GoDaddy

Over the weekend, I noticed the Micro.CO domain name was forwarding to Micro.Company. In the normal course of web browsing, this wouldn’t be surprising, but given the context, it surprised me. GoDaddy Auctions had announced that Micro.CO was included in its NameFind private auctions closing on December 15th:

Looks like https://t.co/ePiQKJvhDN was acquired by @microdotcompany. Interesting that the auction at @godaddyauctions ended yesterday and they're already forwarding the domain name. The name I won (https://t.co/4emG3LaPTX) hasn't been provisioned to me yet. https://t.co/FV8TYTi0iZ

— Elliot Silver (@DInvesting) December 16, 2023

How the heck did the winning bidder manage to secure the domain name in such a short period of time? It generally takes many days for GoDaddy to provision domain names won via GoDaddy Auctions. In addition, I had won a domain name on December 15th, and it was not delivered to my GoDaddy account.

For as long as I can recall, the minimum and opening bid for domain names in expiry auction at GoDaddy Auctions has been $12 + the renewal fee. The minimum bid amount has changed to $25 for domain names entering into auction at GoDaddy Auctions. The change was announced in a blog post on GoDaddy’s website on October 26.

Here’s what GoDaddy wrote about this change:

I had to be a soccer dad on Friday afternoon, and I missed the close of the Accelerator.com expiry auction at GoDaddy Auctions. When I returned, I saw the domain name had sold for $145,050, according to NameBio. When I clicked the auction page link, however, I saw a message that said “Auction cancelled,” which I shared on Twitter to see if someone could shed light on this:

I was following the https://t.co/xbkfsGhcnN auction at @godaddyauctions until I had to leave with 30 minutes remaining. The auction page currently says “auction cancelled” but @NameBio says it sold for $145,050: https://t.co/jADS0tev0L

I reached out to @GoDaddy for clarity. https://t.co/AhIiKV3Pyx pic.twitter.com/H8wx3nlqLR

— Elliot Silver (@DInvesting) October 20, 2023

I reached out to a contact at GoDaddy to ask if the domain name was sold or if the auction was cancelled. A GoDaddy contact replied to me and told me he thought the auction is still valid and awaiting payment.