Expiring Domains

[PTC]

I'm watching 3-4 expired or expiring domains right now. Some say pending renewal or deletion. Yesterday I bought one only to have godaddy email me and say registration failed. Someone please fill me in here on the expiration process, is it different with different registrars and so on.

[Zujo]

Most of the good names are picked up by sites which auction them off. Others are picked up by professional domainers who have automated software that will be a lot faster than you at registering the domains. If you pick up any domains that got through this process you were either really, really lucky - or you got a worthless domain. I'd bet heavily on the latter if given the opportunity, without even seeing the domain.

If you want to bid on expired domains at auction the top sites are NameJet.com, Pool.com, TDNam.com (GoDaddy) and SnapNames.com (though they just had a SuperUser like (shill bidding) scandal, so might want to avoid them for now). Warning: the good names get very expensive and you'll be bidding against all the pro's for them.

I normally wouldn't give this information away but I haven't found a decent poker related name on any of the drop sites for a reasonable price in months, so I'm pretty much giving up on them. There are deals and gems out there though, if you are willing to put in the work to find them. It is just so tedious going over hundreds and hundreds of domains and wading through all of the crap. There are sites to help refine your searches and find the good stuff (freshdrop.net, estibot.com to name two) - but its still A LOT of work.

Good luck.

[Unknown Webmaster]

If you are feeling adventurous, you may want to check out DNforum.com's drop catcher forum.

[PTC]

If you pick up any domains that got through this process you were either really, really lucky - or you got a worthless domain. I'd bet heavily on the latter if given the opportunity, without even seeing the domain.



Good luck.

I find them by chance, so lucky I suppose. Webmasters asleep at the wheel. A few are from companies that rebranded and didn't know what a 301 was. I just surf the intraweb a lot.

[PTC]

I have been buying up a ton of expired domains in the last few days. Mostly non-poker domains. Recreation and Sports Gear/Apparel niches, and I also just got web design domain, aged 1999 and still holding PR1 with a "may be expired and available" page up there. Hit me up if you are interested. Obv. these all have some backlinks.

[TheDonk]

I normally wouldn't give this information away but I haven't found a decent poker related name on any of the drop sites for a reasonable price in months, so I'm pretty much giving up on them. There are deals and gems out there though, if you are willing to put in the work to find them. It is just so tedious going over hundreds and hundreds of domains and wading through all of the crap. There are sites to help refine your searches and find the good stuff (freshdrop.net, estibot.com to name two) - but its still A LOT of work.

Good luck.

Yeah, of course there is crap dropping, that's why it's dropping. With that said, it's worth the time spent...it doesn't take as long as some would have you think it is. I've bought some $XXX - $XXXX domains for $XX real damn easy, with under 30 minutes invested. This really isn't that hard if you just look around a bit. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

[Zujo]

Yeah, of course there is crap dropping, that's why it's dropping. With that said, it's worth the time spent...it doesn't take as long as some would have you think it is. I've bought some $XXX - $XXXX domains for $XX real damn easy, with under 30 minutes invested. This really isn't that hard if you just look around a bit. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Ya I've found some gems with little work too. Though that is a bit like saying that I won $1,000 in ten minutes playing online poker because I sat down and immediately flopped a set and stacked somebody. What about all of the time I spent set mining before that or even the days I lost. You have to account for the countless hours spent not finding anything - and if you haven't done that then you haven't spent much time going over drop lists. It is hard and tedious work.

[PTC]

You have to account for the countless hours spent not finding anything - and if you haven't done that then you haven't spent much time going over drop lists. It is hard and tedious work.

It's definitely not a practice with good ROI IMHO. I've just been lucky, lately I've been a little bit clever after getting lucky. I found an expired domain and realized that one of the sites linking to this domain, was also linking to lots of other expired domains. Its a directory that has permenant listings which apparently aren't checked over time, 50% of the websites that are being linked to are redirected, many are expired now. I spent about 2 hours clicking on links from this directory and harvested about 10-15 domains all with good backlinks.

For those of you reading this who I PMed the URLs to... don't worry, there is none left so don't bother checking, I checked every single outgoing link on this site. Of course, if you were truly savvy, you would know that there is probably lots more harvesting to do on other sites in the network, and more to do here in the future. GL if you have the heart for it. I'll probably get the links devalued with all of the shady 301 redirects Im gonna do (j/k). BTW, I won't be PMing these URLs to anyone else now that I have told you all of this. Sorry if you are interested, but lets face it, were poker affiliates, id be dissappointed if someone didn't try to weasel in on this source if given the chance.

[CasinoMack]

Exactly, anyone who has done domaining knows it takes time. You can't only talk about the winners and not account for the time it takes to mine for gold. Totally agree. Its not easy.