As it expands its private beta, DropCatch.com is off to a fast start: it caught and auctioned off Bespoke.com for $18,805 today.
When the team behind HugeDomains launched its domain name registrar NameBright last year, it quickly became clear that a lot of people felt animosity toward the company’s expired domain business. Here’s just one of the comments submitted on Domain Name Wire:
When they stop taking all the decent domain names on the drop I may consider using them. As of now I feel like I would be competing with them and have no chances at all against them…
Now the company is opening up its expired domain drop catching business at DropCatch.com. Even better, it won’t compete against the domainers that use its new system.
DropCatch.com works similarly to NameJet and SnapNames when it comes to fully expired (aka pending delete) domain names. The names drop and the companies use their own domain registrars (as well as partners) to quickly ping the registry and pick up expired domain names.
The software behind DropCatch.com has been used to capture over 1 million domain names since 2006, including much of the HugeDomains portfolio.
Conflict of interest?
Some people are frustrated about competing head-to-head with HugeDomains. With the private beta launch of DropCatch.com, people no longer have to compete if they pay to use the system.
HugeDomains and a number of bulk customers continue to use the software to capture expired domains. But users DropCatch.com are assured priority over any of these other customers, including anyone associated with HugeDomains.
How DropCatch.com compares.
There are several apparent advantages to DropCatch vs. the competition.
One is easily quantifiable: DropCatch charges $59 when it’s successful, the same as NameJet but $10 less than SnapNames.
From a user interface perspective, DropCatch.com is very simple. It’s not cluttered with additional auctions and ads, making it easy to use.
Another nice perk is that all domains backordered at DropCatch.com go to NameBright.com when captured. Whenever you win pending delete domains at other services you have to manage them at obscure registrars, often with limited functionality.
As with competing services, if more than one person backorders the same captured domain then it heads to auction. It’s important to note that any DropCatch.com customer can participate in auctions, not just those that backordered the domain.
How it performs.
Saving $10 is nice, but it’s only worth it if the system is good at snagging domain names.
So does DropCatch.com win?
Sometimes. Even DropCatch advises you to backorder domains at multiple services for the best odds of getting them.
I ran a brief test over the past week and concluded that it’s definitely worth backordering domains at DropCatch.com.
DropCatch caught two of the six domains I backordered through the service. I backordered four of the same domains at SnapNames and it won two of the four. (It appears one of the domains both companies missed was captured by rival service Pheenix.)
While SnapNames had a better win ratio than DropCatch.com on this small test (way too small to be conclusive), DropCatch.com caught the big fish.
The domain name Bespoke.com, worth tens of thousands of dollars, dropped last week. I backordered it at DropCatch.com, SnapNames, and NameJet. DropCatch.com got it.
In fact, an auction for Bespoke.com just ended at DropCatch.com for $18,805.
That’s a big league catch.
DropCatch.com is in a limited beta sign-up right now. You can request an account here. It’s worth checking out if you participate in the pending delete expired domain business.
Only issue with Dropcatch is that anytime you catch a name it goes into a PUBLIC auction, anytime more than 1 person had bid on it.
So the PUBLIC auction is not both parties who bid, but anyone who uses the system, I think this is a big downside.
yeah, that kind of makes it useless unless you’re the only bidder.
Yea, it sucks that everyone can dogpile on your picks when there were only a few back orders. It’s like the NJ Johnny Come Latelies, but much worse because everyone can play and with no effort.
At first I complained to them about it, but I do like it when I forget to back order something or miss a good one in the lists. I think I’m still leaning towards disliking it though.
The interface, and being able to manage everything at NameBright, is cool. They are definitely a force to be reckoned with.
I will not use it – I do not want my efforts to go public. I will continue to use the closed backorder systems that remain private. If I spend countless hours doing research, any successful captures should be limited to me and anyone else
who backordered the same domain.
Something does not sound right here. Basically, those who did the research and identified a name and put up their money got nothing in return. In essnce they are working for DropCatch for free through their research to identify a good drop. One way to remedy that is for those that backordered the said domain name to get a share or a certain percentage of the proceeds or sell price. Anything on the contrary, is simply unfair and perhaps cheating in my view.
Is anyone as surprised as I am that drop catching is still a thing?
This is great news! Even if some people take issue with various aspects of the DropCatch.com implementation, the main thrust of this story is quite simply this: More Competition.
And that’s a good thing for the industry. Recently we’ve seen some big mergers and buyouts that could mean less free market competition in some ways: (1) Afternic bought up by GoDaddy; (2) SnapNames acquired by a major stake holder in rival NameJet. So having another major player shake things up helps maintain competitive pricing and opens up opportunities for more people.
“It’s important to note that any DropCatch.com customer can participate in auctions, not just those that backordered the domain”.
That’s a major downside, which more than offset the fact that all domains backordered go to NameBright when captured.
It’s all done in a way they can maximize their revenues from selling the names at auction …
It’s not a service, it’s just a joke …
True drop catching is only when first come, first served rule is applied, so only one person can backorder a name.
Other “pseudo” drop catchers are just auction houses …
Good luck with it.
I have been using DropCatch for a while and I really dislike the PUBLIC auction thing. Any one can jump in your auction and bid it. That’s the worst scenario. I have asked them several times to get this of this PUBLIC auction and make it private for those who has placed backorders in advance. But they said no one wants this except ME!
I have sent this article link to them and asked to check specially the comments section to know how many people are like-minded.
They are just trying to make maximum money out of this which I am not against it but making my domain goes into PUBLIC auction is just the worst thing I can ever have at any backordering company.
One more thing is if I know the domain like Bespoke.com getting dropped so why the hell I need to place backorder at first? I must know other foolish people would be doing it and I will simply jump into that if DropCatch grabs it. That’s not fair for a person who has researched and found the domain at first and backordered and the one who jumped at the last minute and started bidding.
I hope they will take this issue seriously soon…
Here is an idea don’t show how many bids are on a domain name. Also do not show the amount of traffic it gets. Let’s see who has the balls to come up with a service like this.
Of course they do this so they will make more money just like the others drop catchers do. The best way is just to buy direct from a private buyer. I mean really why would any service offer back orders if anyone could play the game at any time.
Hey here is another idea- IF you’re the second bidder and lose you agree to buy the domain name if the other party does not pony up the money in 24 hours. Ahh this would prevent those dummy accounts right. Then give 3 bidder option if 2nd bidder fails in 24 hours. Do-not rerun auction.
Here is another one start charging everyone regardless if they are the winner of the auction or not. If you start charging everyone 5 or 10 bucks regardless it will weed out people that are not really serious. Also it will prevent dummy accounts from driving up bids on domains name that should not be bid up on.
Ahh could go on and on…
DonnyM out
I’m using dropcatch.com as well but as I just found out that ANY DropCatch.com customer can participate in auctions (instead of only the people that took the time to research to find and actually backorder the domain before it was caught) I’m hugely disappointed.
I think almost all domain investors will agree that if they find a domain gem it shouldn’t be going to a public account where everyone can bid on it. What’s the point of research then?
Sure if all caught domains go to a public auction it’s more profit (in the short term) to dropcatch.com but in the long run my guess is that a LOT of domain investors (including me) will not use dropcatch.com just to make sure that the backordered expired domain(s) will go immediately to their account or in the worst case scenario to a private auction. Besides, if dropcatch.com does catch the domain anyone can still join the public dropcatch.com auction anyways. So IMO there’s no reason whatsoever to place a dropcatch order on dropcatch.com until they actually caught the domain.
This is Suicide.
If you buy a domain via DropCatch, you will not be able to sell it in future for profit.
The reason is that when conducting an auction, DropCatch sends an email to all potential end users informing of auction and asking to place a bid. Thus, any likely end user you can think of, has already been approached.
Can you imagine NameJet or SnapNames doing this?
I wouldn’t use DropCatch.com. Ever.
How can you be so sure if DropCatch sending email to all potential endusers informing about the auction?
If this is true then that’s one more reason not to use dropcatch.com… (besides the “public auction” business model).
The public auction has it drawbacks for domainers, to be sure. At least, the domainer(s) who first backorder the domain will be at a disadvantage relative to the domainer(s) who spot the auction after the fact and to the end users who may be notified.
But to me this sounds like the same old same old.
Scarcely a week goes by when I don’t get emails from domainers offering to sell me domains that turn out to be expired and on offer at NameJet or GoDaddy. So I generally go into any expired auction realizing that I may be bidding against some end user vicariously … or against the previous owner … or (conceivably) the auction house.
To some degree or other, domainers are giving up their hard-won research any time they backorder a domain anywhere or whenever they go halfway through the registration process at a registrar for the sake of availability checking. Those queries are themselves valuable enough to be stored, referenced, and even sold.
What are our choices here? HugeDomains could continue as a closed system, or they can open up their drop catching as they have done. Either way, they’re going to maximize their profits — just as those who place backorders or bids are seeking to do.
If people benefit from placing backorders there, then they will. If they don’t, then they won’t. In that case, it will be just as if HugeDomains had remained closed to outsiders.
The idea of ‘public auctions’ is a real turnoff. Unless they change this I wouldn’t be able to use the service.
every time you place and order …you provide them with free ideas on what to catch.
Same as when you place an order at NameJet for a soon to expire domain at ENOM… it gets renewed.
The Fox is in the chicken coop….
I don’t expect anything less from Andrew Reyberry, suckers!
I recently published an article on my blog about DropCatch and sent the link of both DNW and mine and got the response from DropCatch.com official which I copied below:
==========
Hello AbdulBasit,
We are following the domain name article and have been discussing the issue you have raised for quite some time.
These things don’t change overnight and we will let you know (probably with a DropCatch blog post) what we decide to do when we have decided it. A lot goes into keeping something like this running. Your patience is appreciated.
so no need to order any domains in dropcatch .com because we can still bid if that domain caught in dropcatch site
Only if there are at least 2 bidders. If only one backordered the domain, it’s awarded automatically to him.
My limited experience with dropcatch (including the analysis of auctions I’ve seen) shows that “open” system is not as “dangerous” for domainers (and not as profitable to an auction house) as one might expect. Why? Because, so far, most if not all “new” bids came from NEW members. From those who were technically unable to pre-order the particular domain some days ago as they were not yet members. Current members normally do place bids on domains they pre-ordered and do not place bids on domains they did not pre-order. Droplists are public and each member knows perfectly well what are they looking for. Open auctions system works fine in DropCatch favor with current “beta” stage, for example if I am not mistaken bespoke.com was won by somebody who did not originally pre-order it, but what will happen after they go public and most “players” will set an account with them and become pre-ordering what they are looking for?
The following will happen I guess (more dangerous to DropCatch):
1) “Domainers” who are basing their orders on lets say “Most Active” pre-orders feed from NameJet will find their new home at DropCatch. They will no more need to be “on duty” copying-and-pasting namejet “most active” page each morning. They will simply come to DropCatch and bid for what it already catched. While inital $$$ amount received by DropCatch will be the same or better, bad publicity in domainers community is likely not what DropCatch/NameBright wants.
2) Other “domainers” are spamming domains in redemption or pendingdelete as their own domains for sale using whois of similar domains. The same people will come to DropCatch and start spamming currently available SomeCoolDomain(s).Com (which is in _public_ auction) to the owner of SomeCoolDomain.NET etc. as their own domain they are selling. And a few people will do this. Poor owner of SomeCoolDomain.com will recive dozens of offers from persons representing themselves as owners of SomeCoolDomain.Com which is in fact owned and auctioned by DropCatch/Namebright. And the poor and “lost” owner of SomeCoolDomain.NET will say “f… you, all your businesses including namebright.com are scam”.
Is it what DropCatch/NameBright really wants to acheive by starting an open auctions model?
3) DropCatch is already auctioning clear “trademarks” pre-ordered by domainers who prefer trademarked domains. After the beta stage, they will catch and auction many more trademarks. Is it in the best interest of DropCatch to let all the world (who bothered to join) see what TMs they sold and for what $$$ amount? Especially to let various TM lawyers see this? Something like this may even be “inspired” by the competitors of DropCatch in order to shut them down or to make their life somewhat problematic
3) After DropCatch opens its doors for all, other domain catching services will see decreasing profits. So, trying to recover at least some $$$, the competitors may decide to change from “closed” auctions model to an “open” model as well. Should this happen, DropCatch/NameBright will become the most hated business in domainers community. Is it what DropCatch/NameBright really wants?
So, for DropCatch: you should not open the “pandora box” of open auctions after the beta stage. Nobody will win if you do this
@Matthew
“The same people will come to DropCatch and start spamming currently available SomeCoolDomain(s).Com (which is in _public_ auction) to the owner of SomeCoolDomain.NET etc. as their own domain they are selling”
LOL, hadn’t thought about this yet, but yes you’re absolutely right. Dropcatch’s open auction system will open more doors for “domainers” trying to sell domains they DO NOT OWN.
Realistic scenario:
1. Some good domain gets caught by DropCatch and goes to a public auction.
2. Some domainer sees it and starts spamming potential end-users by email under the false pretense that he owns the domain.
3. The domainer gets lucky and he finds an interested party who agrees to buy the domain for $2K and then makes the buyer sign a contract to make sure he will get the money and tells the buyer he can start the transaction in a few days.
4. The domainer starts bidding on the DropCatch auction and tries to get the domain and ends up buying it for $200 USD.
5. Domainer made $1.8K profit with no risk.
6. Rinse and repeat.
Worst case scenarios?
1. The domainer won’t find a buyer (but since no actual money was spend buying a domain in that case it’s still “no risk”).
2. The auction bidding ends up too high (in that case he can simply either refund the interested party or in the event they didn’t pay yet he can say he no longer “owns” the domain).
I’m sure that is spelled scam in my book.
I hope DropCatch reads this (and doesn’t ignore this). No sane domain investor wants an open drop catch auction model for this and many other obvious reasons.
@Elena,
This is a problem, but it’s not dependent on the public auction model DropCatch is using. It’s a separate issue.
People pretend to own domains and sell them without the owner’s permission on a regular basis, unfortunately.
More than once, I’ve received emails from people trying to sell me domains that I myself own. No brokerage had been discussed. And the domains were not expired.
This problem cuts across all market places — anywhere domains are listed for sale. But it’s most associated with expired auction market places.
The dominant expired auction platforms attract the majority of these scams — NameJet, SnapNames, GoDaddy. DropCatch will undoubtedly see the same scams applied to its domains, whether it uses its current model or imitates the others.
I agree that I also get emails from domainers trying to sell me domains they don’t own. Regardless, an open auction model like DropCatch makes this scamming process SO MUCH EASIER.
With a private auction model only the people who actually did research can bid on the domain so even if they would try to scam (trying to sell a domain they don’t own prior to the private auction being finished) they would have invested a lot more time prior to the auction with no guarantee the backordered domain will in fact be caught. It’s not simply a matter of putting bids on the “most active” pre-order feed in that case since those backorders will have the most bidders resulting in the likelihood that the backordered domain (if caught) will end up too expensive.
Indeed. I would say that each and every domain caught by dropcatch.com in non-beta would suffer from this, should they elect to continue with open auctions. Unless it is something like khiejwj34dfjkjf.com which was backordered due to existing traffic and as such the spammers (dozens of those spammers WILL become the customers of DropCatch) would be unable to find anybody associating with khiejwj34dfjkjf keyword. Now, for those people who support open auctions model in some forums threads or other blogs, there is one simple question. Is it possible that you’d like to sell your DropCatch.com – acquired domain someday? Maybe yes. If so, you should think what would be your customers base. Even though customers base of “good” domain SomeGoodDomain.com is not limited to the the owners of lets say some-good.net or SomeGoodDomain.CO, those ppl do form a part of your customers base. Now, they were all spammed by dozens of different individuals which were all representing themselves as owners of SomeGoodDomain.com at the time it was on open auction. Do you honestly think that these endusers, who already think that all owners of SomeGoodDomain.com together with Namebright/Dropcatch are scam, do still form a part of your customers base for the purposes of purchasing SomeGoodDomain.com from you, which you proudly own after winning an open auction?
So first people are upset that HugeDomains grabs all the names, now they open it up and let you grab names using their system and you’re upset that it’s public. Personally I think all the auction houses should have made auctions public ages ago. Why do you need to have a backorder. The auction venues (especially HugeDomains) know what the best names are, they don’t need your “crowdsourced” help a vast majority of the time.
@Adam
HugeDomains grabs a lot of good names yes, but far from all. They are arguably better in catching domains than either Snapnames or Namejet but not better than both combined.
In the past if you made a backorder on both snapnames and namejet you probably had a 60-70% chance either one of them caught the domain for you, making HugeDomains bite the dust. And snapnames / namejet luckily do not have public auctions for their dropcatched domains. So I was perfectly happy without DropCatch.
When DropCatch-Beta was announced I was actually thrilled since it could potentially create that additional 30% chance to successfully grab any domain that I want. But then I found out it’s auctions are public… So I stopped backordering there. If they catch a domain that I want I’ll just join in after they caught it and wait 5 minutes until the end of the public auction to start bidding.
A “public auction” business model for dropcatches, as already stated, make prices go up higher (great for DropCatch.com , horrible for everyone else) and make scamming much more easier (domainers selling domains they don’t own).
So yes I’m against public auctions.
As far as your statement “The auction venues (especially HugeDomains) know what the best names are, they don’t need your “crowdsourced” help a vast majority of the time”.
Whether or not they know is irrelevant, Dropcatch created public auctions for one reason only, to make more money at the expense of the buyers. They didn’t create a public auction to know what the “good” domains are, they created a public auction so they can collect more money for every captured domain.
Yes, DropCatch’s model has drawbacks. But so do the existing platforms such as NameJet, SnapNames, or GoDaddy. I think people are so accustomed to these other market places that they don’t see the issues 100% clearly.
It’s a question of tradeoffs, of pros and cons.
NameJet expired auctions are very very public prior to the backorder deadline. If you signal your interest in a domain by placing a bid / backorder, then that domain will receive that much more publicity through email and through the website. So NameJet’s model incentivizes “sniping” — waiting until the very last minute to place a backorder. We either run the risk of missing a domain (by waiting too late) or of overpaying (by bidding too early).
NameJet’s model also incentivizes a coterie of private sellers to camouflage their non-expiring domains among the pre-releases and to multiply the number of backorders placed … for the sake of publicity. That’s true at GoDaddy Auctions and Flippa as well. Shill bids are an industry-wide problem. DropCatch’s current model won’t be immune, but it would be less prone to the infection.
DropCatch’s — as currently implemented — has mostly destroyed the advantage of sniping. Why wait until the last 60 seconds to place a backorder if you’ll face a public auction anyway? People who have been sniping expired auctions effectively will naturally dislike this system, and I don’t blame them. I’m in the same boat. But people who prefer not to play the sniping game might appreciate being able to place a backorder whenever the mood strikes them, without needing to use another service, mark their calendar, or set an alarm clock.
Does the public auction model lead to more email marketing from non-owners? Maybe. But keep in mind 4 things:
(1) The majority of those non-owner, non-broker sellers have been working for years already with inventory elsewhere. So, however likely this problem is with respect to DropCatch, it is an established reality with SnapNames, GoDaddy, NameJet, et al.
(2) Public auctions are nothing new. Remember Sedo? Moniker? Flippa? Often the price points are similar to expired backorders.
(3) Even if expired auctions at DropCatch turn out to be problematic, the alternative (in the past) was usually to have zero access to those demains because HugeDomains was drop-catching them privately. I’d personally prefer to have access with risks compared to no access at all.
(4) Whether DropCatch is looking to crowd-source domain backordering for profit or not, their incentive is to keep the initial backorder price low in order to encourage participation. As a competitor to Namejet, SnapNames, and others, DropCatch will help to keep the other platforms in check. Otherwise, if NameJet and SnapNames merged fully, we might see backorder prices rise $10 or $20 per year. Would they do that? Maybe not. But they’ll have a harder time doing that if there are more services out there to successfully catch dropping domains. Fragmentation maintains competitive pricing for the entire industry.
To be honest, the public part of this, and allowing anyone to jump in and bid at any time, it very well could long term, have a very positive effect on the market. Probably the most significant obstacle standing in the way of the domain aftermarket becoming liquid and consequently, increasing .com, .net and .org values, has been the learning curve that awaits any new money who wants to come into the business and an overall massive lack of transparency, period.
This isn’t an easy industry to make money within, but especially for those who are brand new to it. There are always lots of snake-oil salesmen, ahem-domainbrokers, who welcome fresh blood with open arms and poor quality overpriced names. Telling the newbies stories about the titans within the industry, IE Frank Schilling, Kevin Ham, Scott Day, Chad Folkening and so on. We all know those days and those kind of early mover opportunities are over. Newbies don’t, but they love hearing about them and literally buying into the dream.
Industry veterans, domainers who are connected and in general big spender power players, domain brokers are always ready to pump and dump their crappy and or “iffy” domain inventory on the newbies so they can then sell them premiums at $50K and up.
When newbies drop $3K on a reg fee domain over and over, they learn their lesson at some point and then they’re gone.
Not having the NameJet model, it is brilliant in that it creates transparency and actually creates a higher probability that a great drop will get noticed by more buyers, news outlets and in general isn’t closed off behind a wall, only available to those within the business who are spending a huge amount of time focused on buying and selling domains.
This isn’t to say that HugeDomains/DropCatch is doing this to benefit the industry. It’s clearly to simply fatten their bottom line, which is fine. Every single person here complaining would do the exact same thing. In fact, what everyone is pissed about, is that it means paying more for drops and having a lower probability of quickly flipping that name for a profit. Boo hoo.
Everyone should have seen this coming from HugeDomains because when you’re sitting on 1M names with the majority being “iffy” quality and you own tens of thousands of TM names, and the massive PR push to put the focus on the new GTLD’s, well you’re going to stop using your own personal drop catch system to acquire inventory, and flip the script and start allowing others to use it.
There’s going to be a record number of drops happening over the next three years. HugeDomains can’t buy them all. Although there’s going to be plenty that won’t make it to DropCatch and will still go to HugeDomains…
Ultimately, everyone should stop thinking about the short term and realize that anything that has the potential to bring new investors into the aftermarket, and allow them to compete with the industry professionals on the same level, and have some level of success, they will become evangelists for the industry, bring others into the business, long term, that is going to be a good thing.
If the domain industry doesn’t provide new investors with a fairly level playing field, well you have to stop bitching about parking revenue being dead, sales prices being down and the general trend of things going from bad to worse. There’s an oversupply of inventory, but a very limited number of people who are willing to bring their money into the marketplace for the first time. You have to give those people a fair shot at making money.
You can’t have 90% of the cake, sell the last 10% to someone else at full price, and then expect for people to come back for more.
that is one of the reason I will not use them, I will not do research to find a diamond in the mud, only for other to jump in. I called them multiple times to change this policy, but I guess they are not listening, I will continue to use others mainly snapnames, and others if I really want a name. untill this policy changes, I will continue using others but DropCatch.com
I’ve found them to be pretty decent. The public auction thing certainly pushes the price up, which can make it worse for people selling domains, but better for folks who wish to develop. Two sides to ever coin.
I also very much like the Denver area employees. I know the domain business can be seen as cold, but Colorado people tend to be pretty decent. Maybe all that sun (one of the sunniest places in the US!) has a good effect on people. Not to mention all the grass fed beef that roam those beautiful hills.
What I don’t like about DropCatch and NameBright alike are the outages. It’s annoying with NameBright (which has some innovative features, btw), but it can be absolutely deadly with DropCatch.
Auctions systems should have –zero downtime–, especially during those critical moments.
Who knows, maybe they have a limited connection to the internet and some savvy bidder does a small DDOS at bidding time to “seal” their bid.
Whatever it is, though, it’s awful.
I flip a lot of domains, sure, but there’s some things near and dear to my heart I like to develop. I just lost a domain I wanted to develop because I couldn’t access the site — from multiple networks, no less — in the last 3 minutes of the auction. Ugh.
The other thing that’s annoying is no weekend support. Not via phone or email.
Support very well could’ve fixed my issue had they been open on the actual day off the auction. (Saturday) But they’re just not around. On Monday, it’ll probably be too late to do anything about it.
My recommendation would be that they open up for at least an hour or two at auction time on weekends, or only auction things off on the weekday when they’re normally open. Tech issues happen, and they damn well better not happen during an auction of all things. That really rubs one the wrong way, is enough to cause mass distrust of their platform.
Maybe they could continue hosting the front interface of NameBright as is (where short downtimes don’t matter too much), but move both the NameBright DNS and the DropCatch auction system to some extra fancy high availability hosting.
Oddly, their provider, ViaWest offers a 100% uptime SLA, much like higher end services like Peer1… however, that’s obviously not true.
I wonder why do you think it’s better when the price goes up when you are willing to develop that domain…
NamePremier, a domain broker, who I reached out to was selling a domain for 7 figures that I was interested in. I found the domain for auction on DropCatch.com just now and NamePremier is driving up the price on the auction. They are actually the highest bidder on a lot of domains they currently broker. This is getting out of hand, considering the domain expired and only had a few backorders with NameJet. Public auction FTW smh.
$18K for http://www.bespoke.com? It’s merely a placeholder site now. what a terrible investment.
@Olden,
Many domain owners – myself included – purchase property with a long-term outlook. Development can take months, and projects may wait their turn for years and years if the owner is otherwise engaged. It’s also true that a domain will often be resold years after a purchase – frequently at a considerable profit.
If someone buys land today and hasn’t developed it into high-rise apartments within a few months, that doesn’t mean his land purchase was a “terrible investment”. Read the story all the way to the end.
Actually, that isn’t even a placeholder site. It’s what’s known as a parked page.
I will NEVER do business with GoDaddy ever again. They lied to me when my websites were expiring, then they stole them, and now DropCatch has one for sale for $4,000. These companies are a huge scam!!!
Lied to you? They sent lots of automated emails before your domains expire.
I had the same issue with name bright. each time I setup a backorder for a expired domain, they catch it. I guess their servers are super fast. I guess someone should do something about it because there is def a conflict of interest there.