I remeber my first days of drop catching used to be really FUN! What happened to those days? They seem lost in the chaos going on around us non-stop! As an insight to domainers, I declare we start the first ever public domain name casino! Not for fast cash, but winner takes a prize.

You may think – wait, did this guy just say: casino? NO, sorry I’m thinking more along the lines of PRIZES & It can become a ritual daily, weekly or monthly prize giveaway for domainers who participate in scheduled games for Prizes. The winner takes the prize. Perfect examples are: the winner of a hold ‘em tournament wins a LLL.com, 2nd place chip leader gets a poor LLL.com or a lesser grade domain, 3rd place basically gets a pat on the back for helping out eliminate the other hold ‘em players etc.. You get the picture.

In the past, I developed flash apps for lotto users & feel that instant gratification domainers need a pat on the back from our normal working habits. I miss the days when scouring the domain forums for the best deals was really FUN! I miss how I could pull the wool over a seller or buyer’s eyes. Well not really trick, but I mean consolidate nice deals in a friendly atmosphere.

I would tend to say that the auctions, drops & blogs are getting a bit overwhelming & it would be nice to simply mingle in a domain casino type lounge with your domaining buddies while playing a legit game of whatever.

In an effort, I have designed these mocks as illustration of what I had in mind:

Here’s a working lotto numbers generator that would work to dish out expiring domain name lists:

http://www.expron.com/lotto/

This can easily aggregate drop lists based on delimiters you can set within the game. If you’re into lotto numbers – give it a try & see what happens. The engine is ready and will help your odds.

Here’s a visual representation of what a domain name casino could look like:

I admit that the visual can be a bit aggressive, but I believe the instant gratification users may feel will make this or something similar the next domaining “idea”.

Have fun chasing drops!

First off, the meaning of drop catching, drop catcher is a term to label the art of catching an expired domain down to the millisecond. It really is milliseconds for the valuable drops. I’ll assume that you already know how to calculate when a domain will drop & become available for purchase at any registrar. If you need a source for lists, I recommend estibot or dnmeter.com.

This guide covers my methods & how I perceive the entire system works. It’s how I understand it & what it does for me. I may stand corrected on some topics, but overall this guide should get the point across.

This guide will not work for the best drops. When a domain like a LLL.COM drops, there will generally be hundreds of watchers / bidders via backorder auctions. Snapnames, Pool & Namejet are notorious for promoting good drops to gather more backorders. This guide will work for domains of medium to lesser quality. For example, many two word domains & other variants go under the radar as dropped & get picked up by drop catchers that have good scanning tools. I have flipped many of these for good money. I have also caught hundreds of LLLL.com & the like. Sometimes you just get lucky too. Math & stats play a role & after you do something and follow a routine for a while, you will get some percent of success.

Let’s get started – So you’ve found a good domain in the drop lists. Great! Now what?

You’ll probably be at stage 1. At this stage, you’re learning the drop times, learning how to weed out the good drops & etc. You may have a domain registrar that you enjoy purchasing domains from. Well here’s my notes on the registrars I consider my favorite:

GoDaddy doesn’t allow drop catching to my knowledge. Their bulk checkout has a captcha that makes it slow to checkout. Their intentions are for you to backorder a domain through their service.
Moniker – Has an API system & the manual checkout pages seem to catch some drops.
Dynadot - Has an API system & the manual checkout pages seem to catch some drops.
Onlinenic – Has an API system & the manual checkout pages DO NOT catch some drops for drop catchers. It’s too slow. The API is faster
Directi – As per their TOS, drop catching is not allowed
Name.com - Is working on an API & the checkout pages catch some drops.
ENOM – Is selfish & has recently blocked API access for drop catching .com & net during drop time.

That’s just to name a small handful registrars. I tend to use ALL of the above and more at the same time. You don’t have to. I have excessive funds at some registrars that haven’t caught anything for a while. It depends how serious you are & the resources you choose to utilize.

Stage 2

You’ll find some success trying to hand reg domains – but will get beaten because others are a wee bit faster than you. You’ll also find yourself spending a good amount of time researching & trying to drop catch, but maybe at the wrong time.

Stage 3

After burning myself out manually refreshing checkout pages at various registry’s using laptops & desktop computers, I decided to macro my drop catching. A macro is a script. Every computer has macros pre built into the operating system & products like microsoft office have help tutorials. You can see my tutorial on making drop catching software here.

You’ll find that automation will soon become your best friend. While you’re doing other things, you can have robot scripts doing the drop catching work for you.

Stage 4

You’ll notice that the way domains drop – they drop in a certain order. This is where you start to target your drop catching since you have an upper advantage. You learn that a single domain stands a better chance than 50 in a bulk checkout.

Stage 5

Since there’s a scanning solution in place, a drop order & catching automation – you’re basically at the furthest point you can get without becoming your own Registrar which costs over $20,000 USD per year & requires you to have serious cash $xxx,xxx+ in a “trust bank fund” in case something happens since you’re liable & a registrar.

To rephrase Phase 2 requires a lot of checkout page refreshes & whois checks – It will be common to have 2 browser windows or computers side by side because one will be trying to purchase domains while the other checks the whois status of your drops.

In a nutshell, that’s the stages I went through. I’d like to also address things I’ve found to be true out of personal experience.

1.) Domains that have the most backorders require backorder services to put more emphasis on that domain. That’s why LLL.com’s that drop always get picked up by the backorder services. They will literally exhaust all their server connections on one domain. If a good name drops & there’s 0 backorders, it will remain available for minutes. I have seen this.

2.) There is a registrar drop pool. From my understanding, this pool works in batches & it gives registrars a chance to make special calls to verisign. No API can touch this pool & usually the backorder services will compete for the premium drops. This pool supposedly runs seconds – 1 minute ahead of the drop list. I don’t really believe this is in place. During a comparison of a LLL.NET drop, I examined it to drop just like any other domain drop in order – as per dnmeter.com.

3.) Partner registrars will attempt to catch domains for the backorder systems. To my understanding, when the domain drops, it’s available to anyone – including you! Don’t let this term scare you. They usually bump heads & if you are after a domain, you can occasionally beat out the partner registrars.

4.) Dog eat dog – I have seen trickery going on. From whois changes to the registrar renew a valuable drop while in pending delete. You may notice a drop quickly change hands often. Pretty much anything goes.

5.) Yes, it is possible to beat godaddy, snapnames, pool & namejet at drop catching. The problem is that not enough of us do it to actually put them out of business.

A myth that is floating around:

Myth – You can never compete with snapnames, pool or namejet. They use thousands of connections. While this is true, the central registry can only accept x connections per registry & everyone still holds a chance. I believe they serialize the connections which then determines who got the domain.

Last time I checked, Snapnames employed between 400 – 600 registrars that they owned. That number is said to have grown to about 900

Advice – If you plan to drop catch, it would not be wise to backorder the domains you target. Unless if very valuable & you have the cash to spend, If you backorder domains, it will draw attention to your picks & you will add on more competition.

Advice – Stealth mode & common sense play a huge role in this game.

Advice – Instead of trying to catch 25 or 50 domains at once daily, learn the pending delete drop order. Go after only one domain at a time. After it drops, switch flow to the next drop.

Here’s a real customer reply I recieved from one of my drop catching titles:

Hi Dan,

I’m happy with the results. I beat oversee domain management today.

Peter

Common sense helps a lot too. I’ve seen drop catchers catch dirt & flip domains while others silently grab the pot of gold. It will take a good understanding of which domains are valuable. Then attempt to compare who grabbed the domains you wanted & learn on how they grabbed the names to make your system better.

Here’s a break down of drop times collection I have:

.com 1pm cst 1-2 hours drop window
.net 1pm cst 1-2 hours drop window
.us 1pm cst 10 – 20 mins drop window
.org 9am cst 30 mins drop window
.info 3am cst – haven’t verified in over 1 year
.in 2pm cst 1-2 min drop window
.co.in 2pm cst 1-2 min drop window
.ws 9:30am cst – haven’t verified in over 1 year
.mobi 9:30pm cst – drop lasts 2 mins

Good luck drop catching!

Domain Name: PGR.NET
Registrar: ONLINENIC, INC.
Whois Server: whois.onlinenic.com
Referral URL: http://www.OnlineNIC.com
Name Server: NS2.ONLINENIC.NET
Name Server: NS3.ONLINENIC.NET
Status: pendingDelete
Updated Date: 28-jan-2010
Creation Date: 19-nov-2001
Expiration Date: 19-nov-2009

According to DNMeter.com, the domain will drop around (+-5mins): 2:09 PM CST on Wednesday.

One of the things that caught my eye was how the tablet doesn’t have a keyboard. You simply use the screen as a touchpad. Very much similar to how the iphone works via a touchpad screen.

While competitiors are rushing to keep up, Apple’s ipad is truly innovative. Job’s panned the idea of merging the newton with a tablet PC. The iphone, ipod touch and the new ipad are all combinations of both ideas.

The Apple iPad tablet price will start around $499 USD. It depends if you purchase the ipad bundled with a wireless carrier. There’s also talk about offering premium TV channel / movie broadcasts for about $30 USD per month extra.

Similar products such as the kindle, smart phones, netbooks and other technologies on the horizon will need to act & think fast to keep up these news. Apple being an innovator has set a new pace for the tablet community.

Experts doubt that Apple will fail with this new ipad. Even if Apple does fail, it will open the road to introduce more products that will trailblaze what the ipad started.

I have been working on a new tool & monitoring the spikes of views on the drop lists. Sure enough – as far as I can tell, this domain will be dropping on Tuesday December 29 2009. It will be funny to see what happens.

Note, this is a typo of flickr.com – but people have issues spelling it.

Here’s a snapshot of the whois:

Registrant Details

Domain Name: FLIKR.NET
Registrar: ONLINENIC, INC.
Whois Server: whois.onlinenic.com
Referral URL: http://www.OnlineNIC.com
Name Server: NS1.PARKED.COM
Name Server: NS2.PARKED.COM
Status: pendingDelete
Updated Date: 23-dec-2009
Creation Date: 10-aug-2005
Expiration Date: 10-aug-2010

Interesting Details:

Words: flikr
Appraisal: $27,000
Search Results: 2,810,000
Search Ads: 0
PageRank: 0
Overture: 2339
Alexa Traffic Rank: 12,340,774
Alexa Trend: 10,974,303
Dmoz Listed: No
Avg. CPC: 4.22
Avg. Search Volume: 90,280

Another one that caught my eye was: GeoCitys.net:

Registrant Details

Domain Name: GEOCITYS.NET
Registrar: ONLINENIC, INC.
Whois Server: whois.onlinenic.com
Referral URL: http://www.OnlineNIC.com
Name Server: NS1.PARKED.COM
Name Server: NS2.PARKED.COM
Status: pendingDelete
Updated Date: 23-dec-2009
Creation Date: 20-jul-2004
Expiration Date: 20-jul-2010

I remember the old geocities.com, but not sure I would spell it like that. Maybe something else was in their train of thought since the names are aged.

Unfortunate however, the domains will lose their age upon drop on Tuesday at 1pm CST & it will be a mystery who picks them up if anyone, or if they are returned – until it happens.

wedlin.com
gazeboes.net
permissions.us

That’s all I was chasing for today & managed to grab 100%. Wedlin.com doesn’t look promising at all. My hope is to sell it to an end user. Perhaps someone with the surname Wedlin may become attracted to the domain or was waiting for it to drop. Maybe not.

Gazeboes are popular & the domain should at least double reg fee in a year minimum based on sponsored advertiers / ad spots – weather parked or developed. Permissions I picked solely based on the Estibot appraisal which was over $500.

I really thought about two other domains expiring: grades.net & rangers.net. However, last minute I pulled these out. Looks like at least one was backordered & secured. Both were instantly taken nonetheless.

berrettas.com
pewits.com
sarsens.com
gleets.com

Probably not the best selection, but for reg fee @ Dynadot.com, I’ll keep them & see what happens. The quality in the drops just seems to get better by the day

Have fun drop catching!

mixeurs.com
minuscula.com
vittoni.com
transferred.us

Nothing special & I’m not particular about: transferred.us as the US extension has been stinking in my opinion lately. Also Mixeurs.com, the chance of making it big would require a lot of non-usa traffic & the small traffic from the US, probably won’t help someone with a “mixer” of some sort.

Just sharing my list, I won’t get mad if you manage to hand reg some, but at least give me some credit. I always go into drop catching thinking I ain’t gonna get Jack. A lot of the time, I do catch stuff, store it & then a buyer comes along.

It’s a beautiful feeling to connect with the right end user & supply what their online business thrives – which is usually the right domain. For what they’re trying to do & you helped them out.

jacket.com
stubby.us

Stubby.us doesn’t concern me, but Jacket.com is nice. I am sure many have backordered this domain, but since the drop is public & anyone can grab it, I’m going to try. I’m sure I won’t grab it. But if I do, it would be awesome.

This is one of those “weird” domains that every drop catcher complains about. The whois is fuzzy & so is the origin of the domain. The current registrar is Tucows which will be releasing the name real soon. The major forums would tell you to backorder at NameJet, Snap & Pool.

However, note this.. Here is a copy of the whois:

Domain Name: JACKET.COM
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Whois Server: whois.tucows.com
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.opensrs.net
Name Server: DNS1.IN2NET.COM
Name Server: DNS2.IN2NET.COM
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Updated Date: 13-oct-2009
Creation Date: 31-jul-1997
Expiration Date: 30-jul-2011

Ok, so according to dnmeter.com, Jacket.com will drop around 1:51PM CST.

Tucows has a status of: clientTransferProhibited which should be pending delete.

I’ll make sure to keep an eye on it, but the domain will probably drop. It has to since Verisign has it on it’s drop list for tomorrow.

As many of you may know, DNMeter.com has proven to be a reliable source for the daily expiring domain’s drop order. So why not add that to my drop catching software? Knowing the time & order a domain will drop gives you a 99% chance over the other guys randomly guessing & abusing the whois servers & API’s or registries.

So I’m glad to announce within a couple weeks all previous versions of my drop catching software will be dnmeter.com enabled. Furthermore bulk processing will be a breeze for bigger accounts & tracking of who got what. For now it will be served as first come first served – all back orders treated separately giving you control over your own API’s on your own connection, single and multiple account management with a drop catching panel that’ll be SSL secure for anonymity & your security.

More on this to follow asap. I just wanted to pop my head out of so much work – say hello & make some cool tools for serious drop catchers to use with ease. More updates on the way!

Any advice feedback or otherwise on the subject is appreciated. Especially if you use my software already & would like something added on or that can be tweaked.