Beta Testing DropCatch.com Private Auctions

Elliot Silver
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19

About a week and a half ago, I noticed a change in one of the headings on DropCatch.com. “Type” was one of the column headings, and I had not seen that before. I reached out to Jeffrey and Andrew Reberry, and they confirmed that the platform would soon allow domain owners to list their domain names for auction.

At some point in the next week or so, I hope to publish an interview with more details about the auction platform. Topics I plan to discuss include how domain investors can list their domain names for sale, safeguards the company is undertaking to protect the integrity of the platform, and information about the mechanics of listing and selling domain names via DropCatch.com.

As Shane Cultra mentioned last week, DropCatch.com is now doing beta testing to work out any bugs. I asked if I could participate in the beta testing, and listed 6 domain names for sale at no reserve beginning today and ending in a week. Depending on the results, I may list additional domain names for sale. For now, here are the 6 domain names I listed for sale today:

I am hopeful that DropCatch.com will become a venue for domain owners to sell their domain names.

FyreFestival.com Domain Name in Auction at DropCatch.com

Elliot Silver
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6

It looks like the Fyre Festival’s domain name, FyreFestival.com, is now in auction at DropCatch.com. If you visit FyreFestival.com, you will be automatically redirected to the auction page, where the high bid is currently $320 with 2 days to go. You can see this was the domain name used by the festival as it is referenced on the Fyre Festival Facebook page (screenshot above).

Interestingly, based on historical Whois records at DomainTools, it does not look like the domain name went through a standard “domain name life cycle.” In May of this year, the Whois record shows that FyreFestival.com was set to expire in November of 2018. For some unknown reason, the domain name seems to have expired prior to when it was supposed to expire in 2018.

A current Whois record shows the domain name

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V.TV Pending Delete: What Will it Sell for at Auction?

Elliot Silver
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22

I am not sure the reason why, but it looks like the single letter V.TV domain name expired and is now in pending delete status. Assuming one of the major drop catching auction houses is able to grab it, the domain name will go to auction tomorrow or Tuesday.

A Whois history search at DomainTools shows me that V.TV had been owned by Future Media Architects. It is unclear why the domain name expired.

I looked at NameBio, and I was able to search for public single letter and single number .TV domain name sales it has recorded. The largest sale is $18,000 for D.TV. The only other single letter .TV sale was the $17,500 sale of E.TV. There were 5 single number .TV sales recorded, ranging from $3,100 to $5,555. Although the volume of reported sales is very low, it is interesting to see that single letter names sold for much more than single number names. Of note is that there hasn’t been a publicly reported single letter / number .tv sale since 2011, so the market has likely changed since then.

I am not entirely sure how

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PuffDaddy.com Expires and Goes to Auction

Elliot Silver
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3

I saw an interesting name coming up for auction on NameJet, which was also mentioned in the DSAD auction list yesterday. PuffDaddy.com expired in late May, and it is set to go into auction this afternoon.  Sean Combs is a famous musician who was once known by the “Puff Daddy” moniker. His nickname has changed over the years (Puffy, P. Diddy, Diddy…etc) but many people would still recognize the Puff Daddy name.

Prior to its expired status, the domain name was registered privately, but before that, it was registered to a business called Puff Daddy Merchandising, Inc. I believe this business was associated with Sean Combs. If this wasn’t some sort of oversight, I think it was a shorted sighted decision to let the domain name expire.

In my opinion, companies and brand owners need to continue to renew domain names that are relevant to their brand, even if they don’t actively market the brand any longer. It is very likely that these domain names will be bought by someone unaffiliated with the brand. The short term cost is

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TrumpCasino.com Expires and Up for Auction (Updated)

Elliot Silver
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1

The TrumpCasino.com domain name, once owned by Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc., has expired and is on auction at GoDaddy Auctions. The expiration was first reported by Jamie Zoch in a tweet this afternoon (with a link to the auction):

TrumpCasino.com was created back in September of 1998, making it nearly 19 years old. For the last few years, the domain name has been privately registered. Prior to the private registration, the domain name was registered to Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc., according to a DomainTools Historical Whois record. Archive.org shows that this domain name had been forwarding to TrumpCasinos.com, which is also registered to Trump Entertainment Resorts. That domain name has not lapsed.

I think this would be a very risky auction for anyone who wishes to monetize the domain name with advertising (or for someone who wants to sell the domain name). The Trump Organization seems

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Your Used, Expired Domain Name Will be Bought

Elliot Silver
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7

I would encourage every business owner, non-profit organization, individual, or any other domain name owner to renew the domain names they use indefinitely. Whether a domain name was used for a commercial website, private information sharing website, or even if it was simply used as a placeholder, it will almost certainly be bought by someone after it expires.

Every day, I scan the list of domain names coming up for auction as pre-release and pending delete. There are a ton of domain names that get auctioned that seem to have no generic meaning. NameJet, GoDaddy Auctions, DropCatch.com, and other expired domain name auction venues seem to sell hundreds (or maybe even thousands) of domain names each day that had been used in the past. Some domain names are bought because the buyer wants to build a business, others are bought for investments, and others are bought to either monetize with advertising or monetize by using for SEO value. I would imagine that nearly every domain name that has been used will be bought by someone else after it expires.

The cost of a domain name renewal is very small. Most domain registrars sell their domain names for less than $15/year. This is a small amount of money when compared to the potential issues a dropped domain name could cause.

Once a domain name expires and is bought by a third party, there

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