LocalWhois acquires DomainsBot

[devolution]

From LocalWhois:

Dear LocalWhois Insider Subscriber,

We are proud to announce the acquisition of the most popular on-hold domain website, DomainsBot.com. This website will offer a service especially designed to meet "domainers" needing, with affordable prices (50% OFF) and a fast & easy to use service.

Read our Press Release below to learn how you can profit from DomainsBot service! "It is my pleasure to announce that DomainsBot is finally back to provide its customers with the best ever expiring domain names data service ever. We are also proud to announce that we have been recently featured in such publications as The USA Today and Wired magazine. This has given us opportunity to realize what customers really want, and has helped us, here at DomainsBot, to completely restyle and reengineer our site. Just check out our new fantastic features that NO other expiring service on the Net has!

Our new service offers access to our brand new database featuring millions of expiring, onhold and expired domains! Once again - note - that noone else provides this info on the Internet - and even if they do - they usually charge you double or even triple prices for way less domains data and site features, and much slower server's speed? If you find the similar service at lower cost - please let us know - and we will refund all your money!

Some key items that our new service includes:

- Online search for millions of expiring, expired and on hold domains (in other words, our new engine has way more search options, and honestly kicks! - have a look!)

- Many of our customers begged for this - so we decided finally to give it to you free of charge - starting now - you have a chance to receive via email, every day, the lists you are interested in, as zip files. (all you need to do is to configure your account to receive the domains expiring in 24/48/72 or whatever hours... you'll be the first to see and back-order them! Bill Pickard - if you are reading this - this one is for you!)

- The chance to download the result of your search to your computer (sometimes browsing online becomes a hazard - especially when you have a modem - so from now on, you can download the search results to your computer and do whatever you want at the speed of your fingers - browse through a list off-line - or maybe feed it into either Popular Domains or YahTool - and find those kick-ass traffic domains that will pay way more than you have to pay us - in this case, we expect a 24 pack)

- The chance to download our entire daily lists as plain text files or zip files (download the list of on hold dictionary domains - can you believe it - road.net - is on our list now - and will expire soon!!! and we have many more like that one - and many more to come - 'cause we update our database daily... remember business.com? $8 million for a name! Guess what road.net will catch - ok it's net - but it's road - so should go for at least $25K if you can snap it first)

Also with WLS around the corner, I am pretty sure you will benefit plenty with your new DomainsBot membership. By the way, with our recent publications and with WLS around the corner we expect a lot of demand for expiring domain names - meaning that we would have to raise prices in the next few months to keep up with supply (speed of our servers, etc) - but if you are our subscriber - your renewal rate would not go up - no - instead it would go down by at least 15% !

Visit our new redeveloped site at http://www.domainsbot.com , and sign up today before we increase our prices..."

From DomainsBot:

Dear Matt,

It is my pleasure to announce that DomainsBot is finally back to provide its
customers with the best ever expiring domain names data service ever. We are
also proud to announce that we have been recently featured in such publications
as The USA Today and Wired magazine. This has given us opportunity to realize
what customers really want, and has helped us, here at DomainsBot, to completely
restyle and reengineer our site. Just check out our new fantastic features that
NO other expiring service on the Net has!

Our new service offers access to our brand new database featuring millions of
expiring, onhold and expired domains! Once again - note - that noone else provides
this info on the Internet - and even if they do - they usually charge you double
or even triple prices for way less domains data and site features, and much slower
server's speed? If you find the similar service at lower cost - please let us know
- and we will refund all your money!

Some key items that our new service includes:

- Online search for millions of expiring, expired and on hold domains (in other words,
our new engine has way more search options, and honestly kicks! - have a look!)

- Many of our customers begged for this - so we decided finally to give it to you
free of charge - starting now - you have a chance to receive via email, every day, the
lists you are interested in, as zip files. (all you need to do is to configure your
account to receive the domains expiring in 24/48/72 or whatever hours... you'll be the
first to see and back-order them! Bill Pickard - if you are reading this - this one is
for you!)

- The chance to download the result of your search to your computer (sometimes browsing
online becomes a hazard - especially when you have a modem - so from now on, you can
download the search results to your computer and do whatever you want at the speed of
your fingers - browse through a list off-line - or maybe feed it into either Popular
Domains or YahTool - and find those kick-ass traffic domains that will pay way more
than you have to pay us - in this case, we expect a 24 pack)

- The chance to download our entire daily lists as plain text files or zip files (download
the list of on hold dictionary domains - can you believe it - road.net - is on
our list now - and will expire soon!!! and we have many more like that one - and many more
to come - 'cause we update our database daily... remember business.com? $8 million for a
name! Guess what road.net will catch - ok it's net - but it's admissions - so should
go for at least $25K if you can snap it first)

Also with WLS around the corner, I am pretty sure you will benefit plenty with your new
DomainsBot membership. By the way, with our recent publications and with WLS around the
corner we expect a lot of demand for expiring domain names - meaning that we would have
to raise prices in the next few months to keep up with supply (speed of our servers, etc)
- but if you are our subscriber - your renewal rate would not go up - no - instead it would
go down by at least 15% !

Visit our new redeveloped site at http://www.domainsbot.com , and sign up today before we
increase our prices...

Don't know what's this email in regards to? Let me more explain at: http://www.domainsbot.com/how.asp

Best Regards,

Alex Kovalenko
www.DomainsBot.com
Live Expiring Domains

[Momentum]

OK now that they have blown their promotional smoke in the air, here is my question:

Does this in anyway add to the services at LocalWhois?

From what I have read in these messages, they already provide each of the services described.

In fact I really wonder why Localwhois would buy Domainsbot unless they need a technical partner to help provide their backend data. I mean Domainsbot was OK back in the day, but they have been inactive for months now.

[Dan]

I don't get this either. Why is LocalWhois basically running two of the same services.. So they can try and get existing LW members or existing DomainsBot members to subscribe to both services, hmm. This is weird..

[mole]

Sometimes, its just a face saving manuever to get out of a bankcruptcy situation. Being 'acquired' is heaps better than the previous alternative.

LocalWhois Website and Service will be targeted to brand managers and trademark protection, basing on SnapNames NameRecover Service. DomainsBot will be targeted to domain speculators. Also, DomainsBot is well placed on every Search Engine and still gets hundreds of newbies every day. Thanks to this move, we assure the companies market as the "domainers" one.

Best,

LW

[mole]

Originally posted by localwhois
Also, DomainsBot is well placed on every Search Engine and still gets hundreds of newbies every day.

How would you know they are newbies? Curious.

[Dan]

I think he just meant new subscribers/visitors. Anyways, thanks for clearing that up lw.

[mole]

Localwhois sold into the Snapnames umbrella. And Snaps does hold incredible clout. I did not see Snapnames proclaiming that Localwhois was the engine behind their new service. So it does send a couple of bells ringing.

NameRecover engine is powered by LocalWhois, as written in NameRecover page (at the bottom of the engine). I meant new subscribers, but especially newbies. This because DomainsBot is the first place where usually somebody looking for expired domains come (thanks to the great popularity and s.e. placement).

Regards,

[Domain]

Since Michael Dwaine of localwhois is posting to this thread, I have a few questions please.

1. I have noticed overall fewer names listed in the results when selecting only "Deleting, available soon" Is this because fewer and fewer names are dropping or has your service / source of these names changed? I am aware that this list will fluctuate but I see a clear change.

2. For the typical buyer of dropping names, does your service provide better accuracy and/or a more complete list of names than the free services available such as deleteddomains.com and others?

3. I have noticed that some domains drop a day earlier or later than indicated by your service. Is this due to Verisign's method of dropping names?

I have used both the free and paid versions of your service.

Thank you

this is bizarre, because the owner of the dnf username "localwhois" was in chat a few days back and claimed no association with localwhois the company when asked about their ripping off the exody lists.

[krisblade]

I saw domainsbot.com on the localwhois deleting list ("deleting on 22 Jul"). I had a snap on it... 2 days after, nada on the list.

Weird weird

Gentlemen,

I'll be more than happy to asnwer your questions.

First, safesys, the nick "localwhois" is not reserved to me (everybody in LW has the user/pass, therefore I'm not responsible of the use of this nick here)

Krisblade, as you know when a domain is in trasfer (we moved domainsbot to our registrar), it may appear on our lists, as in every deleting list.

Domain: 1) It is not our fault: Verisign is deleting less names than usual. We publish almonst 99% of the deleting domains. I guess this is due to WLS

2) Yes, we do. The big limit of DeletedDomains is the 2000 results max.

3) Usually, a domain is released 5 days after the indicated date. But of course, it depends by Verisign... We simply add 5 days (85% - times works) to every deleting domains.

I will be happy to answer more questions. If you want, we can arrange a meeting in DF Chat Room.

Best,

Originally posted by safesys
this is bizarre, because the owner of the dnf username "localwhois" was in chat a few days back and claimed no association with localwhois the company when asked about their ripping off the exody lists.

Originally posted by localwhois


First, safesys, the nick "localwhois" is not reserved to me (everybody in LW has the user/pass, therefore I'm not responsible of the use of this nick here)

a strange explanation, so others in your company go around denying they work for localwhois?

I don't know. Probably some guy of the support staff. Anyway, I'm not sure what he/she said and when. Safesys, do you have the record of the chat session, so I can have a look?

Thanks,

thanks, also what is the story behind the alleged copying of exody lists btw; seems to be a lot of talk about it.

Sure. I guess it's time to talk about this situation: First, we don't steal our lists from Exody, as somebody wrote in this forum. We pay Exody a license, even if we are still in talks with them to finalize the legal matters. On the other side, our listings are not simply a re-publishing of Exodys'. We use Exodys' as starting point, then thanks to our sotwares we retrieve new domains.

Best,

when did you start paying exody a license and when did you start using their data without their consent?

05-02- 2002 01:36 AM

Originally posted by askii
Dan,
It's true... LW is ripping off our list... We will
place any name in our list you wish and within a
day or so it appears in LW.. also NameWinner ...
also BizNames ... etc. etc.. However we do provide
names to some of the list providers and not all
are ripping our list off. What really set me off
was the claim by LW that they were the only ones
with the programming skills to have these list.
I placed icann.org icann.net and icann.com into
our list and ... You guessed it! LW had it in the search.

Dwayne

Michael,

I've been speaking with Dwayne of Exody by email today and what he is saying does not match what you are saying.

LocalWhois did "steal" our work product and resell it. That is a fact.
We ask them to pay for this and that is the "talks". We have no formal written agreement but they ask if they could continue to "use" our list while we "talked". We have in good faith removed the comments about LocalWhois and the "stealling of our list" from our site while we talked.

How should one deal with an Itailian Company that has no "ethics" of any sort? The posting by "NameHunter" I believe is by Michael Dwaine himself.
Exody may well withdraw from these talks and make all our communications public and "tell it like it is". I now understand that LW has purchased domainsbot.com because of the "news releases" to claim as their own.

They have a funny way of claiming all as their own and then also claiming that no others have it. I suppose if you "self proclaim" you own something loud enough and lond enough then one may actually believe it themselves.

You may post this reply on the board.

Thanks
Dwayne

In addition, I understand that to date, they have never received a single cent from you re the license you claim to pay them.

To everyone who buys drop lists, please think about using exody.com instead of supporting a company like localwhois. Exody are a decent company, they're hard working, honest and they look after their customers (I've been a customer of theirs for a few years now and recommend them to anyone).

Originally posted by safesys/ from exody
How should one deal with an Itailian Company that has no "ethics" of any sort? The posting by "NameHunter" I believe is by Michael Dwaine himself.

just to confirm I checked ips and localwhois and domainhunter have the same Italian ISP.

Also if you check namehunters posts every post appears to be supportive of localwhois, and degrogatory towards competitors, to the point where another member even asked if namehunter was from localwhois in an old post, which namehunter denied.

http://www.dnforum.com/search.php?s=...searchid=15066