Registrars now blocking registration of dropped domains

[mrjohn]

GoDaddy says they're now place a 48-hour hold on new registrations of domains that expired.

I didn't call NameCheap, but based on how their site is treating dropped domains, they're also doing the same thing.

Anyone else running into this issue?

 

[Name Trader]

If GoDaddy are blocking the registration of deleted domains, they are fools. Just go and register the domain at a registrar that doesn't block the registration of deleted domains. I've never heard anything so dumb as this.

 

[mrjohn]

"Where was this "said"? thanks."

I have an account executive assigned to my account due to the volume of business that I do. She said they were having a meeting about it right now and were trying to figuring out if they were going to fix it or not.

I suspect the 48 hour figure that she quoted was a case of providing the most pessimistic scenario.

You are correct that the time frame appears to be shorter than she quoted. I just checked, and the domains I was trying to reg do appear to be mostly available now.

Still, as Electric-Shadow said, there's a strong smell of old fish to this whole business.

I get it from the standpoint of trying to nudge people into using dropcatch services, but the market isn't going to bear a real price for most of these domains. If people weren't dropping $69 on them at auction, they're not going to drop much on them at registration time, either.

Some of these domains I buy, if it weren't for the coupon codes, I wouldn't even pay reg price for them.

I am US-based, BTW, and as i said, I have an assigned account executive. At my peak volume a few years ago, I was easily in the top 1% of worldwide domain purchasers.

 

[campout]

The first day or two, it was only GD. Now, as has been noted by others, NameCheap has been showing dropped names as not available. As recently as yesterday, I was able to use Name.com to get accurate availability info during the drop-hour. Today, I was not at my computer during the drop-hour. By the time I was, 4:30 east coast US time (an hour-and-a-half after the end of the drop) the day's dropped .coms were able to be regged in GoDaddy. It seems there has been roughly a 1-2 hour lag.

I will have to seriously consider using an additional registrar if GD continues this, especially if they implement a 48 hour block! It's pretty questionable to sell your customers something called "Discount Domain Club" and then BLOCK them from registering available domains!? Quite frankly, it's questionable to be a registrar and block your customers from registering available domains - period.

I wonder if their motive is to block people from bombarding their servers with repeated bulk searches.

 

[campout]

I posted this on Twitter to try and show @GoDaddyHelp what is going on:

https://twitter.com/BodhiNat/status/587326513567109121

 

[cdboard]

could this be a situation where the initial search for availability actually puts the domain "on hold" for a while?

 

[The New Guy]

I tried to search the availability of a domain at Namesilo just now. Returns the message:
Sorry, lookups related to drop-catching are not permitted from 10:45am PT - 12:00pm PT.

Namesilo has a dropcatch api that is documented on their site - you can actually do drop catching directly with them via their API.

 

[Jasonn]

i noticed they always come back as 'unavailable' now. not sure for how long but not 48 hours as i regged some that expired yesterday later in the day. either way, if this means i can't register newly expired domains then they are going to lose a bunch of business.

 

[Electric-Shadow]

Well said! Virtually all premium domain names are snapped up before they get anywhere near dropping via the auction process or will be backordered.

Then the semi-premiums with medium end-user potential will be caught by auctions & closeouts if there are enough eyes on them which leaves the sifting through the dregs come drop time to find the gold that's been missed or left because others didn't see it worthwhile forking out a $69 backorder.

Which means that the registrars won't make anymore money if this is their stragey to drive people to their backordering because domainers would wait 2 days rather than shell out $69 or more and risk drawing in competition to catch the name.

One question though, is it happening just with .com drops?

 

[mrjohn]

Can't say. I rarely buy anything except the .com domains due to the relative lack of working codes for the other common extensions.

Yeah, the whole thing is dumb. I have two servers churning 24-7 through Moz data and cross-referencing the domains against preferred dictionary words. I'm pretty mining the thinnest veins that run as far into the dirt as can be reach.

The only financial incentive I have to go near those domains is that they're available upon expiration to be purchased cheap. Most of the ones that do sell are going to sell for between $5 and $60, thus eliminating the value of ever buying any of them for a dropcatching system's price. And the truth is, I have to recover enough value on the ones that do sell to cover the cost of registering the ones that don't sell, so even a cheap dropcatch at something in the $10 to $15 range isn't worth it.

Also, it's worth noting that GoDaddy's dropcatcher sucks. I sometimes use it to pursue marginal domains, and occasionally I've managed to beat it to domains by doing a hand reg through GD's own site!

"Is the issue discussed specific to godaddy?"

I haven't checked around too many registrars because I was talking on the phone with GD. The only one I can attest for sure that also seems to be doing it is NameCheap.

I'd guess this doesn't last very long. Even as dumb as GoDaddy can be, they can't afford to piss off customers who have account executives assigned to them, especially over the peanuts that are expired domains.

 

[Electric-Shadow]

They're 'looking into it' let's see what happens!

 

[Name Trader]

All this (And a few dick moves they took with their API a few days ago) are motivated and aimed through making people use their backordering service more and more.

What t hey don't know unfortunately (Or choose to ignore) that their Backordering service simply good for nothing. They just assume that by simply having a poorly coded backordering platform will beat those of dyna, pheenix or heck, even snap/namejet as they are the biggeest and powerful registrar. It will take a long time to those dumb ears to realize things don't translate like this in the real world.

GoDaddy Backorders cannot even beat a hand-reg at Godaddy. That's how bad they are. I once back-ordered a domain at GoDaddy and was beaten by a Godaddy hand-reg. Who do you think ordered the domain first, me or the hand-regger? Something seriously wrong with their backorder service, right there.

 

[cocaseco]

Yep, happened again today. this time i grabbed some ridiculous long name that nobody would want and contacted support. After being rejected yesterday for not having an example, I had the misguided enthusiasm that lead me to believe I would here of a policy change or some official word. The CS rep knew nothing, opened a help ticket and said thanks. I know that when the ticket gets looked at, the tech will try the domain in and it will work fine because enough time has passed.

I ended up having to register somewhere else so it was a direct loss to GD. people like me who register something nearly every day, will add up to a lot of lost revenue for GD as we move elsewhere.

 

[Jasonn]

I fear all registrars will block the drops during the drop-catch time

unless it becomes icann policy there is no benefit for any registrar without a backorder service to do this.

 

[DomainVP]

SO what is the logic of this strategy?
Are they trying to get people to use their backorder service?

It sounds like they are trying to prevent bots (Desktop Catchers) from registering domains, and forcing people to use their backorder service. If you want to interfere with a scheduled bot, just add a new undefinable time restriction.

People are buying lists of drop times from registrars and using desktop catchers to catch names; though honestly if your desktop catcher grabs a name before any of the DC services... you may have a very poor domain on your hands.

The logic behind hot using GD backorder is; Why use backorder if you can just have a desktop catcher and DDC and get the domain for less than $9.

Looks like they are trying to thwart that and increase revenue.

The only time I buy handreg drops is if it's a name I am 100% that nobody will want, and I am willing to hold it for a long period of time. aka lottery ticket. These days, for a name to drop all the way to the floor of handreg; you can expect a long hold.

 

[mrjohn]

Here's a question:

Of the registrars not doing this, who's the cheapest for a hand reg'ed .com?

 

[Jasonn]

Did you check NameBright yet?

namebright seems to work fine, as does name.com and uniregistry.

 

[The New Guy]

Do they charge extra for using their dropcatch api? or it is just the domain registration charge?

No, but IIRC you need to set up a funded account with them to automatically deduct the payments. You pay in preset amount via creditcard, paypal, bitcoin etc, then when you use the api and the drop catch is successful it deducts the money from your funds.

You can used the funds for handregs / transfers as well so it's not like you're out money if you don't catch everything.

 

[campout]

So would it be safe to say that it seems like Dynadot and NameBright are not following this stupid strategy, but everyone else is?

Here's the list of working registrars we've compiled so far. Everyone, let me know if you discover anymore:

• DynaDot - $10.99
• NameBright - $8.53
• Name.com - $10.99
• Uniregistry - $10.88

Prices are for dot-com registrations. NameBright stands out so far.

 

[Beezy]

Where was this "said"? thanks.

 

[Fliper]

GoDaddy says they're now place a 48-hour hold on new registrations of domains that expired. I didn't call NameCheap, but based on how their site is treating dropped domains, they're also doing the same thing. Anyone else running into this issue?

Idk but GD is known to discriminate people by the country they reside. We have seen different coupon codes. Any chance that this rule is for outside US and Canada? All other registrars showing the domain available but not GD!

 

[tonyk2000]

Am I missing something here? A couple of hours ago, I just handregged 1 domain in a few seconds it became available (pendingdelete->free status change), does not worth anything above regfee so we did not pre-order it anywhere. Normal no-godaddy registration. Is the issue discussed specific to godaddy?

 

[campout]

Just one click - and all available domains from submitted list are registered.

Sounds dangerous!

 

[Name Trader]

Their drop catching sucks. They can't even beat a handreg at GoDaddy.

 

[campout]

I am engaged in a conversation with GoDaddy Help on Twitter about this right now. They seem to not know what I am talking about.

Check it out:

https://twitter.com/BodhiNat/status/586602286811582465