if you want to check all expired domains. But instead checking all sites individually you can find their entire list on NameCatch.com. We update our lists daily.

Here is an image showing what extensions are available from what auction site:
http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/6865/expiretable.gif

---------- Post added at 11:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:42 AM ----------

Hi Toni,
This is now done. Please let me know if you have more great suggestions.

Lovely, especially the language filter

may I suggest adding more extensions in the future..

Good Luck with this project..
Toni

 

[MattheP]

Looks great...

 

[Toni]

Wow, thanks so much for listening...

may I suggest adding even more extensions in the future..

Name Catch is already a must bookmark for every serious domainer, great job Erdinc

 

[lutfucan]

excellent work, i was using your site for a few weeks. giving turkish domains is something useful to me.

 

[Erdy]

Hi folks,

I added a new feature called "taken TLDs". The idea is obvious: A domain is more likely to be valuable if many different extensions (TLDs) are taken.

If you click on the numbers that show under the "taken TLDs" column, those other TLDs will open as new tabs. If it says 4 and you click on it, 4 pages will open at the same time. So don't be surprised if this happens.

 

[Jawed]

Great work and very impressive!

 

[Erdy]

I have just added an "export to CSV" feature. It was requested last week my Makis, a NP member.

I want to create a good user experience. I'm looking forward to more feedback and more feature requests.

Happy domaining
Erdinc

 

[TourettesOnFire]

I shall most certainly be bookmarking this website!
Thanks alot

 

[Erdy]

Today I have added a new feature which is a custom domain external link opener.

Here is a screenshot:
http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/3172/externallinks.gif

Basically there is now a button next to each domain and the links (up to 10 links) that open when you press that button are up to you. The domain or domain term will be inserted in the link.

You use one of these in the URL definition:
{domain-with-extension}
{domain-without-extension}

For instance, this is what you can enter for estibot:
http://www.estibot.com/appraise.php?a=appraise&data={domain-with-extension}

This is what you enter for Google site search:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&num=100&as_filetype=&as_sitesearch={domain-without-extension}.*

I'm sure everybody has their own favorite links to check domains. Therefore instead dictating what link should open I thought I will let users decide.

Enjoy
Erdinc

 

[domainer700]

Hey Erdinc,

To clarify, when I name expires and goes to auction, your monitoring service will notify me of this via email...

As an example, let's look at genericname.com which say expires 02/05/2010, or in UK format, 05/02/2010. You service would notify me on 05/03/2010 before the 45 day pre-release period - is that right?

---------- Post added at 09:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:23 PM ----------

I have another question...

Upon looking up English language names on your site a list comes up. Among this list is the domain "Mock.com", which according to your site is a namejet pre-release. From what I understand, the Registry auto-renews the name for 45 days in order for it to be renewed by the owner or sold. If it's in the 45 day Pre-release stage, then why does it (according to WHOIS) expire in Oct in 2011? It doesn't make sense to me and gives me the impression that your site contains names that are NOT available or cannot be purchased or auctioned.

Thanks.

 

[Erdy]

Hey Erdinc,
To clarify, when I name expires and goes to auction, your monitoring service will notify me of this via email...

As an example, let's look at genericname.com which say expires 02/05/2010, or in UK format, 05/02/2010. You service would notify me on 05/03/2010 before the 45 day pre-release period - is that right?

It will notify you when the domain goes to the first auction. This will happen between 18 to 24 days after the expiry day. So if the domain expired on 5 Feb, it would go to exclusive auction on a particular website on 29 Feb and you would get an email on 29 Feb with a direct link to the correct auction house. The email would also tell you the last day you need to join.

Here is a video that shows how the notification email looks with a real life example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4QQNcHIClE

During the first 45 days of expiry the domain is still under the control of the registrar. The registrars either auction the domain on their own website (like Godaddy or Dynadot) or they have their own auction house (Namejet and Enom are run by the same company and Snapnames and Moniker are run by the same company) or they send their domains to their partner auction house (for instance Network Solutions sends their domains to Namejet).

What is important about pre-release auctions is that the domain is still under the control of the registrar and therefore it will be exclusively auctioned only on a particular website. A pre-release domain won't show on more than one website. It will either show on Namejet, Snapnames, Godaddy and some smaller sites but not on two of them at the same time.

Other monitoring services which work with whois changes are not good. They don't tell you the correct auction house. If you know a domain that is about to expire add it to a few monitoring services just to compare. I'm confident that namecatch monitoring service is better than any similar service including paid services.

Upon looking up English language names on your site a list comes up. Among this list is the domain "Mock.com", which according to your site is a namejet pre-release. From what I understand, the Registry auto-renews the name for 45 days in order for it to be renewed by the owner or sold. If it's in the 45 day Pre-release stage, then why does it (according to WHOIS) expire in Oct in 2011? It doesn't make sense to me

Mock.com has indeed expired. If you click the go button it will redirect you to namejet where you can see this:

mock.com
Backorder Details:
Current Bid: $1,111
Backorder By: Nov. 17, 2010 8:00 PM
Type: Pre-Release
Your Bid: $0
Bid History: 95 bids

We don't create the domain lists ourselves that you see on namecatch. We get those lists from the auction sites. If the auction site didn't have mock.com on auction they wouldn't send that name to us and we wouldn't show it.

The reason why the whois data shows Oct 2011 as expiry date is because of the auto renewal. All expired com's are auto renewed for free for one year and the registrar has 45 days to come up with the money. If they don't then whois will revert back to the original expiry date. Let's say a domain expired on 13 Oct 2010. During the first 45 days on the whois it will show 13 Oct 2011 as expiry date. However when the 45 days is over the whois will change back and will show 13 Oct 2010 again. But by that time the pre-release auction will already be finished.

This is exactly why you should not trust whois. Domain monitoring services that work with whois won't tell you about the first auction. Most of the time you will miss the pre-release auction and somebody else will get the domain if you trust whois data or if you trust monitoring services that work with whois data.
Here is another video comparing monitoring services:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gAKJST4HAE&feature=related

If you go here and type mock.com it actually shows two expiry dates.
http://www.moniker.com/pub/Whois

On top it says: Expiration Date: 13-oct-2011
At the bottom it says: Record expires on 13-Oct-2010.

This happens because this is how the auto renewal of 45 days works. Let me explain in detail:

1. On 12 October 2010:
example.com is registered with Network Solutions (just like mock.com) and it expires on 13 October 2010. This is tomorrow.

2. On 13 October 2010:
example.com has expired today. It was auto renewed by the registry Verisign for 45 days for free. Before this time is over the registrar Network Solutions needs to come up with the renewal fee. Currently when you check whois the domain shows renewed.

Network Solutions sends an email to the previous giving him some short time (maybe 10 days or 14 days, I don't use network solutions they are terrible) to reactivate his domain. So the previous owner doesn't do that within the given time.

3. On 29 October 2010:
Network Solutions sends the domain to auction to their partner auction house which is Namejet. The domain is still within the free 45 day renewal period. They have plenty of time to auction off the domain.

Let's assume the domain sells on auction for $69. They will take this money from the buyer and pay the $7 renewal fee to Verisign and share the remaining $62 between themselves (between Network Solutions and Namejet). The pre-release domain will maintain it's original creation date. A 10 year old domain will still be 10 year old after the auction.

4. On 17 November the auction starts and lasts for 3 days. Let's assume nobody bid on the domain.

5. On 27 November the 45 days is over. The registry didn't get the renewal fee. The domain will now continue expiring. It is no more under the control of the registrar Network Solutions.

7. On 27 Jan 2011 the same domain reaches pending delete. Now it shows up on snapnames, namejet, pool and a couple of other sites. The domain will drop and whoever is fastest will re-register it.

8. On 2 Feb 2011, 5 days later after the domain reached pending delete it dropped and it was caught by snapnames.com. The creation date of a pending delete domain will be the day it was caught. A 10 year old domain will become a brand new domain.

... gives me the impression that your site contains names that are NOT available or cannot be purchased or auctioned.

It is the opposite. There are a lot of high quality domains on auction and many domainers miss them because either they keep checking the domain whois which you should not trust or they think backordering the domain is enough which is not true. For instance if you backordered mock.com even before it expired on snapnames, pool or godaddy it wouldn't mean anything. The domain is available only on namejet.

Expired domains are not easy. If you are interested in all high quality expired domains either you need to keep checking godaddy, snapnames and namejet separately or if you like you can check namecatch which lists them all.

Mock.com is indeed a very good dictionary domain. Because of the high number of bidders you wouldn't miss such a domain even if you were not using namecatch dictionary domain sorting. However, with other languages there are even more high quality dictionary domains going to auction all the time and the competition is less.

 

[domainer700]

Hey,

Thanks for the explanation. I have another one for you..

Once the name is prereleased by the registrar and auctioned off, and the highest bidder wins it, does that mean the name no longer continues it's normal life /expiration cycle... redemption phase, pending delete, drops? Or is the auction just a way of securing the name so when it drops it's yours. For example, what happens to Mock.com now that it's be own @ auction.. is it now it the control of the new buyer or will they need to
wait until redemption is up and all that stuff? I can figure that if a name retains its original creation date after its been purchased @ prerelease auction then that means it won't drop, but what about the redemption part.. maybe the registrar has some rule that would make the new buyer wait some time before they take ownership of
the name...

"Pre-Release: names may have special registrar specific rules, such as a possible 42 day "Auction Lock". Be sure to read all rules."

- NameJet Pre-Release Auction Notes

Thanks.

 

[Erdy]

Once the name is prereleased by the registrar and auctioned off, and the highest bidder wins it, does that mean the name no longer continues it's normal life /expiration cycle...

Yes, that's right.

is the auction just a way of securing the name so when it drops it's yours.

No.

For example, what happens to Mock.com now that it's be own @ auction.. is it now it the control of the new buyer or will they need to wait until redemption is up and all that stuff?

It will be controlled by the new buyer who can start using the domain while it is still under auction lock. I think the reason why they are doing this auction lock is partly because the auction house wants to guarantee themselves against chargebacks and partly because legal challenges by the previous owner.

I have heard about a few instances where the domain was won in the auction by somebody and the person saw the domain in his account but then it was pulled away and returned back to the original owner.

If you remember we talked about the expire circle in another thread. https://www.snapnames.com/domains101.jsp
The 30 day redemption period was designed so that even after the regular grace period is over (where the original owner would renew for the regular fee) during the 30 day redemption period the registrar would charge some more money and still be able to renew the domain.

I don't know how exactly this works but I have heard that it costs more money. I did reactivate a few domains few days after they expired (during the grace period) but I never tried to recover any domain during redemption period.

The expire stages were designed to give the original owner multiple chances to recover a domain after expiry. They were not designed for registrars to auction customer domains.

It is a rare thing that a domain would be taken away from you after you won the auction. It is not very easy to test either. The registrars who have this option would charge you maybe $200 or $300 to recover a domain during redemption period.

If the domain is still in auction lock the best thing to do is not to talk about this domain in public.

I have been domaining for a few years now and what I can tell is many pre-release domains that I'm interested in were pulled off of auction both on snapnames and namejet before the auction started. I have experienced only one instance where an auction was cancelled while it was running (they run typically for 3 days). And I have never experienced any domain taken away from me after I won an auction.

 

[Abdel]

Hello Erdinc

Nice wesite and very useful tool for domainers

 

[DomainRecap]

I know this is an old thread (it came up in search) but it seems that NameCatch.com is forwarding to Google this morning...