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Domain summit 2024

An ongoing quest to defeat the 3 aftermarket juggernauts for pendingDeletes...

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ludacwisp

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Due to the nature of the industry/process/niche, dropcatchers of expired domains typically hunt alone. Obviously due to the fact that we don't want other predators competing for the domains we researched and queued.


As many of us know, DNMeter was created a few years ago by expron and supposedly delivers the exact drop times of all .net/.com domains. Through further research I was able to determine how these drop estimatations are done. Much easier than I had originally thought possible, it is simply a matter of all .com/.net pendingDelete domains dropping within a 75 minute window.


On an average day you have 75000 dropping .com/.net domains. To obtain creation dates of all domains on this list takes my VPS only about 4 hours per list. My sites still run quickly while the script is running--so while I'm content with this number, I could surely speed it up significantly with proper resource allocation. With 75000 domains dropping in just 7500 seconds, you'd simply need to sort the domain list in order of creation date (ASC), then find the incremental value between each drop. The magic number here would be .06 seconds. 4500 / 75000 = 0.06. That means there would be 6 hundredths of a second between each drop if my math is correct. I think it would be safe to say the domain would almost indefinitely drop +- 10 seconds from our estimated drop time. So with this many domains (assuming they must drop in that order), we can virtually pinpoint the exact second of the drop (barring registry hang-ups, lag, and stalling).


How does this help us as dropcatchers? It doesn't necessarily if we are just using drop-catching software on our servers/desktops and running it for the entire duration of the drop window. Sure it would allow us to find out if our acquisition was successful almost immediately and move on to the next one somewhere further down the drop list. But let's think on a grander scale.


Namejet is widely revered as the auctionhouse most successful in landing back-ordered pendingDeletes when you want one bad enough to pay 60 bucks for it. They obviously have 2 enormous registrars, Network Solutions and eNom, responsible for their success in domain acquisition.


Switching gears, let's think about torrents and shared downloads. There are many many registrars out there, not affiliated with Namejet or Snapnames or Pool that we can use API to register domains with. Now what if we ran a torrent-like drop-catching program/membership program that allowed us to leverage the resiyrces of many many different registrars to obtain our domains.


After receiving a request from the server, all drop-catchers would then launch constantly ping <em>various</em> registries using your API registration URL (which would be undisclosed and unhackable on a perfect internet) for exactly 15 seconds, increasing the probability of you landing that domain by exponential odds. Obviously a lot of registrars have stipulations regarding whitelisting and blacklisting of IP addresses, so a work-around would have to be performed for this... though I certainly do not see it as a deal breaker.


In my many years of studying drop-catching and attempting to program the fastest drop-catchers out there, I've never come close to competing with the big three (NJ, Snap, Pool). However IF these aftermarket companies are all playing by the same rules we are and when a domain drops it truly is fair game for all, then there is hope. Hope in the form of domainers being a little less secretive and having a little more "open-source" mentality to share their knowledge and findings with the rest of the community.
 
Domain summit 2024

ludacwisp

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It's nearly droptime. If I am correct, one of the earliest dropping domains should be amateurexpo.com

---------------------------------------------------
Registration Information [Taken]:
Domain: amateurexpo.com
Created: 1999-06-17
Last Changed: 2013-08-17
Expires: 2013-06-17
Registration Status:
pendingDelete

Estimated Drop Day/Time:
2013-08-23 @ 19:00 GMT

Registrar: CHEAPIES.COM INC.
Whois Server: whois.cheapies.com

Nameservers:
ns1.sedoparking.com
ns2.sedoparking.com



Running dropcatcher to see what time it is grabbed.
 

katherine

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Well if you understand how things work, an API cannot compete.
The registrars have direct access to the registry, so it's a matter of milliseconds for the register command to trigger the snap of the domain.

With an API it is completely different: you send the request to the registrar through the API, the registrar queries the registry on your behalf then sends the response back to you. The process is considerably slower. Not to mention that usage is seriously capped (rate limiting, no concurrent connections allowed). Especially during drop time.

That's why the most successful dropcatchers have plenty (dozens) of shell registrars, it is to increase their connection pool.
Because one registrar connection will not get you very far. Reberry has dozens. The API is only good for beating the handreggers.

PS: in my experience, Snapnames has always been the most successful for deleting domains. Pool used to do well many years ago, now I would say Namejet does a better job.
 

ludacwisp

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Well if you understand how things work, an API cannot compete.
The registrars have direct access to the registry, so it's a matter of milliseconds for the register command to trigger the snap of the domain.

With an API it is completely different: you send the request to the registrar through the API, the registrar queries the registry on your behalf then sends the response back to you. The process is considerably slower. Not to mention that usage is seriously capped (rate limiting, no concurrent connections allowed). Especially during drop time.

That's why the most successful dropcatchers have plenty (dozens) of shell registrars, it is to increase their connection pool.
Because one registrar connection will not get you very far. Reberry has dozens. The API is only good for beating the handreggers.

PS: in my experience, Snapnames has always been the most successful for deleting domains. Pool used to do well many years ago, now I would say Namejet does a better job.


I understand the registries get bogged down during drop time. I do have direct access to the registry, the same manner in which the registrars do. Port 43 on the verisign whois server. It is entirely unthrottled, I can get about 20 requests off in a second from my connection. When we use the registrar API's (which I have a very good understanding of), some of them do actually go out and query the registry first before sending the registration command. Dynadot does this for example (and they are incredibly slow during droptime). But, take a registrar like NameSilo. If you do the WHOIS checking through your own connection to Verisign and then send the registration command to the registrar immediately upon detection of availability, you stand a much better chance than having to wait on them to query then register, as they do provide you with the option of doing if you choose to use their dropcatching API they call "batch mode".

I am proposing we find dozens of the "shell" registrars that arent being used for dropcatching, etc and pool them against NJ, etc. I've had registrar owners come to me and ask me to include their API in my scripts before. Fabulous is another commonly known one that allows API but does not allow you to pound their server with registration requests. There are a lot out there that don't get bogged down for the simple fact that they do employ throttling tactics. A lot of the poorer dropcatching utilities out there simply keep sending the registration command over and over to the registrar and are at the mercy of their connection speed.
 

ludacwisp

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FYI amateurexpo.com dropped at 2:15PM EST (15 minutes after droptime)... I may be completely off on the drop order / drop time because I find it hard to believe there would be 15 minutes of pre-1999 domains out of about 75000.

That would mean that within a 75 minute window, there would have to be about 15,000 other domains with creation dates prior to 1999, which is not the case, back to the drawing board.
 
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Theo

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Not sure where you got that, NameJet is not the best for deleting domains. SnapNames & Pool (and even independent APIs) beat it. NameJet is great for pre-released domains, but be prepared to get into an auction with others.
 

ludacwisp

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There's no doubt they all win out sometimes. In my experience and in actual case studies, namejet has always seemed to win out.
 

Theo

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Although I like NJ for pre-release (or private auctions) it is constantly beaten when deleted domains are concerned. Pretty much, I scour NJ for deletions and place bids at SnapNames (the latter grabs it *most* of the time but not always.)
 

ludacwisp

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Although I like NJ for pre-release (or private auctions) it is constantly beaten when deleted domains are concerned. Pretty much, I scour NJ for deletions and place bids at SnapNames (the latter grabs it *most* of the time but not always.)

Well I will take your word on this, Acro... BUT, this is a bit beside the point. I was hoping this thread could provide info to help determine the actual minute the domain will drop from the registry.
 

Biggie

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after club-drop, er'body got smarter
 

asfas

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Ludacwisp, you sort dropping names by register date and supposedly they drop in this order. Is this accurate / official ? Any links ?
 

katherine

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I don't think you are going to achieve much even by pooling a lot of API calls together.

If the APIs were competitive, the dropcatchers wouldn't spend money to entertain dozens of registrars. Running a registrar isn't cheap.
In fact Pool ditched quite a few of their registrars because the game obviously was no longer profitable.
On the other hand you have a guy like Reberry who has set up dozens of registrars to snipe the drops, I have to say I am a bit surprised because not so many quality domains are dropping nowadays.
 
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