Name.com announced today its new “Domain Nabber Service”
Domain Nabber is the beta version of Name.com’s back order service which includes a searchable database using Verisign and Yahoo data.
Domain Nabber is currently limited to .com and .net domain names which are set to drop from the registry.
All domain backorders are priced at $18.95 per substantially lower than current rates at NameJet.com and SnapNames.com
Domain Nabber gives you up to ten days of daily drop lists (five past and five future) which are analyzed using Verisign’s Data Analyzer as well as Yahoo data.
(If you want to see what this data looks like click here to go to the page)
Data Analyzer determines historic traffic to a domain name over various time periods using a scale from zero (absolute) to a high of ten (10). These are relative numbers and no guarantees can be made about future traffic based on these numbers. Only .com domains which are not in the zone file are able to be analyzed, which is why we are currently limiting this service to names which are PendingDelete.
Yahoo! Data comes in two forms “InLinks” and “PageData”.
InLinks are just as they sound, the number of inbound links to a domain name. PageData is the number of webpages on a domain which Yahoo! is indexing. Yahoo! information is available for com and net domains.
The Search Options you can use to select domains from the database are:
TLD – Pretty straightforward All, com or net. Take your pick.
Display Results – defaults to 50, but you can see up to 250 on a single page.
Drop Date – This defaults to either the current drop list or the next day’s drop list if the drop has already ended for that day. You can select all to view all days or select an individual day to limit results.
Max Length – by default domains up to 63 characters are displayed. Simply enter a number to limit the character length of a domain name.
Min Yahoo! InLinks – enter a number of 1 or greater to limit results.
Min Yahoo! PageData – enter a number of 1 or greater to limit results.
Hyphens or Numbers – Exclude or Include.
Hide or Show Data Analyzer – If you select .net and leave “Data Analyzer” checked no results will display. Uncheck Data Analyzer.
0-6 days through 52 weeks – Select a number 1 thru 10 to set minimum traffic scores for Data Analyzer.
Losing Registrar – defaults to all, use this option to view domain names which are dropping from a particular registrar.
Keyword Search – Powerful way to limit results based on preferred keywords and keyword combinations.
“contains all” allows you to enter up to four keywords and delivers results which contain ALL of those keywords. Example: “home loan mortgage” will show only names which contain all three of those words: homemortgageloan.com
“contains any” will deliver results which contain any one of the keywords. Example “home loan mortgage” will show names which contain any of those words: homepro.com, loanpro.com and mortgagepro.com
“begins with” will show results where your keyword(s) are at the beginning of a domain name. You may use up to four keywords in this search as well.
“ends with” will deliver results where your keyword(s) are at the end of a domain name. You may use up to four keywords in this search as well.
Here are the disclaimers and details:
1. All backorders, or “Nab Orders” are on a first come, first served basis and cannot be canceled once submitted.
Multiple orders for a domain name will not be accepted.
The first customer to complete a transaction for a particular domain is the sole “Nabster” (customer) for that domain name. If Name.com is successful in “Nabbing” the domain name that Nabster will be awarded the domain.
2. Successfully “Nabbed” domain names are placed in accounts by 2:30pm MST each day.
Each Nabster will receive notification of success and/or failure after 2pm MST.
3. Unsuccessful Nab attempts will be credited back to accounts in the form of account credit. Account credit may be used for future nab attempts, renewals or of course, new domain registrations.
4. There are no refunds or grace period deletions on Nabbed domain names.
Seems like an a lot of good information is being made available in this product launch combined with lower pricing.
After checking it out let me know your comments and thoughts.
Who owns name.com and can it be trusted? They sound like on of the tasting companies that saves everything everyone searches for on their site.
So the domains do not go to auction since there can never be more than one backorder?
If you backorder a domain that is a long time away from expiration can you re-assign the backorder to a different domain, or is that money tied up until you either “nab” the domain, or fail to do so?
Sounds like the catch is that once you put money in, you can only get it out again in the form of domains. Interesting model, I wonder if it will gross more revenue than the auction model.
JP
Godaddy.com has had a backorder service for years that operates the same way, you buy backorder on a domain if they don’t get it you get to backorder another name.
SnapNames.com used to operate on this way as well before they went to an auction model.
I don’t know how many “tags” Name.com has to work with.
SnapNames and Namejet.com have a lot of registrars working with them and therefore many of the more sought after domains will wind up getting caught by them.
However if your the only one going for a dropping domain, $18.75 beats the hell out of $69 or $59 all day.
Ed
Your going to have to make that call for yourself.
I know they have been around for a while, definitely not a new registrar but I have never done business with them.
If you have interest, you can throw out 10 backorder for less than $200 and see what happens.
I probably will.
The Verisign data has only been made available to registrars in the past and to my knowledge never made public before
I’ve never had a successful backorder at GD, but I thought that if 2 people backordered the same domain it went to auction if GD catches the name.
For sure $18.75 isn’t bad.
JP
No godaddy.com does not permit more than one backorder on a domain.
However if the domain its a godaddy.com (or one of their registrars names) the domain will still go on godaddy.com expired auction with the backorder serving as the 1st bid at $10.
However if the backorder is on a domain at another registrar and Godaddy.com gets the domain, it goes to backorder holder.
MHB
Thanks for the clarification. I was unaware. That explains why the few backorders I’ve done there ended up in auction, they were previously reg’d at godaddy, or one of its sub-registrars
Jp, only one person can backorder a domain at Godaddy and the system simply doesn’t allow one domain to be backordered again.
As for the Name.com drop catching service, it WILL work for specific domains, but not likely the “gems”. People that play around with drops should know what can and can not be grabbed.
Name.com advertised on my site awhile back. I worked with Kellie and she was great!
I would like to hear some “insider” info and I would have a better idea if this will be a “good” service but I am not loving the pay to play! Verified CC should be good enough IMO, if they Approved people.
I’ll let Jamie find out what the best use of this new service will be.
In the meantime, dropcatching is too much fun to pay $59+ for. My batting average is about 0.333, ie, for every 30 I go for each day, I get about 10.
Here’s some I’ve gotten for $7 from yesterday and today:
mrosupplies.com
atlantatravelagency.com
computernetworkhelp.com
breakingball.com
supplierdevelopment.com
sharingphotosonline.com
refinancepennsylvania.com
bestcitiestolive.com
sexygymnasts.com
Don’t make $100 offers for these. They are not for sale. 🙂
Tony
Some Nice picks up.
@Michael – thanks much for posting this!
@Ed – Name.com has never, will never use customer searches to register domain names, nor will we share that information with anyone else. I have no idea why you would think that. We run multiple registrars and together have roughly one million names under management. Name.com alone has over 600,000 domains under management with roughly 70,000 clients worldwide.
@jp – At this time you can only backorder domains that are in the drop cycle. We may open this up for a wider window once we see how this goes. So, yes, once you place that order for a particular domain that money is tied up for up to five days. If you have some suggestions on the program and/or process I’m all ears – drop me an email (kellie@name.com).
It was my understanding that GoDaddy recently changed their model to auction everything they caught from the drop, but I could be wrong.
@Jamie – I think you’re spot on. If the big guys (Snap, Pool, NameJet) are gunning for a name we don’t stand much of a chance. But we’re a good option for things you just don’t want to pay $60+ on. We have, and are, considering a “verified buyer” program for this. We’ll have to see how it goes. If DomainNabber flies then it’ll make sense. We’re also considering giving folks the option of setting “refund to card” for failed Nabbings.
@ALL – Our batting average depends very much on what you order. I’ll be ultra honest here:
CCC.coms, LLLL.coms and such? Our batting average is in the tank.
Domains with high data analyzer/Yahoo info #s – we’re pretty decent.
Two and three word domains? Much better. I’ve done extensive testing and run up to 80% success rates.
FINAL NOTE: we are experiencing some glitches with automatic refunds. Should you use the service and not see a refund by 4pm (GMT-7) please advise support.
Hope that information helps.
I don’t trust name.com they did lots of crap in the past and keep doing so, they also sell via Snapnames.
(D-note From MHB, I cleaned up some of the language)
D – could you be specific? We do not “sell” via Snapnames. We have a relationship with Snapnames and our expired names go through their system.
D
Please keep it civil.
As I said I have never done business with Name.com but have no idea of what your objections are.
Moreover even if Name.com sells domains on snapnames.com, what does that have anything to do with anything?
Buydomains sells on snap and so do I, just to name a couple.
They just said they own hundreds of thousands of domains, why can’t they sell them?
^^Specific, OK. Besides huge amounts of tasting in the past (including tasting whois searches) you list lots of domains in Snapnames but they never go into auction and what is most desperate thing you do you do not change DNS to Snapnames auction winner, everyone has to go, login and change it in hand. You are the only registrar doing so, it is so low what you do for profit (some people forget change DNS for a long time) that you are in my chart of crappy companies in TOP10…
D – Thanks for sharing. I’d love to know who I’m addressing so please do consider speaking with me directly by dropping me an email at kellie@name.com
1. Name.com – the company – has not tasted. And I categorically deny Name.com has ever used customer searches for *any* such purpose. If you can provide any proof of this accusation I would like to see it. Additionally, we were one of the first registrars to inform our customers that no refunds would be provided for deleted names, etc. – long before any sort of fees or sanctions went into effect.
2. Many registrars have this happen. I spoke to one of our best clients just last week about his habit of letting domains expire only to renew them at the last minute. He’s far from the only one. We have another customer with more than 40k domains who does this same exact thing. Apparently it’s a common tactic for soliciting domain offers from people who watch expiring names and are hoping to snap them up themselves.
3. If this is a long standing issue it’s news to me. During the past month we’ve been in contact with Snapnames because names have not being inserted properly into accounts. We’ve spent a good deal of time and effort to identify the issue and it appears to be a Snapnames issue. We *believe* it’s been rectified. We regret that it was a series of customers who had to alert us to this issue. If what you are speaking of is a longer standing issue please do send me an email so I can investigate.
And D – you already state that domains you’ve won aren’t updated to your preference – which I believe is proof that domains so actually go to auction.
^SOME DOMAINS
Minority
The others I have theory that if you see only one person backordered you do not send it into auction.
“The others I have theory that if you see only one person backordered you do not send it into auction.”
What do you want.. .an auction with one bidder?
If Name.com (1) changed their backorder model so that customers were only charged upon the backordered domain being successfully capture — not upfront — and (2) they reduced their backorder prices significantly (to $10/domain or less), I might consider using them. Until then, I will stick with GoDaddy’s backorder system for middle-tier domains as it provides dramatically better bang for the buck. Not only can I backorder domains there for $8.99 apiece (Kelly – I’ll contact you privately if you’d like to know how to do this), but they harness ten times as many registrars to attempt to capture dropping domains as Name.com does, hence their chances of successful capture are at least 10-20% higher than Name.com’s for intelligently-selected backorders.
While GoDaddy does indeed kick off an auction if multiple folks backorder a domain, the majority of liquid enduser-type domains I’ve backordered on GoDaddy lately (examples: Gambling / Intervention / com, Document / Compliance / com, Designer / Mugs / com … tons more) have not gone to auction, and I’m sure most other drop-catching domainers would report the same.
The traffic/backlink stats are nice a idea, but this information can be obtained in bulk for free through several different sources.
I would be happy to work with you to help improve your service as I am well-connected with the drop-catching community.
Wishing you the best!
Josh
I should add – Name.com might help provide an additional chance to capture a domain by throwing another registrar at it. But….it still doesn’t seem logical to pay $8.99 upfront for 10 registrars and then an additional $18.99 for just 1 additional registrar.
“What do you want.. .an auction with one bidder?”
Are you that “smart” ? In Snapnames if only one person backorders it gets the person who backordered it. All registrars except name.com
Kellie
How many registrar tags are you using for this project, just Name.com or do you have others?
D – That is simply not true. In any given month the majority of names that flow from us through Snapnames sell to a single bidder. It’s a nine to one ratio of single to multi-bidder auctions. See my earlier comments regarding what some of our client portfolio owners do.
Josh – thanks for more info, and please feel free to email me any time. I wasn’t aware that Godaddy had a cheaper version of their backorder service. I’ll have to keep that in mind as we move forward with the product.
Michael – Today we have three tags.
@Josh
“While GoDaddy does indeed kick off an auction if multiple folks backorder a domain…”
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MHB and JZ already have stated correctly that Godaddy does NOT allow more than one backorder per domain.