I was recently hacked (about 48 hrs ago) – I cannot begin to explain how important backups & server redundancy can help! It seems like someone had it out for me & they decided to hack some of main sites. These included (but not limited to) This blog, DNKO.com & TasteDrop.com. I guess I have been flapping my gums too much, giving away domaining drop catch secrets and just been a negative domainer.

I admit to be the one to swim up the stream against the water & current. But tough work pays off & I must say that I was blessed to have a full redundant backup plan – in place.. just if.. worse case scenario just incase I was ever hacked.

I am a sucker, as I should have noticed thousands of requests trying to login to some of my paid & serious sites. That should have been a flag as my hosting account was brute forced in.

The logs clearly demonstrate the depth & dedication this hacker had. Lol, eventually he or she gained access to a database connection file. This file has since been deleted & may have been compromised via email messages. Long story short, The breech happened around 10AM CST Time. By 1PM I had restored the nightly backup (from the night before). Some of my databases are hefty & around 20 – 50GB in size. Hence the 3 hours to restore my sites back.

Luckily, the hacker only deleted all my databases (even wordpress) with a combinaton of SQL Execute strings.

I restored everything and removed the files in doubt – changing all passwords. So far, so good.. But next time it happens – I will be more prepared. It’s nice to prepare yourself for such “hits” as there’s no telling who does something or what will happen next in this “nutty” domaining world.

I am bouncing around various ideas regarding what I should do next with Tastedrop.com.

As many of you fellow domainers know, TasteDrop which I will call TD was sold almost a year ago. The buyer and I developed the best domaining tools available & it was a really cool suite of drop catching tools & simplified lists at your disposal.

It all ended when my partner / buyer suffered a mild heart attack. Well you can imagine how that can make you feel about life.

Long story short, I am trying to run multiple sites – flying solo. I am sure TD would have been a nice paradise – but it may become my intranet portal. Or an elite club of domainer’s portal. Not sure yet, but to those who enoy free lists, you might as well grab it while you can.

I myself – find that the lists are priceless & I was giving them away for free. The server resources the site consumes is more than just 1 dedicated server. Even offloading between 2 servers, the domain has reached the point where the public users exceed what 2 servers can provide.

Stay tuned, but for now – I will be planning an EOL (End of Life) for TD. I find I may be better off using the drop databases I have collected for my own drop catching & flipping. TasteDrop may soon become a paid service – or for my personal use only. I will keep everyone updated when the EOF is near.

I am here to De-Myth a very popular Myth that Partner Registrars will catch your expiring domains through their network. Weather it be snapnames, pool or namejet.. They all stand the exact same chance. When the registry “drops” a domain name – it’s dropped. It doesn’t matter if the previous registrar kissed the president’s behind (well maybe.. lol).

The misconception in this “Partner Registrars” is that a partner registrar can only secure the name while it’s Status is: REDEMPTION PERIOD. If it’s in Redemption, yes, a Partner registrar can simply renew the domain – like an auction scenarion. GoDaddy for example auctions off all domains in redemption period & auto renews the domains if there’s a bid.

Once a domain slips from: REDEMPTION PERIOD, it’s game over. There’s a hefty price tag to renew that domain. To the tune of approx $180 at some registrars. But it can be saved or auctioned & simply renewed.

Basically when a domain hits: “PENDING DELETE” It’s a free for all. I don’t care what registrar is partnered with what, that domain will be available for hand registration to anyone. IMHO This “Preferred Registrar” Hype was a creation of the auction houses to spike up their backorders. It created a new “Need” to have to backorder at xxxx backorder service.

These are just my opinions of real life backorders I put in & hand regging a drop which I thought I backordered at the major backorder services – which were expiring out of a “Preferred Partner Registrar” that it belonged to before the drop. I find that the pending delete list shows the drops and it doesn’t matter which registrar they belong to before expiring.

I will often watch domains with an instant drop catcher tool I made & I am free to grab a few names in my drop list. After I refresh the tool every 1-3 seconds, I notice the “Preffered Partners” or the major backorder houses have scooped up a domain or more in my watch list. So this proves that if you had a fast enough drop catcher or real-time whois monitor – you can beat any of the preferred partner that provide the backorders for the big boys.

This article is based on the quality of the domain being “Mediocre” If there’s a LLL.com / or similar quality dropping from a “foreign” registry, and that registry doesn’t offer auctions or redemption period saves. That domain will be a free for all after hitting “PENDING DELETE” & the partner registries it may have been registered at before, don’t matter at all.

Everyday there are between 50,000 – 100,000 .com & .net domains that “drop” & become available for hand registration.

Each domain drops in a certain order and is generally available to anyone. It becomes a game of luck the micro second the domain is released. From that point on, it’s a free for all & only the best survive.

I started the service: DNMeter.com which not only shows you the order in which .com & .net domains are dropped from the central registry – but also time stamps the drops. It may be off by (5-10 minutes) but overall is very easy to follow.

Having the exact time that a domain expires helps you secure valuable names for cheap! Maybe just maybe, there’s a domain that you’d like to backorder at the major backorder services. After using the drop order list, you stand a way better chance to catch a domain for $x.xx vs paying $xx.xx for an expired domain backorder.

You’d be surprised to see what you can do with this “extra tool” to assist your drop catching

I always preach to fellow drop catchers to use Dynadot.com for securing expiring domain names. I like Dynadot because it tailors to a wide variety of domain extensions. This makes it very easy to catch expiring domain names on the drop. Dynadot has a beta API system that allows domainers to write programs to catch domains for us. You can be sleeping and have a “script” do your drop catching at Dynadot. All a script does is macro or automate a list of domains & attempt to catch them into your account.

Because Dynadot has a simplistic API, I have learned to use it. I have been developing tools that integrate with Dynadot’s API for nearly three years. This in turn has made it easy for me to own multiple Bulk accounts and flip domains for profit. Dynadot offers easy means to do a free push of domains between accounts. Their pricing is also not bad at all.

I have a lot of domains all over the place across multiple registries & I seem to keep most my accounts at Dynadot. A lt of the other registries don’t get it when it comes to domaining. They’re just in it for profit & don’t listen or understand their customers. That’s where Dynadot seems to fill the void and link domains with domainers rather easily.

This is just my opinion & I thought it’d be nice to share with you my experience with Dynadot.

I would like your input regarding a Dotster.com drop catcher.

I see dotster working like a slave for snapnames.com & catching quality drops! I am considering writing my own drop catcher program for Dotster. It seems like there is a need for such drop catcher & it can save you a bunch of money! Let’s say next time you happen to backorder a domain at Snapnames. That domain gets grabbed by Dotster. You owe Snapnames $60… Well now you can pay Dotster directly the $15.95 per domain fee.. but you get to beat the snapnames fee & you get the domain instantly without any auction activity. Just plain & simple – your Dotster API grabs the domain to your account instantly.

If anyone is interested in a dotster.com drop catcher make sure to let me know. I expect to develop a desktop basd tool similar to my Dynadot tool that you can run on your desktop to catch valuable drops.

These .ws domains will be dropping soon. I hope you enjoy these drop lists!

subs.ws
livestock.ws
songwriters.ws
satelites.ws
lesson.ws
forecasts.ws
farmland.ws

passwords.ws
stadium.ws
equine.ws
arrive.ws
console.ws
bunk.ws
brewer.ws

Good luck trying to catch these .ws domains that will be available for hand registration. Currently, there are no .WS domain drop catchers – so these lists are worth gold. Happy hunting!

These .IN domains will be dropping soon:

advocacy.in
beanstalks.in
cognitive.in
ethnography.in
euphony.in
grove.in
hurl.in
luscious.in
magnificent.in
mastermind.in
modesty.in
orbital.in
settling.in
yankee.in

Enjoy your drop catching CCTLD’s

Watching today’s news on FOX..

Network solutions was hacked & over 600,000 accounts have been compromised. It seems like the breech occured via the Verisign payment gateway across various vendors. The breech allowed the hackers to compromise & gain full access to full details of over 600,000 domainer’s accounts. NS is working to resolve the issue by notifying various gateway vendors of the breech.

It’s sad that such a big company doesn’t take the precautions required to gain the confidence it’s domaining customers require. Not to mention the super high pricing

I was able to catch these drops over the weekend:

Wealthier.us & Messaging.ws

I was also chasing: ReMake.us – but someone grabbed this name on a godaddy backorder. I am sure wealthier.us also had a backorder, but I was able to secure it into my Dynadot account for $6.99.