The most popular auction events in the last year have been the monthly .AI expiry auctions held by the .AI registry in Anguilla. Apparently, there has been a dearth of non-paying bidders who participate in these auctions. As a result, the .AI registry is making a change.
Vincent Cate, the person who manages the .AI registry on behalf of Anguilla, announced two changes that are being made with the hope of discouraging and/or eliminating the number of non-paying bidders:
.AI domain names have become a popular topic of late. Some of the most popular domain industry auctions these days are the monthly expiry auctions operated by the .AI ccTLD registry.
Sedo just announced it will be hosting its own auction featuring .AI domain names:
.AI #domains are more in demand than ever, because nobody can ignore the importance of #artificialintelligence anymore.
It's the best time to sell your #AI domain(s)! 🤖
Become part of our auction and apply now: https://t.co/SnCTVA5gNq pic.twitter.com/WMsyfyGyBz
— Sedo (@Sedo) March 14, 2024
Millions of dollars are spent each year acquiring expired and expiring domain names at auctions. Domain name registrants let their domain names expire, and people – including domain investors – will bid on them when they are offered for sale via auction or drop catching platform.
There is a segment of domain name buyers who seek out expired domain names for SEO purposes. They may either try to build a website on an expired domain name to capitalize on traffic from inbound links, or they may choose to redirect the domain name to another website for the “SEO juice” given off by these expired domain names.
Elad Nof shared a screenshot that auction participants at NameJet and SnapNames should note:
Here we go again 🤦♂️ pic.twitter.com/jHZRlU7N9l
— Elad (@EladNof) March 4, 2024
When you look at the title of this blog post, the spelling of this domain name coming up for auction is obvious. If you look at it in all lower case though, lnvestor could appear to be Investor. When browsing through auction lists quickly, I can imagine why someone might get confused. A quick glance along with tens of other bidders with backorders and others might follow suit.
Earlier this week, I bought my first .AI domain names. I have been looking at aftermarket options, but my level of risk tolerance for these domain names is below what it would take to purchase anything worthwhile right now. As a result, my first .AI domain names were hand registrations.
The alternatives to hand registering domain names are aftermarket acquisitions or expiry auctions operated by the .AI registry.
DropCatch.com will be undergoing some maintenance later on today. As a result, auctions that were expected to conclude today during this time period will end on Tuesday instead. The note on the top of the website provides the update:
“DropCatch will be undergoing routine maintenance on Monday, January 8th between 2:00PM and 6:00PM Mountain Time. The site will be unavailable during this time. Auctions scheduled to end on Monday will be extended until Tuesday, January 9th.”
