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Short domain with a long history sells for $70,050

by — Expired Domains 0 Comments

Once owned by CNET China, 55BBS.com sells for big bucks at DropCatch.com.

House sign with "sold" notice

As someone who enjoyed the golden days of BBS, I thought I knew exactly what 55BBS.com was developed for. How wrong I was!

BBS is the acronym for “Bulletin Board System”, an internet service very popular in the 1980s and 1990s. I still remember that day when I posted a message on a BBS, which resulted in a long-term partnership with a Japanese company.

Actually, 55BBS.com has nothing to do with BBS. It was launched in 2004 as a forum for young Chinese women to discuss fashion, shopping, and other life style issues, with discounts on products offered to registered members. The brand name was Wo Ai Da Zhe (我爱打折=I love discount). The idea was a big hit, yet the company did not upgrade to the matching WADZ.com (which did not resolve at that time).

In 2008, 55BBS.com was sold to CNET China for about 55 million yuan ($8.3 million) as CNET was expanding into the lifestyle and fashion areas. The brand name remained Wo Ai Da Zhe, but apparently, no efforts were made to acquire WADZ.com, which still did not resolve.

In 2015, CNET sold 55BBS.com for only 6.8 million yuan (about $1 million). The new owner changed the brand name to “55Style” and then applied to list it on NEEQ (新三板). However, they did not upgrade to the brand-matching 55Style.com, which was listed for sale with multiple contact methods.

On May 29, 2019, the website disappeared from Wayback Machine records, so apparently the business was gone. Just a few days ago, 55BBS.com sold for $70,050 in an auction after it had expired.

The domains WADZ.com and 55Style.com were not expensive to acquire, but the companies failed to recognize the importance of acquiring brand-matching domains. In fact, this issue exists even today, so there are still a lot of opportunities in selling your domains to China as upgrades.

Verisign patent suggests a new model for expired domains

by — Expired Domains 7 Comments

Patent contemplates selling pools of access to each registrar.

Picture of expired parking meter.

Someone looking in from the outside would consider the current model for drop catching expired domain names to be inefficient.

Each registrar has a connection to the registry, which it uses to try to snap up domains the moment they expire. Drop catching services increase their connections to the registrar by getting more registrar accreditations. This is an expensive process: each registrar has to be accredited by ICANN and sign a registrar agreement with Verisign.

In the case of DropCatch.com, the company has registered over 1,000 limited liability companies, gotten each one accredited through ICANN, and then signed agreements with Verisign.

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) has another idea: why not just let each registrar buy more pools of access to process transactions?

It’s sure to be a controversial idea given the company’s tenuous relationship with domain name registrars. But it could actually be a win-win for drop catchers and Verisign.

Today, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted patent number 10,659,426 (pdf) to Verisign for System and method for domain name system using a pool management service. The patent describes a system of offering additional pools of access to registrars. These could be an alternative way to get more firepower for drop catching.

It’s an interesting concept. Verisign has filed other patents related to expired domains, including selling backorders.

A cool feature of ExpiredDomains.net

by — Expired Domains 4 Comments

Kassey Lee explains a neat feature of ExpiredDomains.net for finding domain deals.

Picture of clock with words "expired domains"

I collect China-related domains. Recently I discovered a function provided by ExpiredDomains.net that is very useful if you have a shopping list of domains.

During my daily research, I often come across domains I want to buy if their prices are low. These domains are marked in my database so that I can easily produce my shopping list of domains. However, checking the domains for their availability or price one by one is time-consuming.

The bulk domain search function of ExpiredDomains.net is my time-saving tool, and it is very easy to use.

I produce a list of domains from my database, and then just paste them into the bulk search box of ExpiredDomains.net. For example, checking the 398 domains on my shopping list today gave the following result.

* GoDaddy Buy Now Domains (About 3 Domains)
* GoDaddy Make Offer Domains (About 3 Domains)
* GoDaddy TDNAM (About 6 Domains)
* Uniregistry Offer and Buy Now Domains (About 3 Domains)
* Uniregistry Make Offer Domains (About 16 Domains)
* Sedo Bargain Domains (About 1 Domains)
* Sedo Make Offer .com Domains (About 16 Domains)
* Epik Marketplace Domains (About 2 Domains)
Domains: 398, Listed: 123, Not Listed: 275

Now, I can open the links and find out if I can purchase any of my desired domains. If any domain has expired, the result will show it too. This enables you to prepare and bid at the auction or catch the domain when it drops.

Thanks to this great function, I was able to acquire a domain for low 3 figures and made an offer on another domain recently.

Warning: check domains you won at NameJet

by — Expired Domains 10 Comments

They might not resolve.

Picture of flashing light with the word "warning" repeated three times across a black box

This week I transferred the domain names I’ve won at NameJet from Network Solutions to GoDaddy. I unlocked the 11 domains and requested the authorization codes. After receiving the codes, I verified in Whois that the domains were unlocked.

I was surprised to find 5 of the 11 domains in clientHold status.

ICANN’s website explains clientHold:

This status code tells your domain’s registry to not activate your domain in the DNS and as a consequence, it will not resolve. It is an uncommon status that is usually enacted during legal disputes, non-payment, or when your domain is subject to deletion.

It makes sense that domains you acquire at NameJet would have been in clientHold at some point as they worked through the expiry process. But the hold should have been removed when I bought these domains.

Unfortunately, someone or some system dropped the ball. That means that these domains have never resolved to the domain sales pages they were supposed to.

Just as frustrating was the response I got when I contacted Network Solutions chat support. When I re-read the transcript, I see that I got uncharacteristically testy. But there’s nothing more frustrating than telling a support representative what’s wrong with your domains and having them tell you you’re wrong.

01:05:48 PM [Andrew Allemann] Five of the domains in my account are showing clienthold so they aren’t resolving
01:05:52 PM [Jessica R] That is a lock the protects the domains from being stolen or transferred out with out your premission.
01:06:20 PM [Andrew Allemann] Um, I don’t believe that’s what it is. It is a lock that keeps them from resolving, so five of my domains at NetSol aren’t resolving.
01:07:04 PM [Jessica R] I am sorry that is not correct that lock has nothing to do with the Name sever change.

I did as much as I could to convince this person that there was a problem. She tried to tell me it was the nameservers I was pointing the domains to; I showed her that wasn’t the issue. I provided the link to ICANN’s website. I explained that these domains were all unlocked within Network Solutions’ account manager and the clientTransferProhibited was removed.

Finally, the representative said they had to create a ticket for the engineering team and I should hear back within two days. Two days! Can you imagine if your website wasn’t resolving and you were told to hang tight for two days? I won’t pretend that another two days of the sales landers not being there is a big issue, but imagine if you were a small business and experienced this issue.

Be sure to check the domains you buy at NameJet to verify that clientHold is removed.

End user research helps me decide whether to acquire a domain

by — Expired Domains 12 Comments

Kassey Lee explains the process he went through when evaluating an expired domain for purchase.

A picture of a magnifying glass with the words "end user research"

I was watching Godaddy Auctions today and found the expiring domain YogaYoung.com. Since “yoga” is a popular keyword, I decided to look into this domain.

First, I checked LinkedIn but found no company using the name “Yoga Young”. Google search gave no hope either.

However, dotDB, a site that shows registered domains containing a word/second level domain, reported 12 matches. dotDB has a nice feature I like — the matches have links. By installing the Snap Links extension to my Firefox browser, I can open the links and check their websites all at once.

The result was the discovery of two operating websites: YogaYoungistan.com and YogaYoung.cn.

Since YogaYoungistan.com already matches its brand Yoga Youngistan, there is no motivation for the company to change its domain to YogaYoung.com which is not brand-matching after all.

Nevertheless, YogaYoung.cn looked promising at first because Chinese companies like to upgrade from .cn to .com.

The home page design paints a solid company and the photos show a professional team and active yoga classes. However, even if you don’t read Chinese, you can see the name “Maya Yoga” prominently displayed at several locations. Thus, we can conclude that Maya Yoga is their brand and therefore upgrade from YogaYoung.cn to YogaYoung.com is unlikely because they are not brand-matching.

Based on this research, I decided not to acquire YogaYoung.com because I could not find any potential end users for it.



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