Domain Auctions

My Favorite Kind of Sale

Every morning, regardless of where I am or what I have planned for the day, I spend an hour or so looking through lists of expired domain names that are either scheduled to be auctioned or pending delete. I use several different tools to analyze names, including Dropping.pro, ExpiredDomains.net, and personally curated lists using auction platform-provided search tools.

From these lists and tools, I hone in on a small group of domain names I want to buy. Some already have many bids and others have not received any bids that I can see. Using DropCatch and NameJet for pending delete domain names, I place backorders based on my risk tolerance. If I really want a particular name, I place a $79 bid at NameJet and a $59 bid on DropCatch and let them fight it out. For names I am less certain about, I use the Discount Club at DropCatch.

NamesCon 2022 Auction Details

Scott Pruitt from Right of the Dot sent me the details for this year’s upcoming NamesCon domain name auction. The live portion of the auction will take place at the Downtown Omni Hotel on September 1 at 3:00 PM CDT. Wayne Wheat will be conducting the live auction, which is being managed by Right of the Dot.

Here are some of the important details shared with me by Scott:

Bidders may bid in person at the event or by registering to bid online at https://rotd.hibid.com. idders will need to provide a government-issued photo ID to place bids above $2000.
Approximately 100 lots will be selected from the over 700 other active lots for the live event.
NFTs will also be made available in auction for the first time at NamesCon.
Complimentary food and beverages will be served during the event.
An extended online-timed auction will run throught September 15.

The auction page on the HiBid.com website has the domain names that are up for sale. Some of the names listed in auction that were shared with me are Semester.com, NFC.com, Organic.CO, Sims.com, Medium.io, Late.com, and Digest.com.

If you have any questions prior to the auction, you should connect with Scott or Right of the Dot Founder, Monte Cahn.

Medal CEO Comments on Medal.com Acquisition

Shortly after publishing my article about the Medal.com auction on DropCatch.com that ended at $185,728, I saw that my Twitter account had a new follower: Pim de Witte, CEO of Medal. Medal is a platform that allows gamers to record, edit, and share gaming clips and videos. The company uses the Medal.tv domain name for its website. I immediately thought the company was the likely buyer of the domain name.

I reached out to Pim to ask if his company acquired Medal.com at auction, and he confirmed that his company was the winning bidder in the auction.

I asked Pim if he could comment about the acquisition, and here’s what he told me:

Medal.com Sells for Nearly $200k at Auction

Blue chip domain names like Medal.com don’t hit the auction block very often. As I shared on Twitter last weekend, a company called Ciox Health acquired Medal, Inc., which owned the Medal.com domain name. For an unknown reason, the domain name expired. Likely because the name was registered at Gandi, it was deleted rather than auctioned by a partner auction platform.

The beneficiary of this deleted domain name was DropCatch.com, which caught the domain name after it fully deleted. Following a heated auction, the Medal.com domain name sold today for $185,728. Michael Law shared a screenshot of the final auction result:

GoDaddy Change Should Lead to Fewer Auction Refunds

One of the biggest gripes at GoDaddy auctions seems to be the high number of post-auction refunds. If a domain name is registered at a partner domain registrar, auctioned at GoDaddy Auctions, and then renewed by the domain registrant, the auction is canceled and high bidder is refunded. Any time spent on research and bidding is wasted.

Within the last few years, GoDaddy changed its own renewal policy to cut down on post-auction renewals and refunds. From what I understand, if a GoDaddy-registered domain name is not renewed 3 days prior to the start of the expiry auction, the registrant can no longer renew the domain name.

NamesCon Auction Open for Pre-Bidding

Right of the Dot (ROTD) will be operating the live and silent domain name auctions held during NamesCon. Monte Cahn, CEO of ROTD, tweeted that the auction is now open for pre-bidding on the HiBid.com auction platform:

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