Comments on: How to Snatch an Expiring Domain

By: James M.

James M. — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:36:23 +0000

I certainly hope there’s an update to this as 2005 is certainly long long ago. The post is very enlightening especially since it gave specific numbers ,e.g. 75 days. How would we mere mortals know about these details?

My particular interest is in acquiring some 3-letter domains. Is it still possible in this day and age? the shortest I’ve gotten so far is a 4-letter .net domain.

By: JZ

JZ — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:10:53 +0000

Great article, but you forgot to mention one of the main players in domain “drop catching”, NameJet. I have purchased many names from NameJet, and from Snap Names, but stoped buying from Snap Names after one of their executives (Halvarez)was found to be bidding on names to get the sales price higher, I actually won a bid against him

By: Albert

Albert — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:59:46 +0000

Hey Mike,

Like so many others I also researched how to grab a domain and I came across your story. Very well written and very informative. I finally decided on a first step that is so obvious that I’m surprised it isn’t everyone’s first step. I checked the whois database and e-mailed the administrative contact. Got a reply very soon and we settled the whole matter within days for a very reasonable price. No stress, no waiting. And the transfer to – in my case – GoDaddy was pretty smooth. One glitch occurred but the GoDaddy reps were very knowledgeable and able to make the whole experience a good one.
You did grab yourself a great domain name though… Congrats!

Cheers,
Albert.

By: Micahel Sosnowski

Micahel Sosnowski — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:44:21 +0000

I also just saw this article – years later!! I’m glad I’m not the only one to read and comment so many years later. My question – has GoDaddy cleaned up their act at all since this was written. I have several domains with them and this caused me to be a bit concerned.

By: Rob | Atlanta Homes

Rob | Atlanta Homes — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 01:18:24 +0000

I bought one from Snapnames in a very similar fashion.

It was lame and exciting at the same time and for $200 I got:

http://www.atlantarealestateinfo.com/

I managed to get this one just off a expiration for the $10!!

http://www.ATL4U.com

By: Blaine Ehrhart

Blaine Ehrhart — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:45:36 +0000

I was pretty curious when domains expired since I know they don’t expire on the day they say.. but I never thought it was 75 days…

By: F Zaheer

F Zaheer — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:24:09 +0000

This is a very interesting article on both the domain expiry process as well as back-ordering.
It looks like all the big guys of domain trade resort all kind of tactics.

In my country India, domain resellers generally register customer’s domain in their own name so that they can force the customer to buy hosting & other services alongwith domain renewals. Many times these smalltime resellers shut shop and the customer cant renew the domain and sometimes loses it. I have been raising this issue on various platforms but unfortunately unable to get any success apart from verisign rep in India assuring that this is a important issue and customers need to be educated about it.

By: Nixon

Nixon — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:56:55 +0000

Another vote of thanks for this fascinating article. Like others who have commented, I would also be very interested to know how the “game” has changed in the intervening years, for better or worse.

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:47:57 +0000

Fascinating article. So fascinating people like myself are still commenting. Now that it’s years later, I was wondering if anyone knew how the process might have changed now that it’s 2010.

Would be nice if things were more in the open. Sounds like walking in a dark cave and hoping you’ll come out on the other side of light.

By: Matt Byrne

Matt Byrne — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:43:15 +0000

Excellent article – thanks!

By: Steve Katyal

Steve Katyal — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:45:08 +0000

Thank You Thank You Thank You.
I am whetting my feet in this domain catching process. Couple of years back the only net i used was godaddy, it’s has lots of holes in it. Godaddy, is a waste and made me loose on the domains i really wanted. Now i got many others nets to catch those trophies. Today, I did a test and succeeded, although, it was not a hot domain. Great Help. Great Post.

By: Steerpike

Steerpike — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:34:06 +0000

Great story and very educational!

I am only glad you got your domain after so much effort.

Just a quick question. If the domain name I am after is registered to Enom.com, should I then engage in a Backorder with themselves?

It seems odd I’ll have to bid to compete with Enom. Their website took me to a backorder provider called NameJet. I supposed they are related somehow?

Any advise would be fab. Look forward to hearing from you.

By: Deborah Owen

Deborah Owen — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 04:13:09 +0000

Hi Mike. Thank you so much for this article. I see it was written in 2005 and I’m wondering how up-to-date it is. My writing site is non-profit and we scholarship cancer patients in writing therapy. Would you be willing to network with me and allow me to pick your brain? Thanks very much. Deborah

By: WanderEyes

WanderEyes — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:19:09 +0000

Thanks so much for this article, it’s very informative.

Can anyone who’s used these services give some insight as to what type of personal information is required upfront to use these the? Do you have to give your credit card info upfront, or name or address, etc. I’m always hesitant to give info to a company with whom I’m not certain I will be transacting business.

By: Jesse James

Jesse James — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:13:35 +0000

I was just looking at buying a domain that just expired so going through and learning from your experience is great.

Thank you for experiencing the pain so we could have the gain of the knowledge.