For Sale DRT (Domain Research Tool) Users Please Help...

[TomCat99]

Either DRT or most of the Drop Sites on the web toady are messed up. I loaded names from SnapNames that were supposed to be dropping today on June 5th and DRT tells me that they are all dropping in 6 days. I did the same with names from Pool that were supposedly marked for deletion today and all of those came up in DRT as deleting in 6 days. Same goes for names from NameWinner, and Enom Club Drop. The lists that come with DRT (droplists.net) look ok today.

Either all of these Drop Catchers have messed up lists, or DRT is not working correctly (I don't think it is DRT). I think these drop catchers are all using common lists from somewhere and the list provider has it all messed up.

Could someone who is an expert with drop lists please investigate and report back to the forum? Are the drop dates that are reported in the advanced searches on NameWinner, POOL, Snapnames, and Enom correct, or are they in fact skewed several days as I suspect?

 

[BostonDomainer]

Nothings wrong..... if a domain is listed to drop today it can drop anytime within 6 days. The registra does this to sort of make it fair to (in theory) give everyone a fair random chance at catching a name.

 

[actnow]

Tomcat,

Are they .coms and .nets? Or, a different set of TLDS that you are checking?

J,

I believe you are wrong.

It is a set mathematical formula.

Lets wait for Luc to respond. As well as - tomcat.

 

[TomCat99]

These are .com's and .net's. I am not very well versed in how the dates are supposed to work out. I thought the drop was supposed to be exactly five days after the last update if the domain entered "Pending Deletion" on the last update.

If, for example, right now you go to a SnapNames advanced search page and pull up names that are supposed to delete tomorrow you will find that if you import those names into DRT that DRT assigns them different deletion dates than what SnapNames reports. You will also find (if you try to follow those names dropping with DRT) that the names do not delete on the day that SnapNames says they are going to. This seems to be the case with Pool, Namewinner, & Enom as well. Yesterday evening I assumed that SnapNames knew what they were doing with the dates so I downloaded the list of deleting names that they claimed were going to delete the next day. I loaded all of those names into DRT and scanned them for overture, linkpop, ect...Even though DRT said that every name in the list was deleting in 6 days, I decided that DRT must be wrong and continued. The next day I sat by my computer for the 11:00 PST drop and did multiple whois searches on the names that were supposed to be dropping any minute...or any second (none of them did). I waited until 2:00 PM and then used DRT to run a complete whois availability check on all 28,000 names on the list of names that were supposed to delete during that day's drop according to SnapNames. Not one of them changed status, they all said "Deleting in 6 days", not one of the 28,000 names changed to a status of "Available"; none of them dropped.

Can someone please explain this?

Below is a link to the SnapNames advanced search if you want to try it for your self:
https://www.snapnames.com/asearch_results.jsp

Here is yet another good example: Go to Enom's Club Drop and download the list for 06-05-2006 and do a whois check on that list with DRT. Those names were all supposedly going to drop Today between 11:00 AM PST & 11:30 AM PST according to Enom. When you run the whois scan with DRT you will see that none of them dropped and they all say "Deleting in 6 days" under the availability column in DRT. Is it not kind of fishy that not one name on that list turned to "Available" during today's 11:00 AM PST drop?

 

[Brujah]

This could be why:
http://www.dnforum.com/f6/damn-just-missed-beauty-today-thread-157483.html#post855736

 

[Luc]

Hi,

Brujah is right. That may be the reason.

I have recently noticed some strange behavior in the drop cycle too.

Usually domains cannot have any whois after they drop. Yet, a customer sent me a few domains about a week or so ago that did in fact drop (I checked their availability on eNom) and still had a whois history (Active). All .coms. I can't remember the registrar though. This was really strange and I was scratching my head for a while.

I guess what Brujah said makes sense. The domains are getting picked up by the registrars right after they drop and then deleted after 5 days if no one purchases them. In between that the whois displays weird things. Scammers 101. This type of behavior coming from the registrars should not be tolerated.

Luc L.

 

[TomCat99]

This is huge...what do we do now?

 

[clemzonguy]

This type of behavior coming from the registrars should not be tolerated.

Verisign was interviewed on Domain Masters last year. They consider this a legitimate business model and look the other way. Considering that it increases their overall registrations why would they complain about it or do anything to stop it? They are getting $6/per registration folks!

Plus the registrars can test the domains for traffic themself and keep if they like.

 

[Luc]

Do you have any sample domains? I just scanned the first 10,000 from today's DRT "Dropped" list and about 95% are available.

 

[TomCat99]

The dropped names that you are publishing on droplists.net seem to be just fine Luc. The trouble comes when you try to follow a name through a drop cycle using lists provided by SnapNames, Pool, NameWinner, and Enom's Club Drop.

Luc please load the 06-05-2006 list from Enom Club Drop and take a look at it. I think that an expert like you would know exactly what is going on once you gave it a few moments of your time. All of the names on the Enom 06-05-2006 list were scheduled to drop today...according to DRT none of them did.

 

[Luc]

Yep. All of eNoms so called "dropped" domains are in fact registered. Will look into this some more over the next few days and get in touch with them.

 

[linkman]

Do you have any sample domains? I just scanned the first 10,000 from today's DRT "Dropped" list and about 95% are available.

Luc you're not scanning the names that droped. Those are the names that were either traffic tested and deleted or they were the names that were technically supposed to delete 6 days prior.

Download your dropping tomorrow list. Wait until tomorrow after the drops and I'm willing to bet that none will be avaible.

PS:

Check your email.

 

[Andrew Shaw]

Linkman, Luc is very good at responding to emails, perhaps you have the wrong email address. PM me for a personal email.

 

[TomCat99]

Given the recent changes to the Drop game over the past few months, we can assume that it will be a rarity to catch a dropped name with traffic. In another user's post (http://www.dnforum.com/f6/damn-just-missed-beauty-today-thread-157483.html?highlight=missed) it has been explained that Enom is now sucking up everything that drops. They then traffic test those names during the 5 day ICANN grace period. The good names that test high for traffic go to auction (or are kept), the rest go to "Drop Deals" where they are marketed for a few days for a flat $10 fee. Anything that makes it past "Drop Deals" and deletes is pretty much guaranteed to be garbage and not have any traffic value.

Using DRT to scan dropped names for traffic is now a mute point. As evident in my last few day's scans, there was basically nothing in the drops of any traffic value.

We will now need to focus more on DRT's other great features to try and find open unreg'd traffic names.

Luc, can you please give us some ideas here? The typo generater, the search engine digger, and the Overture digger are still viable ways to find new names with traffic potential using DRT. We will need lists to feed these DRT functions. Overture w/ext lists, Alexa Top Sites lists, and WordTracker lists come into my mind first, but these lists are pretty expensive to buy on a regular basis. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Luc]

I stopped chasing drops about 4 years ago when the prices started to climb and I've always told all of my clients (who asked) to stay away from the drop game.

Your "best bets" depend on your budget and on your dedication. Most people coming into the domain game expect to get rich quick. It's possible, but you may as well be playing the lottery if that's your purpose in life.

My customers use DRT for an array of tasks including purchasing domains directly from owners, finding never registered domains through the diggers, development, portfolio management, auction tracking, etc.

I can't say, or even suggest "do this or that with DRT" because then everyone would jump on it and that approach would produce useless results. Also, the customers already using that approach and being successful with it would complain. All I can say is that there are a ton of different ways to still make money, and in some cases a lot of money that work.

To be honest with you TomCat, you will never get a straight answer from anyone in the domain business. The reason, those making good money will keep their approach a secret. Those making nothing will give you useless tips that will steer you in the wrong direction. Your best bet, implement your own strategy and keep it to yourself.