Domain Sniping 101

Posted by Miles Evans

What if I told you that I have been happily buying 3 and 4 letter domain names, all day long, for $40 each, and have been doing so for years now? What’s more, often times I turn around and resell these same domains for heavy profits a few months later.

Every day 20,000 domains become available for sale again. Many of these domains have been registered for many years, are in DMOZ or Yahoo directory, have backlinks, or are valuable in another way. The problem is that the good domains are normally sniped within an hour of dropping. How do they do it?

Domain sniping is the act of picking up a domain immediately after the domains PENDING DELETE status expires. Or as soon as it drops. Confused? Alright this will make more sense if I outline the life cycle of a domain first. Cue flowery music:

1. ACTIVE. When a domain is registered it becomes ACTIVE and can remain ACTIVE for 1 to 10 years at a time. In this state the domain can be transferred between registrars but it is not available for registration. It is 0wn3d.
2. REGISTRAR-HOLD. Once a domain expires it normally moves to REGISTRAR-HOLD status. In this state the domain has not quite technically expired and the owner has at least 30 days to renew it. Depending on the registrar a domain can remain in this status for up to 45 days with 30 being the norm.
3. REDEMPTION PERIOD. Although now technically expired the owner still has 10 days to renew it. Again it depends on the registrar but domains normally stay in this status for 30 days.
4. PENDING DELETE. Normally a registrar will not allow you to renew your domain when it has reached this phase. A domain will drop to status: AVAILABLE 5 days after it has reached a PENDING DELETE status. At this point it can be bought and the cycle begins again.

Okay so now you know and understand the life cycle of a domain, but how do you swipe it as soon as it becomes AVAILABLE? In the old days we were forced to write a script to let us know when a domain became AVAILABLE via some kludgy cron task and an alert. Luckily these days there are a few online services available so that anyone can snipe domains. They all basically work the same in that if only one person backorders or bids on a domain they obtain it instantly, whereas if more than one person flags it, the domain goes to auction.

Here are the three best services in order of preference:

Pool is one of the first services I came across and the first I tested a couple years back. They have consistently outperformed the others I list. The price is $60/snipe, including 1 year registration (no zone controls). Once a domain is sniped it is transferred to a pool owned registry and cannot be transferred for 90 days. This is standard practice.

I recently pitted Namewinner against pool for the same domain and pool got the snipe. Having said that, I would say Namewinner works just fine for domains that are not considered a hot commodity. You can also see if anyone has bid on the name. Snipes cost $40 and get moved to Dotster, a much better registrar than pool uses.

Snapnames was the first service I ever used and many people swear by them. I myself have had some bad luck on some acquisitions and can no longer really recommend them. Snapnames charges $60 for a successful order.

All of the above sniping services also offer domain auction capabilities. If you have a bunch of older domains about to expire you might be surprised what people would pay for a domain that is a couple of years old.

NOTE: I list these services as an educational vehicle for those having difficulties finding a marketable domain name NOT for those looking to squat or steal domains from legitimate trademark owners. Cybersquatting sucks.

Happy sniping ;)

Posted May 04, 2006 at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Trackback URL | Del.icio.us | DIGG!