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Drop Catching Aftermath For Today.

I was drop chasing these pending delete domains today:

splattered.com
flammables.net
suffixes.net
conceptualist.net
compensation.us
foaming.us
fuels.us
buckets.us

As you can imagine, the best ones were taken by backorders. I did however catch 3 of the drops. Here’s what I grabbed:

flammables.net
suffixes.net
foaming.us

These will be warehoused & auctioned off at DNKO at a later date. I am not dissapointed with what I was able to catch. I admit there were others I liked, but I wanted to see what I could grab without being greedy about it.

Drop catching is a funny business. It’s about 1% in your drop lists & list order & 99% luck. You never know what you can or can’t land until you try.

What suprises me is that I made an upgrade to my Dynadot API drop catcher. It basically scooped up all the domains I caught into one account. I have high hopes for the upgrade I made & I will be investing in more Dynadot bulk accounts.

This is one of the first times I have succeeded at capturing dictionary word .net’s. I also noticed that the domain: conceptualist.net was also caught at Dynadot.com Perhaps with my own drop catcher script that I sell. This is encouraging news for me to increase the quality level of what I chase & what I can grab.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

My Drop Catching For Monday August 10th

Here’s the list of pending delete domain names that I will be going after today:

splattered.com
flammables.net
suffixes.net
conceptualist.net
compensation.us
foaming.us
fuels.us
buckets.us

Hope I can grab a few of these gems!

My Drop Catching Report For Today

These are the two domains I chased today:

fdmg.com
verdugocity.com

I know that the quad premium LLLL.com was a far fetched try, but why not! What do I have to lose? Afterall it was in pending delete. As I guessed, Pool beat me on the catch because I am certain various backorders were put in at all the backorder sites. Quad premiums continue to hold value & the sales aren’t too bad at the moment.

The other domain I went after was Verdgocity.com. I was beat out by BlueRazor on this name. Verdugocity is a real city in California. That’s why it caught my eye. I thought I could have stood a chance, but it was a no-go. Sure enough, I got beat out.

I haven’t been chasing anything else lately. Mostly because I have some domains warehoused that I would like to sell off first before overwhelming myself in purchases – without concentrating on sales.

Update to my drop catching wish list.

I went after these domains that were expiring:

gmv.us
qub.us
wrt.us

I didn’t catch a single one.  Snapnames got 2 & a godaddy backorder grabbed one. I hope tomorrow brings better luck!

My Drop Catching Wish List for Today

I am going to chase 3 domain names today. It’s pretty stupid for me to chase these as I know for a fact they have been backordered. The domains I will be going after are 3 Letter .US drops. I’ve made my list & will shortly be going after these domains:

gmv.us
qub.us
wrt.us

All 3 are in pending delete & will be dropping in around 35 minutes.

Wish me luck, but I really doubt that I will be able to catch any of these drops. If I do manage to even catch one, I will be a happy camper & it will make my weekend!

However, the sun is bound to shine on

Finding Active Domainers Outside Of The Forums

After launching a few of my sites, I am finding that there’s a lot of non – “nay sayer” forum domainers in the real world.

Not that I am calling every forum domainer a “nay sayer”, but we’ve all had our doses. I am just glad to report that yes, there are real people out there at all of levels (from big to small) that have never stepped foot into a domain “forum”.

The misconceptions range from: Digital Point is full of hackers & you WILL get scammed, NamePros controls how you view domaining and for DNF well, simply the forum is full of domainer’s who’s ego’s have blown out of their chests.

With services like twitter, facebook.. even MySpace – I am finding more of the teach & learn technique. I share with a genuine follower what I do every day & in return I sometimes learn something new. It’s like a kind of push & give or give & grab new insight.

I do enjoy the fact that forums do put you in touch with people, services & do fufil a need. You can find a ton of useful info. But Also, I find that domainers can become forum rats. Always quitting or vanishing from the forums & coming back.. or the regular lame posts.. over & over again.. c’mon.

I guess after venturing out into the real world, I am finding more & more genuine people like myself who are actually doing it. We’re not farting around & posting useless stuff on forums. We’re actually doing the work & getting paid. Or if not paid, we know we will soon. We’ve learned better & understand that a post thread bump will only gain 1-5 new visitors a day. While the hard work is getting us repeat visitors.

The people who do the work daily, by going out & mingling deserve my congratulations.  A real domainer will be spending quality time in for example finding another end user sale.. or eye balling the drop lists. If you are out on the forums, you are losing quality time.

For me, it is discipline that keeps me away from forums & movies, tv shows. etc. I have so many things to work on, that I wish I had the time to fart around at the major domaining forums. I am off to do the work & pave new ways for every domainer & while doing so am finding cool people who are also doing the same.

I have doubled my contacts from people who reach out to me & never even heard of namepros. They are now members.. and that helps the forums, but I guess every domainer & his mom has a NP acct :P

Moniker API Program And How To Get “In”.

Moniker.com has been one of the funkiest domain registars I have ever dealt with. First off, from day one – I faced like a 5-6 day response window for my support tickets. Back in those days, Monte used to hangout at the forums & an instant PM got him on the horn or got my account manager right on my needs.

After following some feedback & threads, after the domain acquisition of OverSee.net taking over Moniker, it’s been a real down hill battle. Their support is worse & god forbid you happen to ask about their “secret” API program.

They will begin by saying.. “sure, no problem”. Followed by please wait.. Then about 1-2 months later, you can expect the regular response.. No sorry, the API is not available at this time – sorry.

You would think a company WANTS to make money and register bulk domains. But nope, not in this case. You’re out of luck & just wasted a ton of time.

I’ve boiled it down to these requirements to get into their API program:

  1. You already have quality domains at Moniker.
  2. You bring in the Volume in purchases before asking for API accesss.
  3. You know someone who works there or have an old contact you can email.

Other than that, forget about even asking for moniker’s API to add your IP to the whitelist. I know that JerseyGirl does a great job & extinguishes the flames across the forums, but that is one registry that needs to get it together. It’s not that hard to do & your payback would ten fold if you listen to your customers for better support & API access to the average Domainer that promises to hit the API @ 1 domain per second (as outlined in the rules).

The ENOM Reseller API Is Blocking Drop Catching Activity

Since I developed some effective drop catching software for the ENOM Reseller (API) Program, it has come to my attention that ENOM is now rejecting API calls to their reseller API during the drop window. If that isn’t odd enough, they actually enforce the API ban for about 4 hours total (1pm – 5PM CST).

It seems to me like they are checking the whois of each domain that is processed via their API. During the ban, their API works fine for any domain that is not in “pending delete” status – But flat out fails to grab any dropping domain. This “change” has come about over the past few days – 1 week’s time.

Perhaps this is a temporary bug? Or permanent? I am not sure, but all I know is that ENOM which was once the drop catcher’s #1 API reseller program – has cut the cord on drop catching activity. I guess drop catchers will need to find other sources and API’s to use for their daily drop catching.

This will really hurt enom. This issue was reported to me by drop catchers that catch between 30-50 domains a day. So it will greatly impact the market from sharks to the sardines.

I have yet to test & find out if this API issue also applies to the CCTld drops. I believe it has only impaired the .com & .net drop catching connections.

More to follow as I get some answers from ENOM.

Make A Name Spinner Easy In PHP – Free Code

Are you a domaining webmaster?  How about adding a new feature to your site? I am posting free code to make a versatile name spinner. I built this simple to use name spinner for you to basically copy & paste the code into 2 new PHP files.

We”ll Let’s get started! Here’s a screenshot of the demo name spinner:

spinner

So as you can see, you have some fields & these fields are magically mixed up together to make lists of domains. While the domains may or not be registered is a different story. You will need to gauge your searches with what is available out there. Enough of the small talk – let’s build that name spinner ASAP.

Let’s start off with baby steps. First off, log into your favorite FTP program, CPanel.. whatever you feel is easiest. Or basically create 2 new files. It would be best if you add these to a path similar to: http://www.expron.com/namespinner/ – like the working link above.

Of course, replace “expron” with your hosted domain you are creating this “script” in.

Place in the folder 2 new files named:

  1. index.html
  2. parseform.php

Your host has to allow PHP “scripts” to run on the server. This code is basic & should not be a problem.

Ok, so by now you should have a directory & 2 empty files. The directory or folder is not required but it helps for seo & memory purposes. If you make: mydomain.com/namespinner/ It is better than tossing 2 files at the root of your domain.

Down to business.. Simply copy this code into each file.

Index.html

<title>Custom Domain List Generator – Generate Lists Of Available Domains!</title><body><form method=”POST” action=”parseform.php”>
<table width=”666″ border=”0″ align=”center” cellpadding=”2″ cellspacing=”0″>
<tr>
<td width=”15″>&nbsp;</td>
<td colspan=”2″><div align=”center”><span>Domain List Creator </span></div></td>
<td width=”18″>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td width=”318″>&nbsp;</td>
<td width=”315″>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td><span>Enter Your Keywords Here </span></td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td><span>Example: Car, Cars, Automobile </span></td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td><input name=”keyword1″ type=”text” id=”keyword1″>
<span>Keyword 1 </span></td>
<td><input name=”keyword2″ type=”text” id=”keyword2″>
<span>Keyword 2 </span></td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td><input name=”keyword3″ type=”text” id=”keyword3″>
<span>Keyword 3 </span></td>
<td><input name=”keyword4″ type=”text” id=”keyword4″>
<span>Keyword 4 </span></td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;      </td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td><span>Enter Your Variations Here </span></td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td><span>Example: Red, Blue, Yellow, Green</span></td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td><input name=”variation1″ type=”text” id=”variation1″>
Variable 1 </td>
<td><input name=”variation2″ type=”text” id=”variation2″>
<span>Variable 2 </span> </td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>      <input name=”variation3″ type=”text” id=”variation3″>
<span>Variable 3 </span></td>
<td>      <input name=”variation4″ type=”text” id=”variation4″>
<span>Variable 4 </span></td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td><input name=”variation5″ type=”text” id=”variation5″>
<span>Variable 5 </span></td>
<td><input name=”variation6″ type=”text” id=”variation6″>
<span>Variable 6 </span></td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>Domain Extension </td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td><input name=”tld” type=”text” id=”tld” value=”.com” size=”5″></td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td><input type=”submit” name=”Submit” value=”Submit”></td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
</body>

Insert this this into: parseform.php

<?php
$keyword1 = $_REQUEST["keyword1"];
$keyword2 = $_REQUEST["keyword2"];
$keyword3 = $_REQUEST["keyword3"];
$keyword4 = $_REQUEST["keyword4"];
$variation1 = $_REQUEST["variation1"];
$variation2 = $_REQUEST["variation2"];
$variation3 = $_REQUEST["variation3"];
$variation4 = $_REQUEST["variation4"];
$variation5 = $_REQUEST["variation5"];
$variation6 = $_REQUEST["variation6"];
$tld = $_REQUEST["tld"];

$keywords = array($variation1,$variation2, $variation3, $variation4, $variation5, $variation6);
$variations = array($keyword1,$keyword2, $keyword3, $keyword4);

$output .= ‘<pre>’;
foreach ($keywords as $a)
foreach ($variations as $b)
$output .= $a . $b . $tld . “\n”;
echo $output . ‘</pre>’;

?>

And save the files. It’s as simple as that. Now you have a name spinner that you can customize for your website visitors to enjoy. Not to mention yourself as well.

Dreamweaver adds a bunch of: &nbsp; tags which basically hold a small white space in the design.

Feel free to modify the code as you wish!

Using Antique Drop Data To Find Gems & Follow Domaining Trends

As I have written before – I started up the domain: AntiqueDrops.com. Mostly it was a project that started off as a way to find antique expired domains. Especially expired domains with traffic and valid google pagerank. Well the project has really taken me by surprise. I am convinced that by simply creating an organized and searchable index of antique drop data – I can register valuable domains.

The secret lies a few main things. One being that all the info packed into the database consists of drop data that someone once regged & it dropped. Second being that the older the data is, the quality of the drops gets better. Older dropped domains just make a lot of sense. If you compare today’s junky drop lists with those of years ago you will see what I mean. The aged drop lists now are full of available domains that were just forgotten about.

Years ago, domains would simply just “drop”. There was no DRT software or domainers checking stats on the drops. There’s old drops that still get traffic! There’s also many that sound great and still hold value.

I am noticing domaining trends in registering domains and the drops. Mostly just popular phrases back on 2003 & with history and events. These trends relate to domaining because as of around late 2006, there was a surge to purchase domains that started with the letters: “DN”. Before ‘06 there was not a lot of domains which began with “DN” – Example: DNStuff, DNSales similar examples. This trend to this day has been a domainer’s favorite. Other trends include spikes in bingo & lotto related sites (as laws changed I imagine), news, events and celebrity figures in the news. To wrap up my trends topic, the biggest trend has been post 2002. Pre 2002 has quality drop lists & data. After 2002, there has been a huge spike consistently growing of garbage  registrations and drops.

Here’s some sample data I have collected. I have not been drop catching the live pending delete domains lately because I am acquiring domain names via historical drop data. Here’s an example:

For this example, I am searching only up to 4 years ago. I am also searching aggressivly. I am only interested in .com domains which must contain words, no numbers or hyphens. The search pattern I am using is the domain must start with – keyword: “Domain”.

The results are as follows. These names caught my eye & are available for hand reg:

Sorted By: Domain Name, Drop Date, Status & Days since each domain has been available.

DomainAffiliation.com      11-Oct-2008      Available      299 days
DomainBackLink.com      13-Oct-2008      Available      297 days
DomainBarracuda.com      16-Feb-2007      Available      902 days
DomainBuds.com         07-Jan-2009         Available     211 days
DomainClustering.com     03-Jan-2006      Available     1311 days
DomainClutch.com     14-Jul-2006      Available     1119 days
DomainCriminals.com      21-Jul-2006      Available      1112 days
DomainerChoice.com     24-Jan-2009      Available     194 days
DomainerGlossary.com     06-Jan-2009      Available     212 days
DomainingSmarts.com      10-Oct-2008      Available      300 days
DomainMonolopy.com      02-Jul-2007      Available      766 days

So there you go. Imagine mixing around various keywords like Forex, Mortgage & Money.. So on.. the keyword combinations are endless to find great available domains. The best thing is that someone already did all the work for you ;) – Someone at one point has owned the domains at AntiqueDrops & dropped them.

Have fun with your domain acquisitions.