SnapNames' silly registrars

[randomo]

In just the past few days, I've started picking up names from the Public Auctions at SnapNames. Just $9 to start ... I've gotten nice ones at that level & gone higher to get some all-premium-letter LLLL.com's.

Only after starting this buying spree did I discover that SnapNames puts my new domains into accounts at registrars I've never heard of, and I'd have to pay them $14.99 a year for domain forwarding or email forwarding(!) :td:

Even though these names are freshly regged, I guess anyone who wants to buy them from me will have to pay a bit more to get them transferred to a reasonable registrar; that may reduce the prices they're willing to pay. (Sigh.)

Is there any way out of this nonsense? Or is it just a cost of doing business with SnapNames?

 

[.X.]

In just the past few days, I've started picking up names from the Public Auctions at SnapNames. Just $9 to start ... I've gotten nice ones at that level & gone higher to get some all-premium-letter LLLL.com's.

Only after starting this buying spree did I discover that SnapNames puts my new domains into accounts at registrars I've never heard of, and I'd have to pay them $14.99 a year for domain forwarding or email forwarding(!) :td:

Even though these names are freshly regged, I guess anyone who wants to buy them from me will have to pay a bit more to get them transferred to a reasonable registrar; that may reduce the prices they're willing to pay. (Sigh.)

Is there any way out of this nonsense? Or is it just a cost of doing business with SnapNames?

Just the cost of doing biz with snapnames...Just tranfer it out to godaddy or whoever your register preference is about 3 months before renewal time.

 

[randomo]

Just the cost of doing biz with snapnames...Just tranfer it out to godaddy or whoever your register preference is about 3 months before renewal time.

That sounds good, but in the meantime, I can't forward the domain or the emails ('cause I'm sure not going to pay $14.99 for either privilege!). Yuck.

 

[DotWeekly]

You must be talking about Website.in . You can Set the name servers for free! I have contacted SnapNames about this and they never replied! I like on there home page, it says that they only use the Most Well Know Registers! LOL

 

[DeepRoute.com]

Personally, I love these $9 auctions. I have been getting some pretty decent names I'd never pay $60 for.

I could see how having to use their "services" would stink, but fortunately that doesn't affect me. Find a third party e-mail service that you can simply "point" your names too. For the price (cheaper than most un-partnered registrations and even a few partnered regs) and the ability to get some decent names for pennies on the dollar, its hard to bash anything they're doing IMO.

 

[randomo]

Yes, Bill, I agree with you. Don't know how SnapNames decides which domains are going into the $9 public auctions, but some are much better than ones in the regular $60 auctions! (Several of the domains in my signature, below, came from their public auctions.)

So even though the registrar thing is a hassle, I'm not going to stop bargain-hunting there.

 

[DeepRoute.com]

The one thing I learned the hard way is NOT to bid early, since the list of names they provide flags names which have bids on them. I think I tipped off some folks on a name and ended up losing it. Its possible they could have found it anyway, but my guess is it would be unlikely given the other names I've gotten for $9.

My guess is that Snapnames simply starts snapping up all the expiring names they can through their "phantom partners" and dumps anything without a private auction bid into their public auction. At least that would seem to make sense.

 

[Coopey]

I'm sure not going to pay $14.99 for either privilege!.

finduaname.com?

That the thing I hate most about snapnames- you never know where your domain will end up.

I have a personal policy of never dealing with companies that use idiot speak (e.g. 'u' instead of 'you' or '4' instead of 'for') and getting my most recent name dumped in findUaname.com was a little annoying.
I just changed the name servers and avoided the $14.99 charges, just before renewal time, like -X- says above, I will transfer somewhere else if I decide to keep the name.

 

[DeepRoute.com]

My experience has been good thusfar. Sure, my Snapnames Public Auction domains are all ending up at different "partners", but I can manage them all from the same login account with an interface identical to DirectI's.

You can tell which "partner" your domain will be registered with for the Snapnames Public Auctions; simply WhoIs the thing during the auction. That being said, all of the "partners" I've looked at with names in the Snapnames Public Auction have a WhoIs showing the domain to be owned by Snapnames.com, so I'm sure it's all just a big dog and pony show to get them more "snapping" ability.

I'll be moving them all over to my reseller account before they renew as well, but I have to do that with 95% of the names I acquire so I'm used to that anyway.

 

[DotWeekly]

I agree with Bill G. You can manage all the domain's in one place, so it really does not matter who has the domain. You just tell your customers they need to sign up with http://Manage.SnapNames.com and then you can push the domain to them.

I will soon be having a list of SnapNames auctions, In a list that you can find the good ones, that is! Links, Alexa, PR, Valueable etc..... Coming Soon

 

[Domainate.com]

That sounds good, but in the meantime, I can't forward the domain or the emails ('cause I'm sure not going to pay $14.99 for either privilege!). Yuck.

Not sure if the regular accounts at Fabulous do this, but on my premium account there, if I have a name parked on their nameservers, I can forward the name to wherever I want whether it's registered there or not. I'd suggest signing up for a free account there and checking it out...NEVER pay for domain forwarding! That's ridiculous.

 

[randomo]

I agree with Bill G. You can manage all the domain's in one place, so it really does not matter who has the domain. You just tell your customers they need to sign up with http://Manage.SnapNames.com and then you can push the domain to them. [...]

Yeah, but who wants to sign up for more and more registrars every time they buy a domain? I have accounts with about 8 or 9 already, and that's too many. (Maybe SnapNames is a special case, since a lot of people pick up domains for resale there.)

 

[DotWeekly]

I guess that's just part of the game. If the domain is good, the buyer really does not care where it's reged at because they know if 60 days they can put it any where. I can see them changing the 60 day hold period and making it 30 days at some point. I have no idea why you have to wait two months!

 

[maximum]

I guess that's just part of the game. If the domain is good, the buyer really does not care where it's reged at because they know if 60 days they can put it any where. I can see them changing the 60 day hold period and making it 30 days at some point. I have no idea why you have to wait two months!

The 60 days to change registrars is not a SnapNames issue. They can't change that. It is set by ICANN :] Note that http://icann.org/transfers/text.htm#TransferDomain states:

Please note that you may not transfer your domain name to a new registrar within the first 60 days after initial registration, or the first 60 days after a transfer.

Since these names technically dropped and were registered anew, they are considered "initial registrations".

 

[DotWeekly]

I should of said ICANN will change this at some point. Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[maximum]

I should of said ICANN will change this at some point. Thanks for clearing that up.

ICANN likes to add new rules. Their board seems to forget that they are there to occassionaly vote on amending current rules/policies :p

 

[Jo]

Could you please post a link to the $9 auctions? Do they still charge $60 to your credit card or is it $9 (I haven't joined yet.)

 

[randomo]

Could you please post a link to the $9 auctions? Do they still charge $60 to your credit card or is it $9 (I haven't joined yet.)

Just go to SnapNames' homepage and you'll see a box about them on the right side.

Bad news: You can't do a search on just the public auctions (the $9 ones). If you do a search, they'll be mixed in with all the $60 ones.

Better news: you can download a list of all public auctions within a two- or three-day period. (It also contains some $60 auctions, but you can convert it to an Excel file and then sort by price.) A link for that download is in that box on the homepage.

When I downloaded today's list, it also contained a bunch of $49 auctions. SnapNames must have decided to jack up the starting prices on some of the auctions that would have been $9.

Let me know if you'd like more advice about these.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[DeepRoute.com]

Yea.. what's up with the price hike? I sent them an e-mail a few days ago and got no response. Really doesn't make a lot of sense, as those names already dropped and, if anybody wanted to pay $60, they'd have gotten 'em during the real drop you'd think.

I'd understand if they rerun the ones that don't get any bids at $49 or $60 (there's actually 2 prices it appears) back through for $9, but I doubt they have enough time to kite them (unless they actually let them drop and pick them up again, running them through for $9 the second time... no idea...)


BIG TIP : DON'T BID EARLY! It simply flags the name in the download file and shows others there is interest in the name. I made this mistake early on and lost 2 domains... now I wait until a few minutes before close and haven't had a problem again (as the list is updated daily..usually around 6:00 AM, and never flags my bids if they are right before close).

 

[cPanelHosting]

hi billgulch, nice website at www.alldrops.com I like it