Tucows.com is the lastest registrar that will be ending its in house drop auctions of it own expired domains.
The official announcement should be made within the next two weeks.
Tucows.com had been retaining an unknown portion of it own expired domains, then placing the rest through its own auction system.
It is unknown at this point whether Tucows.com will use SnapNames.com or NameJet.com to process these names after their auction ends.
The last major registrar to stop their exclusive expired domain auction was enom.com which of course became NameJet.com and which name includes other registrars domains including NetworkSolutions.com.
We don’t know if these registrars actually make more after than join a bigger auction system. While the bigger auction houses, give registrars access to substantially more users, they also get mixed in with tens of thousands of other dropping names each day.
We were spending 6 figures a year with enom before they incorporated their own names into NameJet.com
After the move we spend substantially less.
Likewise we have spend six figures at the Tucows.com auction and probably will spend substantially less at the new auction house. Why. Too many names each day. At least when these registrars had their own auctions the list was 1K-3K names a day. You could get through the list pretty quickly.
We haven’t gone though a full daily NameJet or SnapNames.com list in years.
Most of the domains tucows.com drops are not of the networksolutions.com variety and I think will get lost in the system.
Once this Tucows.com auction ends it will leave Godaddy.com as the only other registrar that still runs their own in house expired domain auction.
“Tucows.com had been retaining an unknown portion of it own expired domains, then placing the rest through its own auction system.”
This would be the part I am interested in to see if it changes. If Tucows keeps all the good ones, I guess it wouldn’t matter where they send their domains to auction. We already know they keep the best of the best and dump the rest.
Jamie
Although they have been retaining “the best” of their domains, “the Best” is in the eye of the beholder, so some decent names have been getting released into their auction system.
They also do not retain any adult domains to the best of my knowledge.
Your not going to find too many five figure domains, but there have definately been some in the last couple of years, copying.com is one that comes to mind that they did not retain.
There are also many domains we believe are worth several thousands of dollars retail, that were sold for $60 and above on a regular basis.
Once again each of us can look through a list of domains and see ones we like that others dont’.
For example I don’t see buying the LLLL.com names but everyday i see bids on them at namejet.com
To me their junk but to other’s their gold.
Likewise whomever looks over the list for tucows has their own outlook and just because the release a name it doesn’t mean its crap,
However these are not names that will stand out when mixed with 30,000 other daily dropping domains.
So my belief is that Tucows.com may actually receive less revenue, using one of the other auction houses than they receive now, especially after they have to split the proceeds.
Interesting – I actually did not know tucows had an auction system. Fully agree that the smaller, under 5k lists are the easiest to scan and are easy to do daily. NameJet and Snapnames seem almost impossible. Maybe that is the new value though…just get it done.
Your points on the value being in the scanner and what they are looking for and value is so true. In fact, it is so funny how someone can view our collection as many subpar domains I think are excellent and I see many many complete portfolios that I would not even touch for 1-yr reg fees. Then I love to see the marketing spin put on how great these names are in an effort to justify their worth.
Everyday, this biz makes me smile.
Great post and response to it.
Although they have been retaining “the best” of their domains, “the Best” is in the eye of the beholder,