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+--- Thread: non-coder asking for coder input on domain dropcatching (/thread-15421.html)
non-coder asking for coder input on domain dropcatching - randomguy - Jan-16-2019
Hello everyone.
I am not a coder, but I sometimes pay programmers to do work for me. I need all the info I can gather from any generous strangers. This will probably be a long read, but an interesting one. The couple of coders I've talked to about this have never heard of this sort of thing before.
Anyways, I am a domainer. I buy and sell domains. One of the best (probably THE best) ways to get good domains without paying too much is backordering expired domains and bidding on them after they are caught.
How this works is as follows:
After expiration, domains will enter several stages of redemption during which the original owner can renew them for some additional costs. Once the domain hits 5 days from public release from the registry, it enters the pending delete stage. A domain cannot be renewed in this stage and will drop in 5 days from entering pending delete. There are online lists of dropping domains which can be filtered to find desirable names, which is what people do. They will then backorder a domain with a dropcatcher. A dropcatcher is a service which will attempt to register or ''catch'' the domain as soon as possible from its release. People who do this seriously will typically backorder their domains with as many dropcatchers as possible and bid on them on whichever platform gets the domain.
the tricky bit here is that if multiple people backorder a domain with a dropcatcher (which will inevitably happen with good domains), the domain will end up in a private or public auction, depending on the dropcatcher. It will also inevitably be bid up to risky prices where you will pay a lot hoping to sell for more but this is risky business if you do it enough.
I've researched dropcatching a lot and talked to people and I've learned a lot of things. Here's the bottomline:
Dropcatching is RNG but you can increase your chances. It is based on sending API requests to registrars. Each domain registrar is limited to X amount of requests per Y amount of time. Therefore, the leading platforms simply own a lot of registrars. Dropcatch.com, the leading dropcatcher has about ~1500 registrars (by far the most of all) and indeed, they catch domains most consistently. They have to pay millions yearly to keep this up so it's expensive to keep up.
After a lot of research, I've concluded that going for .com, .net and .org names is futile as it is very competitive and it's being caught by a number of different catchers. However, there are other TLDs (domain extensions) which are valuable where there's a lot less competition. There is allegedly a really shitty dropcatcher which is able to catch a particular TLD quite regularly. I'd say 20-25% of catches in that TLD goes to it but it's well known to be slow and shitty for .com. So this gives me hope that there's room for another catcher.
Now that I've finished telling this story, here's what I need help with:
So owning a registrar is the best way but it's expensive. However, you can use an existing registrar's API to dropcatch this name. A guy I'm talking to has told me that having a server near their location would be almost as good as owning a registrar. He has also told me that any registrar's API is split between their users. I.e. if a dropcatcher with 1 registrar is going for 20 names at a time, it will only have 5% efficiency of going for 1 name at a time. Similarly, if 20 people use 1 registrar's API to catch 1 name separately, it will also have 5% efficiency. My questions are as follows:
1) wouldn't it therefore be best to use the API of small registrars which are unlikely to be used by anyone else (or at least a few other people)? If not, why not?
2) A particular, successful dropcatcher for a specific TLD owns only 1 registrar, to my knowledge. If I use several APIs of others, wouldn't I have a good chance against it? If not, why not?
3) How much would you estimate that a competent programmer would charge to build something like that? I got a price from the guy I'm talking to, but speaking from experience, it's very hard to tell what will come out. I've had cheap people do a great job and I've had them do a bad job. I can't even tell what sort of work this would involve as I'm not a coder
4) Any other advice, critique or contribution you can add is very appreciated. I know programmers are generally busy, but in such a busy forum, I'm hoping someone with good experience may wish to help.
Again, I'm no coder, so if you could word your answers in a way that I would understand them, that would be much appreciated.
Thanks everyone.