So I've been on the war path the last week, brainstorming my first full fledged 'branded affiliate' scheme in years (I'll update you in the members section when I get time, but it's a good one) and I kept running into a site in google search that made my stomach sink every time I happened to run into it, which happened occasionally.
But basically, it was exactly what I wanted to do... except it was dead, images broken, 0 items in stock - cyberjunk. It begged the question: what the hell happened here. I found a wiki article saying the parent company got caught up in a real life criminal murder case and the site and company basically shut down abruptly. But it also looks like they knew the value of what they built and didnt want to tear it down, hoping they could sell it(?) start it back up later(?) or simply use it for linkjuice, which might very well be the case because the network does have some live sites. So I walk away...
Last night I run into it again in search but now its a godaddy page. I decide its worth a backorder, so I order it, thinking godaddy sells only one (if they are the registrar) and as soon as it drops I get it - which is wrong. Later, I go back to the domain again but the old version is still in my cache, and I get very confused, thinking the owner renewed it, so I look up the whois and see this:
Status:
clientDeleteProhibited
clientRenewProhibited
clientTransferProhibited
clientUpdateProhibited
Updated:2012-07-26
Created:2006-07-25
Expires:2013-07-25
Sponsor:GODADDY.COM, LLC
...and that REALLY confused me, because it looks like the domain is in good order (which is what I saw 2 weeks ago just snooping around) so I called Godaddy up. Apparently they jack with the records a bit and they also said that more than one person can backorder the domain. They said if the owner does not renew, then it will go to auction and godaddy will bid $10 on it for me and I would be able to bid from there.
Well, I woke up to an email that said that just happened, and I looked, and there is only one bidder, me. I believe the domain owner still has time to claim it, but it now will cost them $80, and many don't but if its an oversight, these guys will. I would have to think a PR3 domain is just going to be purchased for PR by anyone, if it is not renewed, so I'm anticipating last minute sniping, but I have no idea. It ends in 10 days and I'd love to have that domain...
Here is some info:
"site:domain.com" pulls up 321,000 results - these guys are pretty serious SEOs. This is one of 4 similar sites.
"link:domain.com" pulls up only 12 results but they are all from 2 other hardcore SEOed and networked sites, all owned by the same company
"domain.com" pulls up about 56,300 results, but again lots of networked related sites.
Statscrop stats (http://www.statscrop.com/)
Web Age: 6 years
Alexa Rank: #3,640,080
Pagerank: 3
SEO Score: 50.9% (How to optimize)
Daily Visitors: 61
Daily Pageviews: 122
Daily Bandwidth: 30.60 MB (948.74 MB/month)
Daily Revenue: $1 USD
...so basically I think something bad happened, they wound things down, but aren't paying hyper attention anymore, and they will most likely catch it and renew within 10days. I assume godaddy will even call them, who knows. If they don't then I may have to fight off other bidders. This isn't THAT competitive an industry from an SEO standpoint online, but there is big money in it. However, it's not easy to just jump right in, so only the real bottom feeders willing to adsense anything would be interested in something this niche.
Does anyone have any experience with these auctions? Is there any sniping software I can use to ensure I get this name? Any service offered by Godaddy?
EDITED
I would have recommend www.domainface.com but looks like they've been brought out by www.protrada.com
Looking around their site though there seems to be a bid manager module you could use.
Oh and have you brought your membership to buy domains from the godaddy auctions? http://support.godaddy.com/help/article/1505/purchasing-membership-to-go-daddy-auctions
It's not necessary to buy now but if it's a website I really wanted, well... it could be another thing to go wrong at that curial moment.
You will have other bidders. Last time I looked PR3s were going for 45 or so and up depending on the domain. If it has other real link value it can go into the hundreds, but that's probably the high end.
There's a counter for the number of views for each domain auction and it increases every time someone refreshes the screen, not per IP lookup. This will include sniper software as well. That's normally a good indication to how popular the domain is going to be towards the end of the auction.
Killer. Thx for the tips, I'll let you know how we do...
I just got outbid, so I came back here to start following the sniping links. I also set up a few alerts on my phone just in case.
But I don't see any reason to re-bid right now. Might as well wait to see where it goes, without drawing attention to it any more than needed.
Quote08/26/2012 05:36:28 AM (PDT) 08/29/2012 01:41:00 PM (PDT) Bidder 2 $15
Comment: Proxy Bid
...ah, so the reason you don't see sniping software (I hear) is if a bid comes in, in the last few minutes, they extend the auction. This proxy option basically does the same thing as sniping software then. Set a max amount and walk away.
Quote
Price:$115
Sale Type:Expiring Auction
Age:6yr
Number of Bids:9
Category(s):Expired - Expired
Reserve Price:No Reserve
...I put a $150 proxy bid in and the other bot ended at $110, bid is now $115.
>sniping software (I hear) is if a bid comes in, in the last few minutes, they extend the auction. This proxy option basically does the same thing as sniping software then.
Snipe and proxy, if you really want it make the gap between the two fairly large.
all you need is the proxy, apparently.... if anyone bids higher than you it automatically fires off a bid just higher than them. I have a problem if it goes over 150 but I'll be watching with more money and when a few hours left I'll up my top bid. I just didn't want to get into a bidding war with anyone for too long.
But I actually never really found much on the sniping software because if anyone bids at the last moment it can extend the auction - or at least thats what I read.
Best to slide your bid in right before the increment will increase, 2 mins iirc.
I went up to $510 last night and the other proxy kept going... I was willing to pay more later today (5 hrs from now) but I think I found a product builder that might be perfect for the same project and it costs $2k+ so I decided I'd let this one slide and use the money on development instead.
Plus it was part of a massive SEO network, and now the whole thing is broken and floating around cyberspace drawing wasted clicks. At some point the other sites will lapse or be updated and the juice will stop flowing, or the whole network will get axed in an google purge.
And I already have a few names I like, and as soon as I get something at least functional up, I'll hire you again to blast my url out with that crazy software of yours, and I'll even the score with them:) So let them have the leftovers. I just added 5 Benjamins to their bill at no cost to me, so it's not like I'm off any worse from our first scrap in the SERPs:)
Thanks for the advice though, always appreciated...
yeah the auction can be extended which I thought was wrong, if it has a closing time then that should be the time but it ended a good 15 minutes later
I bid on a domain last year and what I was willing to pay and what I ended up bidding up to but still lost it was more than double and half added again, only consolation is the guy who bought it paid a lot more than he could of bought the name for as it was just us 2 bidding at the end
in between time the domain now points to a large paving manufacturer so it could of been someone bidding on their behalf