An important message from Snapnames

[ilovedomains]

i was thinking about the comments made earlier about kevin ham frank schiling and buydomains being involved in this shill bidding.. Someone theorized They were overpaying for the domains, but later got rebates back from snapnames, so they were able to keep the sales revenue high.. They are definitely the type of people that would cut deals like that. Would there be any truth in this?

These two guys are in a very exclusive club. They have enough traffic to cut a PPC deal directly with search engines. They may get paid up to twice as much for their traffic as you do by your PPC providers.

This allows them to pay more for names because the get paid more for the traffic. They also drive up the price of names that you buy. Thats why I have always said... it may be an auction for them, but its just a marketing scam for the rest of us.

They dont need to shill bid because their contracts with the search engines makes them shills by default, and its all legal.

 

[Cartoonz]

You don't have a clue what you are talking about.

Basing assertions on assumptions is absurd.

 

[TheLegendaryJP]

i was thinking about the comments made earlier about kevin ham frank schiling and buydomains being involved in this shill bidding

I have been following this from the start and havent seen that said anywhere.

In fact the opposite is true, people bid THEM up.

 

[ilovedomains]

You don't have a clue what you are talking about.

Basing assertions on assumptions is absurd.

I was explaining to Tenkk that if people like Frank Shilling LOOK like shill bidders because they bid so high, its only because they get better payouts, and can afford to bid higher.

What isnt an assumption is that big companies, and people like Frank Shilling are able to outbid most people with ease. Whats your explaination for why they can bid so high? Their just stupid? They get kickbacks? Their so rich they dont care about money? I dont think so.

Im open to changing my assumptions if somebody can give me a better explaination.

 

[TheLegendaryJP]

Their so rich they dont care about money?

This one gets my vote, really.

Oh sure they started out caring, they may even tell you they do today but actions speak louder than words. They grossly over pay time and time again, that is BAD business. So either they dont care or they are stupid, you decide that one.

The ONLY exception is when buying names from the community that loves them so much... :tsk:

The FACT Nelson screwed them over so royally for YEARS must make them feel like the ultimate fool... here comes 100-300% over market value Frank, lets tack on a little more... Nelson must have thought how stupid or lose with their money could these guys be... in order to fool someone you need to find a fool.

 

[DTalk]

Its an interesting mindset, JP...


No one wants to get blatantly ripped-off (and, leaving aside the Brady Rip, for the moment), there may be a logic as to why some of the early big players may regularly bid what others think are 'too high' prices for domains they want.......Consider the history...and, it may explain why.


The early domainers had two things going for them:


- The chance to get great names

- The earlier years PPC revenue streams that were MUCH higher than today.


The rise in value of those early great names has been so phenomenal, that it didn't matter what they paid for them, originally - subsequent price-lift compensated for that price many times over. And, still does.

Thus, the mindset/belief probably remains that if you pay a few hundred - or, a few thousand - 'too much' today, for a domain....No problem....time will fix that.

...All you need is to have the capital (and/or income) to be able to carry the cost of purchase for as long as it takes (and, they have).


With PPC - they probably do get a higher rate than the rest of us - so, that compensates, too.


Far from NOT knowing the value of domains - they may know the long-term value all too well....They simply want quality domains - and, will (over)pay to get them, today, if necessary - calculating time will ultimately do its profit work.


Its worked for them for years...

.

 

[Cartoonz]

i was thinking about the comments made earlier about kevin ham frank schiling and buydomains being involved in this shill bidding.. Someone theorized They were overpaying for the domains, but later got rebates back from snapnames, so they were able to keep the sales revenue high..

Complete BS.

They are definitely the type of people that would cut deals like that.

WTF? You obviously don't know either one of them very well.

...Would there be any truth in this?

NO.

These two guys are in a very exclusive club. They have enough traffic to cut a PPC deal directly with search engines. They may get paid up to twice as much for their traffic as you do by your PPC providers...

That part is true, but the mechanics are a bit off... they both negotiated direct feed contracts with Overture long before most parking providers even existed. So they always had that revenue advantage.

...This allows them to pay more for names because the get paid more for the traffic...

They also realized ahead of the curve how valuable domains really are and they both took huge risks to acquire the names they went after.

...They also drive up the price of names that you buy. Thats why I have always said... it may be an auction for them, but its just a marketing scam for the rest of us.

This is where you go completely off the rails. They bid up to the level they were prepared to risk. If you bid more than that, you made that decision based on whatever your metrics were. Neither one of them "scammed" you. Fact is that you wanted whatever particular domain it was more than they did - you've already established they have more buying power due to their level of income. Nobody held a gun to your head to make you outbid them, so blaming them for whatever price point you reached to get the name is just screwy.

...They dont need to shill bid because their contracts with the search engines makes them shills by default, and its all legal.

Being better funded certainly does not make one a "shill by default". That's just stupid.

This one gets my vote, really.

Oh sure they started out caring, they may even tell you they do today but actions speak louder than words. They grossly over pay time and time again, that is BAD business. So either they dont care or they are stupid, you decide that one...

I don't see either one of them begging at the soup kitchen these days so it seems their business plans work rather nicely for them.
------------

But seriously, this thread is supposed to be about how SnapNames screwed EVERYONE over... not petty jealousy or speculation of collusion by the top domainers. That just seems silly to me.

 

[Onward]

I think it is possible that snap names was giving rebates to special high volume/$$$ customers. They did that with the old "snap backs".

 

[Cartoonz]

I think it is possible that snap names was giving rebates to special high volume/$$$ customers. They did that with the old "snap backs".

yes they did, but not after it went to the auction format.

 

[dvdrip]

Buydomains had about 10 million dollars in credit after the old snaps.
They had a lot of money to "burn"...

 

[ilovedomains]

They also realized ahead of the curve how valuable domains really are and they both took huge risks to acquire the names they went after.


This is where you go completely off the rails. They bid up to the level they were prepared to risk. If you bid more than that, you made that decision based on whatever your metrics were. Neither one of them "scammed" you. Fact is that you wanted whatever particular domain it was more than they did - you've already established they have more buying power due to their level of income. Nobody held a gun to your head to make you outbid them, so blaming them for whatever price point you reached to get the name is just screwy.



Being better funded certainly does not make one a "shill by default". That's just stupid.

So we agree the reason they can bid so high is they can get a much better ROI than most people.

1.I never said they scammed anybody, in fact Im one of the few posters here that says they probably didnt do anything illegal.

2. (edit) Just replace "shill by default" with "smart guys have the edge" or "big fish eat little fish" The point Im trying to make is still the same.

3. Never said I begrudged them, never said it wasnt fair, never said they dont deserve what they got, just said thats the way these auctions work.

 

[DomainsInc]

yes they did, but not after it went to the auction format.

And you know this how?

 

[tomsa]

Do you know if it's still possible to do the halvarez trick at snapnames? (backorder all the expiring domains after deadline and delete them)

 

[TheLegendaryJP]

I don't see either one of them begging at the soup kitchen these days so it seems their business plans work rather nicely for them.

This is true but it doesnt justify bad business decisions. Just because you can afford to do something doesnt make it smart.


@Dtalk, it has worked for them for years....what years Surely not the last handful, mind you investment elsewhere is at all time lows too so there is some slack to be given.

Hey wealthy people generally make HUGE mistakes because they can, we all do, they just do it bigger. Society associates wealth with good sense, there is always an exception to the rule I suppose :sigh2:

 

[FormerDnForumer]

Its an interseting mindset, JP...


No one wants to get blatantly ripped-off (and, leaving aside the Brady Rip, for the moment), there may be a logic as to why some of the early big players may regularly bid what others think are 'too high' prices for domains they want.......Consider the history...and, it may explain why.


The early domainers had two things going for them:


- The chance to get great names

- The earlier years PPC revenue streams that were MUCH higher than today.


The rise in value of those early great names has been so phenomenal, that it didn't matter what they paid for them, originally - subsequent price-lift compensated for that price many times over. And, still does.

Thus, the mindset/belief probably remains that if you pay a few hundred - or, a few thousand - 'too much' today, for a domain....No problem....time will fix that.

...All you need is to have the capital (and/or income) to be able to carry the cost of purchase for as long as it takes (and, they have).


With PPC - they probably do get a higher rate than the rest of us - so, that compensates, too.


Far from NOT knowing the value of domains - they may know the long-term value all too well....They simply want quality domains - and, will (over)pay to get them, today, if necessary - calculating time will ultimately do its profit work.


Its worked for them for years...

.

Let me help clear this up for you, as there's lots of stupidity in this thread from people without a clue:

The reason why VA, Frank and others spend more than anyone else is primarily because they see things others don't, and their business plan is not based on ppc revenues but something much bigger. There is a whole upper tier of the business that most domainers have no clue exists, and it is generally not affected by the 5-10 years of ppc revenue thing.

An example to make the point: Some years ago, when I started to acquire grant names, I began to realize rather quickly that the yahoo and google payouts per click paled in comparison to what was waiting further up the ladder. Now how much is a domain worth when for each unique visitor, you don't see it as $2.00, but as $2000, with a conversion rate in the 10-20% range? Under that metric, you'd never sell a domain based on PPC revenue ever again.

Domainers as a rule are lazy. They don't want to develop. Either they don't have the skills or they aren't interested. So it's not surprising that most don't even bother to go beyond the ppc wall, the bit payouts, that they get for "nothing" when they buy a keyword domain. But trust me, that once you dig deeper into that keywords true value up the ladder, you'll pay a lot more for a domain with lots of type-in traffic.

There are other reasons they pay more, lots of them, but there's just one. The idea that Frank, Steve, Kevin or others will pay more for domains because there's a greater fool up the ladder is just silly. They're far too smart for that. It's that they actually have vision, and are infinitely smarter than the average guy. (I myself have sold many premier generics far too cheap so I consider myself schooled the hard way).

The undercurrent of hating on the big players that is creeping into this thread is both silly and toxic. It has nothing to do with the SnapNames scandal. People little and big got taken, simple as that. Let's not let paranoia and hating distract from the real culprits here.

 

[DomainsInc]

Let me help clear this up for you, as there's lots of stupidity in this thread from people without a clue:

The reason why VA, Frank and others spend more than anyone else is primarily because they see things others don't, and their business plan is not based on ppc revenues but something much bigger. There is a whole upper tier of the business that most domainers have no clue exists, and it is generally not affected by the 5-10 years of ppc revenue thing.

An example to make the point: Some years ago, when I started to acquire grant names, I began to realize rather quickly that the yahoo and google payouts per click paled in comparison to what was waiting further up the ladder. Now how much is a domain worth when for each unique visitor, you don't see it as $2.00, but as $2000, with a conversion rate in the 10-20% range? Under that metric, you'd never sell a domain based on PPC revenue ever again.

Domainers as a rule are lazy. They don't want to develop. Either they don't have the skills or they aren't interested. So it's not surprising that most don't even bother to go beyond the ppc wall, the bit payouts, that they get for "nothing" when they buy a keyword domain. But trust me, that once you dig deeper into that keywords true value up the ladder, you'll pay a lot more for a domain with lots of type-in traffic.

There are other reasons they pay more, lots of them, but there's just one. The idea that Frank, Steve, Kevin or others will pay more for domains because there's a greater fool up the ladder is just silly. They're far too smart for that. It's that they actually have vision, and are infinitely smarter than the average guy. (I myself have sold many premier generics far too cheap so I consider myself schooled the hard way).

The undercurrent of hating on the big players that is creeping into this thread is both silly and toxic. It has nothing to do with the SnapNames scandal. People little and big got taken, simple as that. Let's not let paranoia and hating distract from the real culprits here.

Please many of these big guys can be traced back to one big sale early on. If not for that sale where would they be? Chances are no where near where they are today. I don't doubt that they have a larger scale view than most domainers because they can easily throw a million dollars into a venture without batting an eye, something 99% of us here can only dream of but some of the domains they bid high on make no sense. I also have yet to see any of these big guys do anything like you have mentioned. They might have extra fancy ppc pages that look more like websites but at the end of the day, its still ppc.

 

[FormerDnForumer]

Please many of these big guys can be traced back to one big sale early on. If not for that sale where would they be? Chances are no where near where they are today. I don't doubt that they have a larger scale view than most domainers because they can easily throw a million dollars into a venture without batting an eye, something 99% of us here can only dream of but some of the domains they bid high on make no sense. I also have yet to see any of these big guys do anything like you have mentioned. They might have extra fancy ppc pages that look more like websites but at the end of the day, its still ppc.

You clearly have no clue.

 

[Fearless]

See it's individuals like you who only TALK BULL $HIT - TALK IS CHEAP MR.Cartoon

Go fetch yourself a stick and use it to spank yourself for being silly among Elite Domainers!

Harold is well on his way to becoming an elite domainer himself. :lol:

 

[DomainsInc]

You clearly have no clue.

Of course I don't. I clearly see how I was wrong now.

 

[TheLegendaryJP]

Cam, your reply makes sense IF it was proven, it has NOT been proven and those over paid for names are now worth quite a bit less than the market value they held earlier. If the excuse is " vision " and end users that is yet to be proven.

I challenge any of them to provide a list of what they have bought off the drops and the realized roi, I would BET it is a loss. Apart from tm names and the odd end user sale a vast majority would but them at a loss. Someone can have a brilliant vision or idea to start with but not all that follows is as brilliant.

My guess is a padding of the portfolio for a furture buyer who will pick up the expense of over paying. In this economy though those buy outs are highly unlikely and the industry is still full of spec.

I know of a few HUGE portfolio sales where this was the case, 20% carry the load and it is those 20% or so that justify the buy out.

I have respect for those domainers ( few but some here ) that built early on a portfolio of QUALITY names bought below what would now be market value, they do not continue to buy off drops like these guys one the numbers didnt make sense. A loss is a loss is a loss, justify it if you want but a LARGE majority of what drops and sales would not recoup the price paid.