Mike Davidson gives his ordeal and experience in snatching a expiring domain name. The mechanism of domain expiry and getting hold of the fresh domain is not as simple as it seems. Two and a half months and $369 later, he managed to get hold of his ‘shiny new domain’.
He explains that expiring domains become available exactly 75 days after the listed expiration date. The Drop is the unpredictable three hour period of time in which the domain is deleted from VeriSigns database and released back into the ecosystem. There are no fewer than three major services which specialize in pounding away on VeriSigns servers during the drop period.
So he placed a backorder through GoDaddy.com for $18.95 thinking that was all he needed to do. But the competition was tougher. So he decided to enlist the services of all three major domain snatching firms (Snapnames.com, Enom.com, and Pool.com) in hopes that one would grab the domain. These services use a network of registrars to hit the Verisign servers at frequent intervals (but not too frequent to get banned) and snatch as many requested names as possible. If you don’t get your name, you don’t pay. But that’s where the three services begin to differ.
Then he goes on to write about the high drama of bidding and the nail biting finish which got him his valuable domain for $369 by Pool.com. Read more about his chase. He advises that if you really don’t want to let your valuable domain get away, you must enlist the services of the big three: Snapnames, Enom, and Pool.