Hundreds Of Domains That We “Backordered” At Snap Are Now Coming In As Buy It Now Domains, What’s Going On?
Over the weekend we received several hundred of emails from SnapNames.com telling us that domains we had backordered were now available on a “buy it now” basis.
The emails all have the same text to them:
“”"
Good news! (>>>>>>>>>.com) has become available for immediate purchase at SnapNames.
Please note that this is not an auction, but is offered on a first come, first serve basis at a fixed ‘Buy It Now’ price.
(>>>>>>>>>>.com)
Please click on the domain name above to go to SnapNames to purchase the domain name, or go to www.snapnames.com and search for the domain name directly.
As a courtesy, we have removed your pre-order on this name as it is now available. Since the name is offered for immediate purchase, you should act quickly to ensure you acquire the domain name.
Due to potential high demand by other interested parties, SnapNames cannot guarantee that the name will be for sale for long. In the event it is already sold, the domain name will not appear as available when clicking on the link above.
“”"
Hum
Nice of them to remove my backorder.
Does that mean that they domain will never drop?
How do they know that?
A few of the domain names I received notice on were:
zzf.org
zeroplus.com
yourmortgagerate.com
youplace.com
wywa.com
wingsauce.com
wealthedge.com
washandgo.com
wallprints.com
visitingtokyo.com
turkeytime.com
truckscale.com
trafficsyndication.com
tiptopservice.com
thecreativedepartment.com
socialmediarank.com
smartchick.com
sitewinner.com
retirementpackages.com
recreationcenters.com
quarantined.com
prayforchange.com
phoneupgrades.com
partyplanner.net
nyrealestateagent.com
nextdayfinancing.com
mortgagemodifiers.com
microinvestments.com
lovehair.com
letsrelax.com
hybridfueleconomy.com
hoteltalk.com
hobbytime.com
gradingcontractor.com
goodscores.com
That just a few.
These domains are now priced as low as $596 and many are in the mid four figures.
All of the domains seemed to be owned under privacy at Name.com and are also available for purchase at Name.com for the same price as it is at Snap.
The question I have, which I don’t have the answer for is where did all of these domains come from.
I typically will go through domains that are in redemption or look like they will expire or that have mulitple backorders at Snapnames already.
While from time to time I will get such a notice its more like 1 or 2 a month.
Not 500 in a weekend.
All very strange.
I was wondering if any other domainers out there got mulitple notices like this over the weekend and if so what do you think it means?
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I received 2 such e-mail, but only had 3 names on BO. Sure sounds fishy, but hey at least it is not Shill Bidding. :>)
Why are you guys accepting domains for sale with private whois?
fishy fishy…
No matter how you slice it.
Close to 700,000 new Buy-It-Now domain name listings entered the SnapNames inventory this weekend when our system began collaborating with the NameMedia Premium Promotion network.
These names were listed on Afternic by their current registrants and are spread across any of Afternic’s participating network partners, which now include Moniker.com and SnapNames.com.
As many of you are aware, the SnapNames system sends an automated e-mail alert to a client who has previously placed a backorder or set up a saved search for a particular domain name when that name becomes available. Earlier this year, SnapNames adjusted its system so that when a name becomes available, the client is notified and the backorder is automatically deleted.
The addition of so many available names into the SnapNames system at once caused some our customers to become confused about the status of the names. We apologize for this confusion. In 2011, we will readjust our system so that backorders are no longer automatically deleted.
We encourage you to contact us at support@snapnames.com with any questions you may have.
Sorry Michael, I think that all names should be allowed to expire and drop. No one should have the ability to catch names. It leaves room for too shenanigans. We all have common human experience; if there’s a buck to be made somewhere, and the opportunity for creative catching exits, a human being will cut corners to maximize profit. That is just my two cents.
So I was right this time at comment #13, I think the biggest takeaway here is that our registrars and big domain companies have acheived such a poor reputation at this point that just about nobody even considered the possibility that this was just DLS or something not devious. There were maybe 2 other comments suggesting dls way later on, which were also disregarded by the rest of the villagers with torches.
“nobody even considered the possibility that this was just DLS or something not devious. ”
Not really, that explains the mass emails to everyone but it does’nt take away the fact that showing how many bids have been placed is allowing name.com to cherry pick them with our (snapnames customers) help. The recent mass mailing has just shown to what extent this has been happening with name.com.
If anyone has a domaintools account it should be easy to prove if these names (above) that were showing as pre-release on snapnames were held back by name.com just before the auction date….it is obvious they did not go to auction anywhere or we would have got an email from snapnames saying, we are sorry we did’nt manage to aquire the domain etc etc .
Yes, warehousing by registrars is nothing new but why should we all help them identify the names with the most interest, let them do their own work, research etc before holding back/warehousing domains shown on snapnames.
“if” snapnames removed/did not show how many backorders there were on a certain domain then it would be an advantage for the majority of their customers, registrars have thier own advantage of paying $8 instead of $59, $69, $99 and not having to bid against other, is’nt that enough?
Yep, I heard Nelson Brady (HALVEREZ) said that …
he likes working alone at HOME alone in his underwear.
@ Paul Carter (Names.com)
How come no answer posting yet , one (1) day later to the below inquiry!
==
2010 December 20
MHB
Paul,
So these are not domains owned by the registrar correct?
==
So were the Domains owned by the registrar?? AGAIN!
Landon
Silence is golden
In accordance i whole heartily agree …
Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer! …
Landon
Or if the answer is like a a ton of lead
@ Adam said: This restricts the market for new entrants in the registrar business to only being able to sell “available” new registrations.
That what new tlds are supposed to solve, right? There will plenty of domains for everybody! You don’t have to stress over those expensive dot coms – they’ll be extensions and unique names to go around – yay! Because ICANN has our interests in mind to foster competition! We’re saved!
2010 December 20 Domo Sapiens permalink
Why are you guys accepting domains for sale with private whois?
fishy fishy…
No matter how you slice it.
***************
Inconvenient Question. ?
So no reply from Name.com yet?
………………………….
HAPPY CHRISTMAS
Name did respond so did snapnames there responses are above
Isn’t the important question, “who owns these domains”? That would be interesting. They are almost all protected whois….hmmmm. Very interesting.
“Paul
So these are not domains owned by the registrar correct?
”
I meant to this question, although I think the answer is pretty obvious I’d be more than happy to be wrong.
——————————-
“The issue with #2 and #3 is that these actions (which some would term anti-competitive) provide no means for the domain name to circulate back in to the system, which is unfair for new registrars (as well as their registrants). ”
Good post, very True, and we’re all helping them do it by placing backorders on so called “Pre-release” domains.
How anyone could think this is an acceptable way of doing things is beyond me
What’s interesting – this if off-topic! – is any 3D search on Moniker yields only four extensions: com , net, org, and co. Alphabetic strings still offer many extension results.
Some of these domains are very valuable for me. hoteltalk first!