As GoDaddy gears up for its first Signature Auction, Domain Name Wire gets answers to your commonly asked questions.
GoDaddy’s first Signature Auctions will take place November 6, 7, and 8. GoDaddy first announced the auctions in July, but has been mum since then. Last week GoDaddy released the auction list. There will 31 domains in the three day auction.
At first I was a bit skeptical about the auction, and wrote a few suggestions for GoDaddy. Now that GoDaddy has released the list, I’m optimistic they’ll pull this off.
I connected with Nate Curran, Business Manager for Domains at GoDaddy, to answer a few lingering questions.
Curran explains that GoDaddy received several thousand domain submissions for the auction. GoDaddy cut a portion of the names that didn’t qualify. “There was an initial filter that removed names that did not meet our criteria — such as trademark infringements, adult names, etc. — for the auction,” says Curran. He explains that the filtered list was sent to a committee of domain aftermarket experts for review.
One of the curious things about the auction is the qualification process. There’s a brief application form on GoDaddy’s web site. The company wants to make sure only serious bidders participate, so it is qualifying each buyer. The easiest way to qualify is to pre-register with Domain Capital, which is providing financing for domains purchased at the event. “Pre-qualifying at Domain Capital is not required but it helps ensure people who are really interested in bidding are the people signing up,” Curran explains.
Gregg Freeman of Domain Capital says, “Domain Capital is very happy to be working with Go Daddy on this new venture.” Domain Capital provides financing for purchases at major auctions including TRAFFIC/Moniker and Domain Roundtable, as well as for private transactions.
GoDaddy says it takes about 72 hours to get qualified. As the auction nears it will take closer to 48 hours.
GoDaddy refused to provide any goals for the auction. But I have a hunch that the deck is stacked. After all, Bob.com is in the auction. My guess is GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons bids on that one. For his part, Curran says he doesn’t know if Parsons will be bidding on the domain.
The list of domains in the auction includes a handful of premium .mobi domains as well as many domains from GoDaddy partner BuyDomains (a Name Media company). But there are several individuals with domains in the auction, and a few people have more than one domain up for bid. Furthermore, GoDaddy apparently didn’t consider which registrar the domains are currently with, as most of the domains are not currently registered at GoDaddy.
Below is a list of the .com domains along with the administrative contact and registrar:
VirtualServer.com Barry Brooks Melbourne IT
BestPhone.com Bob Kerstein eNom
BestService.com Bob Kerstein eNom
Maillist.com Bob Kerstein eNom
Smoked.com Bob Kerstein enom
DietAids.com Buy Domains
HowToInvest.com Buy Domains
TravelUpdate.com Buy Domains
BargainBuy.com Buy Domains
RoadWork.com Buy Domains
TopBeaches.com Buy Domains
HDTVShop.com Chih-Chiang Ying Register.com
WhyHybrid.com Domainly.com LLC Godaddy
Campaign2008.com Emery Fore Moniker
SportUtility.com Kendra Cook Godaddy
MobileSecurity.com Kendra Cook Godaddy
YB.com Matt Chapman Network Solutions
Bob.com Privacy protected eNom
ForeignTravel.com Privacy protected Godaddy
1x.com SK Creations, Inc Moniker
BeautyCounter.com Tim Tarango Godaddy
Even.com Warren Weitzman eNom
Earl.com Warren Weitzman enom
Grapes.com Worldwide Media, inc Moniker
Six.com Xedoc Holding SA Fabulous
2w says
Campaign2008 in ‘the list ?! come on !
those .mobi ‘in ‘the list again ?! come ‘on !
Johnny B. Good says
In my opinion the list is really weak. Even TDNAM has better domains dropping than many of these – seriously! Apparantly the Domain Aftermarket “Experts” don’t know what they are talking about since they are not Domainers themselves.
It’s also lame that they are not doing the auction only with domains at GoDaddy – it takes away the uniqueness of the event. Without the uniqueness they just look like copycats. But…. they are huge, so maybe they will pull it off just through sheer exposure.
They should have called it the Godaddy Domain Gems Auction, or something similar, just for some character.
Johnny B. Good
Casey Klein says
There are a few ones that look like great generics – mobilesecurity.com I’d think should be a valuable name option to many in that growing industry – wifi security and all that. Not sure how or if we’ll be able to “see” the auction happening or not if you’re not a registered buyer. I still don’t get why the .mobi names are going up, and yes, GoDaddy does seem to have a handle on marketing and media exposure.
Andrew says
I don’t think you’ll be able to see the auction if you’re not registered for it. Some of the ones I think will fetch top dollar are: virtualserver.com, roadwork.com, Bob.com, Six.com, and Grapes.com
Casey Klein says
You can see what is happening in a very basic manner if you click on the highlighted link of the domain name from their signature auction page. It looks like the only one that sold today was VirtualServer.com at the $20,000 minimum bid. What happened? Did they get buyers to use the system? We’ll see how the rest of the week goes.