Namecheap offers unprecedented view into rival auction bidders

See how many auctions your competitors have won.

Namecheap has introduced a new feature to help domain auction bidders know who they are against.

The company has rolled out User Badges that will appear next to bidder names in its marketplace. The bronze, silver, gold and platinum badges are based on the amount spent on auctions:

• Bronze – $1+
• Silver – $1,000+
• Gold – $15,000+
• Platinum – $100,000+

It’s going a step further, too: You can hover over the badge to see the bidder’s revenue tier, total domains won, and join date.

The goal is to increase transparency. If you’re bidding on an expensive domain and the top bidder is brand new, you might be cautious about their legitimacy. Or, maybe they are an end user bidding for the first time.

Domain investors might use this data to gauge if they have a chance of winning the domain and how sophisticated other bidders are.

Update: in a tweet the day after this story was published, Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall said that, at some point, there will be thresholds at which people are able to bid. For example, to bid on a domain over $1,000, only silver, gold and platinum bidders could participate. Bronze bidders could only participate if they made a deposit.

This data would be super interesting on GoDaddy Auctions, although there might not be enough space in the pop-up to see how many domains Huge Domains has won.