It seems more and more domain owners are rebelling against the GoDaddy monopoly. Huge Domains also appears to be in the crosshairs of more angry domainers.
Over the last week three threads on Namepros have popped up that deal with different levels of disdain, and in one thread it has been suggested to give your names away to another Namepros domainer, rather than let GoDaddy and Huge Domains reap the benefits.
Namepros member 411Domains started a thread, Circumventing Godaddy Expiry Auctions
While the topic is not brand new it seems to be getting more coverage and upsetting more domain investors.
Someone has discovered a way to circumvent the regular expired auction process.
They appear to be using an API that places backorders within seconds of auction close. Thus eliminating all competition, auction extensions and closeout conversion times for the cost of a backorder. (In their case, thousands of backorders.)
Although the auctions are already closed, these after the fact backorders are being counted as bids.
In my opinion, any bid that comes in after the auction closes should be automatically canceled and refunded.
What are your thoughts?
BTW, this has been a known issue for awhile.
411Domains added context a little later in the thread:
It’s not about a bot snagging domains on the closeout, but rather the window of opportunity that one has, in the moments after an expired auction ends and the conversion to closeout begins, to immediately stake claim to the domain by slapping a backorder on it. No live bids…no purchase via closeout…no competition…no questions asked.
It doesn’t matter which registrar it’s coming from either, because they’re still counting the backorder as a regular auction bid.
Namepros member Stub replied:
If this is being done. I’d put my money on DropCatch/HugeDomains is doing this. I only have my intuition to go by. Plus as @Ategy said, some of the non-GoDaddy registrars may not be allowing their domains to go to closeouts. Which would look like somebody is gobbling them up. The same as
@CrocodileDundee hypothesis that some domains might take longer to arrive in closeouts, would have the same effect. And a very few might be gobbled up in the few seconds before you check the closeout manually.
Namepros member Arca posted:
I talked to GoDaddy about this and they confirmed that a backorder placed after the auction will NOT get you the domain before it reaches closeouts.
Namepros member MapleDots posted:
Yup, way too much power for one organization
Hey they also bought afternic that technically makes them two organizations and since they are in bed with huge domains we will count that as three.
Registrar, Marketplace, Afternic etc.
And as domainers we are still letting our godaddy domains expire for them to make money on.
REMEMBER IF YOU’RE GOING TO LET A DOMAIN EXPIRE THAT SITS AT GODADDY PLEASE GIVE IT AWAY TO A FELLOW DOMAINER SO IT DOES NOT END UP ON THEGODADDY EXPIRING AUCTIONS.
Let a fellow domainer make a sale attempt and we might be able to tame the godaddy machine.
Joe Styler gave a very long reply:
Good questions. There are multiple things happening here which have been stated in the thread already. There are times where domains are renewed by 3rd party registrars and pulled from the auction and do not make it to closeouts. There is also currently time where placing a backorder on a domain if timed right can grab that name before it hits closeouts. This is always how it has worked and it is by design and pretty well known by people who use the auction a lot as some have pointed out in the thread already. It is something we have always been very forthright on and something I have answered in PMs on here countless times. It is used by people who are savvy API and non API customers do it. HOWEVER this is changing within the next 7 days. So I will give you the run down of how it works today and how it will work.
The beginning of auctions to today work like this:
Expired auction day 26-36 of expiration.
Closeouts (BIN) are day 37-41.
Backorders can be placed any time before during or after the auctions.
Placed before or during the Expired auction they show up with a $10 opening bid. Multiple Backorders placed = first person to place it gets the $10 high bid.
Backorders placed during the Closeout BIN auction do nothing during the auction.
There are currently (and again this is changing) 4 times where we check for active backorders on the domain that is at auction.
1. Before the auction – we check to see if there are any and if so we place an opening bid for the first person to place the Backorder. All backorder holders on the domain are alerted that the domain is at auction. Only the 1rst Backorder (BO from now on) gets the bid.
2. BO placed during the expired auction. Auctions checks and applies BO in pretty close to real time for a $10 bid if there are no bids currently. If there are bids BO is still applied but you are not winning and you wont see that show up publicly.
3. BO is checked for after the expired auction ends and before the domain goes to Closeout Auctions. This was by design as a way to make certain if someone had a BO on the domain with no other bids they get the domain and someone else does not buy it from them.
4. Closeout auction ends – BO is checked after the closeout BIN auction is completed on day 41 of expiration. The BO is not checked for during any days of the closeout auction.People who use our auction regularly know this and can try to place a backorder on a domain with seconds or so left on the expired auction hoping that the databases and calls etc do not act fast enough to place a bid and extend the auction for five minutes but do act fast enough to have that backorder showing as active when we check for any active BO before moving to closeout. So if you time it just right you can get a backorder in that the system awards the domain name to before moving to closeouts. But you’re not the only person doing this so it comes down to a race too early and you tip your hand the system sees it and extends the auction with a bid, too late and you are not the first person to place that backorder or you miss the window and the domain hits closeouts.
The system was designed like this not to give people a way to do this, this is a unintended consequence of a feature we have always had which is intended to be sure that anyone who wanted the domain and paid for a backorder on it got it. As we discovered more users taking advantage of this lately, even though we have always been very public about how the system worked when asked we felt that it was creating a harder time for people who do not use the auctions so much that they understand all the ins and outs as well as others who do.
So we decided to make a change. The system will no longer check for BO on step 3 above. This change is happening soon, within the next week. I was planning on announcing it in here then publicly because as I said a lot of people know how it works now and use it that way and it would be good for them to know the change. But since I was asked about it that’s the answer. Very soon we will no longer check for a BO before moving the domain from expired auction to closeout auction.
Do keep in mind though that as soon as it hits closeout anyone who is fast can buy it. Whoever clicks buy first will have the ability to check it out and it will disappear from anyone else seeing it. So yeah a bot can still grab it fast and that is also likely part of what is happening today and that will be unlikely to change in the future. Fastest buyer on BIN wins.
MapleDots started a thread which relates to his comment about giving away domains.
The thread is here
MapleDots also made a post in a thread that got the ire of GoDaddy’s own Joe Styler. This debate which I participated in, dealt with MapleDots posting that if he saw a domain listed at GoDaddy for $20,000 he might email the seller hoping to save 20% with 0 commission to the seller.
Joe Styler replied: Actually our terms of service say you cannot do that and if we find out we normally ban you for life so I wouldn’t recommend people try that.
That thread gets interesting from there.
So is the concentration of power getting out of hand? Will all expired domains belong to GoDaddy and Huge Domains?
If you bid on domains at GoDaddy these threads are worth reading in their entirety. As Joe Styler’s comment above points out, not everything is a conspiracy but some things do get complicated.
Many feel that closeouts are next to impossible to attain manually.
Give your thoughts.
the backorder window after regular auction has popped up as far back as 2006, i could never figure out how to do it, but i agree its been there. Just had to tip my cap to whoever was doing it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dBE8nvWUi8
page
All this talk about closeouts? really… I see the idiots battling over you closed my loophole you are a loser. Oh the only chance we had against the bots.
Guess what if no one wanted the name for $12? Most likely it sucks ass. Go work at Walmart!!!
A bot was using the backorder loophole to win thousands of domains each day at GoDaddy.
Regular users have stand no chance with their puny manual backorder when they’re up against a bot that is executing perfectly timed backorders on every decent name that ends with no bids.
The namepros nancies are upset their glitch got closed. BooFingHoo
I’m all about giving domains away to the community before letting any corporation grab them. How about a forum or website for five dollar domains, that way we can still make five bucks which would give incentive to for people to post their names and make the otherwise free transfer worth our time. (A better option than letting it go)
I would sell lots of my domains 2-3 months before expiration for five dollars….mostly stupid purchases or ideas for sites that never got made. FiveDollarDomains? Who wants to help me build it?
NamePros has an awesome bargain bin that can help with liquidating like that: https://www.namepros.com/forums/bargain-bin.168/ 😉
That’s what I was thinking, perfect place for such names
GoDaddy is moving towards a monopoly-like position in the industry that works to the disadvantage of consumers and regular users, basically anyone who isn’t a deep pocketed corporate API bot master. Their ever growing pool of pre-release registrar partners means that an ever increasing pool of names never become available for re-registration again.
Of course GoDaddy will say that you can go to their auctions and buy the name there instead. But their auctions are an extremely uneven playing field, where bots have an extreme advantage over humans. Moreover, their API facilitates corporate bidders to bid on everything anyone else is bidding on, thereby imposing a “bot tax” and effectively raising the floor cost of buying these domains.
Between glitches being exploited by bots, such as the backorder glitch or the see-how-many-people-is-watching-this-domain glitch or the see-others-max-proxy-bid glitch, and annoying bidding strategies employed by bots, such as dragging auctions out for 2 hours or placing an $XXX bid on anything that gets bid on (why does the API even provide these bots with info about what I’m bidding on!?), GoDaddy auctions is an increasingly difficult platform to succeed on for anyone who is not a deep pocketed company. And some users feel that grabbing a domain as a closeout is now the only viable way to buy a domain, but bots are sniping those too. Bots play by a different set of rules, and have a different set of resources/tools available to them, courtesy of GoDaddy, so there is no way GoDaddy can claim that humans who use their platform manually have an equal chance to succeed. GoDaddy may claim that bots follow the same rules, but when the rules affect bots and humans differently, then they are not actually the same!
GoDaddy growing so large is a negative trend towards centralization in the domain industry, and it is clear that they intend to abuse their growing monopoly power. They are effectively becoming a funnel that largely ensures that most desirable domains get moved into HugeDomains’ 4 million+ portfolio and other large corporate portfolios. GoDaddy is currently revamping their auctions in order to optimize the system to further maximize profit on the domains passing through.
And speaking of HugeDomains, TurnCommerce/HugeDomains/DropCatch have had the same centralizing effect on the drop. By effectively scooping up most domains with value, and then placing them in public auctions, they facilitate the purchase of most of these domains by a relatively small group of buyers that did not even order the domain (no original intent/desire to purchase the domain), and simply buys it because you wanted it. This has, again, effectively raised the floor price of buying a domain. No decent domains ever become available for registration again for $8-9. And if you pay $59 for a backorder, you still have no chance. Because at DropCatch, the price WILL go well into $XXX-XXXX, no matter how bad the domain is. And if you don’t place a backorder, DropCatch will buy the domain for their HugeDomains portfolio. So there is effectively no way to buy domains that become available again for reg-fee. And most shockingly, when domainers spend money at DropCatch, TurnCommerce take those funds and compete directly against their DropCatch customers at GoDaddy. How can a company succeed while simultaneously selling services to to and competing with their own customers!? Just shows you how bizarre this industry has become.
As for GoDaddy, not only do they have the largest registrar and largest expired auction pool in the industry, they also own the largest marketplace. However, as you likely have noticed, the Afternic marketplace website is completely garbage. Never updated. Never fixed. Afternic reps are open about the fact that they don’t intend to fix things. And surprise surprise, they are now launching an “afternic within godaddy” system, where you can list and manage all your Afternic listings from within your GoDaddy account! Would be a great idea had it not been for the fact that GoDaddy’s website is very user unfriendly, clunky, and slow, and most serious domain investors don’t use nor trust GoDaddy to hold their main portfolio. A far greater number of people would benefit if they updated the actually Afternic website that all their users use. But their goal is to solidify their monopolistic position, so GoDaddy centralization trumps benefiting their clients.
GoDaddy is having an extremely negative impact on the domain space, and based on the moves GoDaddy have been making, this looks like it’s going to greatly exacerbate in the years to come. GoDaddy does not spend their profit on benefiting users. They spend their profit on ways to make more profit. So they will spend that money on further centralizing availability of domains by acquiring more pre-release partners, and making the pre-release of domains more competitive by doing everything they can to not let there be a level playing field, such as by going to great lengths to give bot bidders unfair advantages over human bidders.
“GoDaddy does not spend their profit on benefiting users. They spend their profit on ways to make more profit.”
” GoDaddy is currently revamping their auctions in order to optimize the system to further maximize profit on the domains passing through.”
i guess i expect most companies will do this…..right?
a couple of press releases to social causes and millennial pandering may fool some, but i dont think the core beleif is any different at amazon, apple, facebook. – yes they are the new robber barons – just robber barons the left loves.
Companies like NameSilo have, so far, spent their profit seemingly mostly on improving their systems based on what their users want. They could have adopted more unscrupulous practices to profit more, but they keep their core users interest in mind as they develop their business. For example there have been calls for NameSilo to change their pre-release system, as it’s too favorable for registrants who end up renewing most of the time when domains get bids, but NameSilo have stated that they don’t want to do so, even though they would earn more money that way, because they want to protect the interests of the original registrants as much as possible. I think that’s a great attitude on their part, as it shows you how they actually look out for their registrants! Such mentality is unheard of over at GD. And in contrast, GoDaddy just shortened the period the original registrant has to renew a name, in order to profit more from their expired auctions. This is an example of what I was trying to convey. One company looks out for registrants even though it means not maximizing profits (with the hopes that they will profit more ultimately by providing real quality service), and spending those profits on improving their platform for users, while the other will spend their profits on finding ways to make more profit, at the expense of a level playing field, user experience, and the interest of the regular user.
So I just find that GoDaddy almost never make changes based on “popular demand” or “best interest of users”. They continue to make their platforms worse for regular users, in order to profit more. Just look at their auction system, where their API is set up to allow for their corporate partners to bid on everything every human bidder is bidding on/putting on their watchlist. Conduct a survey and I’m sure that nearly 100% of their non-API access users are against API users getting this info and being able to bid in this way, as it prevents a level playing field, but you’ll never see GD make any changes to benefit these bidders. The bots have deeper pockets and that’s all that matters. They will not care about the interests of any of their users if disregarding them in one way or another means they can profit more. Right now, they find that servicing the API bots of the corporate bidders to be more profitable for them, so every move/update they have been making seems to be against the interests of regular users, in favor of pandering to the bots.
This has nothing to do with “social causes and millennial pandering”…
And the really funny part is if I tried to sell those $12 domains on a forum for $1 no one would buy them :p
About 10 months ago identifying bots became a much more precise science than ever before. There is no excuse for for GD to lack that sort of edge in their ITs, giving their size, imho.
Godaddy is getting there. When you start changing industry practices (whois information) to fit your own beliefs it starts to become an issue. Same with Google and Facebook.
I don’t dislike HugeDomains but they register a lot of domains I let drop. But its not only them its Uniregistry, BuyDomains and independant domain investors. They are playing by the rules so cant really complain.
Names I let drop:
Rutimes.com
Sharred.com
MathSolved.com
HistoryVideos.com
OakHigh.com
Mottler.com
ADrunk.com
Cuzes.com
BaltimoreDelivery.com
DomainNameHolding.com
Street.st
E-vents.com
Dudest.com
Approves.org
Yo8.org
It’s my opinion that HD does not play by the rules. Been following this for awhile. They must have some “inside” knowledge on how to game the backorders. They place backorder anywhere from 4 1/2 minutes to a few seconds before the auction expires and automatically get the domain. The thing is is that their bid never shows. I spoke with my GD premier rep at least a dozen times about domains I put backorders on with few seconds to go and HD always beats me. I put backorders on with 3-4 minutes to go and they show. In another thread, everyone told me GD backorders are like NJ or DC, but they are not! At least with the latter you have a chance in a separate auction. WIth GD, you don’t have a chance if HD wants it. My knowledge of programming is limited but I know they know something and are using it to win thousands of domains uncontested. My only venue to to openly bid against them which takes time and money. I’ll bet they are getting most of their domains this way, buying hundreds of backorders monthly. I’ve complained to GD to make it a fair contest only to hear over and over that they are discussing it internally. BS!
The problem is Godaddy is full of robots that aren’t making each bid pay 5-10x to much. If this is a true auction platform I believe some state laws needn’t fo be addressed in regards to the automation of huge names bidding patterns.
There is a reason why Godaddy has failed to implement a username, or bidder I’d system, as domainers are very good at figuring out non random patterns. You will find much of the same when it comes to bidding.
Godaddy even makes its own rules when accessing WHOIS on port 43. And ICANN even backs up this out of RAA rules and consensus policies.
Let’s face it. This industry is getting rotten each year. And Registrars are one of the major cancers in it.
I have been alerting and fighting this for more than a decade. But is a lonely job. Everyone is interested in making their money with the left overs or stacking up with them because of their businesses depends a lot of these “friendly connections”.
Registrars should never be allowed to take domains from their owners, much less catching them for their own portfolios! Domains should follow their cycle, the one that was created since the Internet’s early ages.
If you want a domain, go reach the owner. That’s the way to do business. If the domain is lost because the owner is unreachable then it should drop. There will be companies that will provide backorder services to the public.
Sure, the big and established guys, with more deep pockets, will take most of them. But in a capitalist based system, there is a good thing that happens every so often that is a crisis or economic contraction. HugeDomains/Reberry Brothers are at the top of their game, sure, they are the kings of the street, but what do you all think when things turn south, as they always turn at some point? 4 million domains, churning money each year, with prices falling and buyers vanishing?
Same to GoDaddy. Taking a good advantage of an unprecedented bull market full of dumb money and lack of moral hazard, they have since move to the aftermarket business, which is where the biggest profits resides, not registering domains to their clients – that was the initially purpose of a Registrar, and it still is in all ICANN reference policies – buying whole portfolios from domain investors and becoming a big fat cat.
the toll on all of them, after the lack of action from all of us as a community, and failure of ICANN as the regulatory party, will come by THE market: the economy.
only then things will change. until then, just smile and wave boys… smile and wave.
If things have gotten this bad, then why is no one else allowed to have access to this GoDaddy API anymore except those who already have it, or is that still the case?
MY POINT EXACTLY. As far as I know that API was barely available, and I couldn’t get access even when it was. Bigger players here…..be wary
A Behemoth Bully in a free market….. the american dream!
Berkens and Ham are laughing……