LOOKING BACK AT 1 YEAR .UK DROP CATCHING

[ErikL]

One year ago we expanded our CatchTiger drop caching services to the .uk zone and we like to use this opportunity to share some thoughts and stats with you about the UK drop catching market from our perspective. Read the whole article on https://www.catchtiger.com/en/blog/catchtiger-looking-back/

 

[ian]

You've been doing staggeringly well for one year in the .UK space. Your success rate from contested domains has certainly shocked a few of us. All you need to do now is tell us your secret formula Congratulations so far; the concept you've introduced is fresh and clearly working well for you.

Given the votes so far, I wonder if we've all voted 'no' because we are competing catchers.

 

[ErikL]

You've been doing staggeringly well for one year in the .UK space. Your success rate from contested domains has certainly shocked a few of us. All you need to do now is tell us your secret formula Congratulations so far; the concept you've introduced is fresh and clearly working well for you.

Given the votes so far, I wonder if we've all voted 'no' because we are competing catchers.

Hi Ian, thanks for the compliments. I already send you an pm via e-mail with some more information about the different tags that are catching.

 

[gimpydog]

I don't do much uk stuff these days, but your claims don't ring true to me.

Are you really claiming to catch 57% of everything that is any good that drops - or do you catch a lot of stuff that nobody else wants?

If you really do beat 75 other tags, nearly sixty percent of the time, then you are a drop-catching god. Perhaps some of your competitors will chip in & vouch for your claim - I know some of them are stat geeks

Tbh, if gridironuk & paddynash make your top 10, then I am sceptical. Were there no nice generic domains, or short domains dropped in the last twelve months?

Ps. You might want to run this through your translator again...

 

[ErikL]

Hi Gimpydog,

As I mentioned in the blog the catch percentage is based on our data from the last year. Please keep in mind that's only about our data, we don't know anything about domains we didn't try. So yes, we did win 57% of all domains we were trying. Hopefully other Catchers want to share there data to, so we can compare.

 

[martin-s]

To be fair, some of the names in your top 10 list would certainly have been highly competitive. Paddynash has a backlink profile, so perhaps that was the value there.

Edit: boy the backlink profile is spammy mind you.

 

[gimpydog]

So yes, we did win 57% of all domains we were trying.

So how many was that then?

 

[ian]

Are you really claiming to catch 57% of everything that is any good that drops - or do you catch a lot of stuff that nobody else wants?

I would say the later. I guess all Erik can do is base it upon their chase rate. It would be impossible to know what domains they were after had any competition. I've said directly to Erik that the figures are skewed because of this; which is fine, there is no benchmark or post-report to compare too. Some of the pre-bids on there I'd question have any competing chasers, but we'll never know. If it is of interest, based upon what I've been after over the last 12 months, they have caught 6.76%, but again, it is unlikely they were chasing the same as me.

 

[martin-s]

If it is of interest, based upon what I've been after over the last 12 months, they have caught 6.76%

How do other tags compare to that number Ian?

 

[ian]

How do other tags compare to that number Ian?

The figures are massively skewed so the data would be irrelevant. I had removed that percentage as a result, but you quoted it before I had a chance

 

[RobM]

Our catchers get hundreds per month including three 3-letters in the last 2 weeks alone (one today), some generics (one of which I know sold for 4 figures), and catch daily so I know a lot of tags are getting sought after names and a good chunk of them. I wonder how many of those make up that 75. Really the % means nothing - it would be more useful to know how many were chased. If I chase one domain and catch it I can claim 100% success rate but is it really indicative? Don't get me wrong - your results are impressive and I've seen your tag appear on highly chased domains - I have also see it not appear on highly chased domains. That really leads me to wonder what purpose this post serves.

 

[Admin]

Our catchers get hundreds per month including three 3-letters in the last 2 weeks alone (one today), some generics (one of which I know sold for 4 figures), and catch daily so I know a lot of tags are getting sought after names and a good chunk of them. I wonder how many of those make up that 75. Really the % means nothing - it would be more useful to know how many were chased. If I chase one domain and catch it I can claim 100% success rate but is it really indicative? Don't get me wrong - your results are impressive and I've seen your tag appear on highly chased domains - I have also see it not appear on highly chased domains. That really leads me to wonder what purpose this post serves.

I guess it's called marketing Rob. Anyone can do the same and post stats on their catch success rate.

 

[martin-s]

The figures are massively skewed so the data would be irrelevant. I had removed that percentage as a result, but you quoted it before I had a chance

Why are they skewed? If we use you as a "normal" model of a catcher, it'd be interesting to see how many times each other catcher beat you?

 

[ian]

Why are they skewed? If we use you as a "normal" model of a catcher, it'd be interesting to see how many times each other catcher beat you?

That is all it can be, a basis of how successful others were against my own chases; but in that, I wouldn't then be able to include myself as a percentage, because apart from the obvious ones, I wouldn't know how many of those I caught had any other competition at all; equally, there are many contested domains that I cannot chase, for examples of there being more than one on any given day and getting the order wrong.

I have had a quick look though, and based on an undisclosed period of time, on an undisclosed quantity of domains, with a strong mix of both premiums, dictionary and backlink domains, that the highest success rate of any other tag was 7.11%. After that was 6.92%, 6.72%, 5.14%, 4.55%. I've avoided mentioning the tags themselves, 3 are no surprise, 2 are, but then that reflects a similar type of domain we both chase. If I then for arguments sake include myself, I'm catching almost 20%, which kind of concludes why 'personal results' do not reflect the market as a whole, it just tells me that I've been catching a lot of crap in with some decent ones!

Hope that is useful?

 

[gimpydog]

A 'simpler' comparison would be just to compare success rates for catching 1, 2 & 3 letter uk & couk. The sample size is much smaller and, I assume, most catchers are chasing them.

Does anyone know how many dropped or became available in the last year & who caught them?

Perhaps Erik will share his success rate for just those?

 

[ian]

A 'simpler' comparison would be just to compare success rates for catching 1, 2 & 3 letter uk & couk. The sample size is much smaller and, I assume, most catchers are chasing them.

Does anyone know how many dropped or became available in the last year & who caught them?

Perhaps Erik will share his success rate for just those?

Ok I'll bite, based upon L, LL and LLL drops in the past few years, the highest success rate of a single tag is 9.70%, followed by 9.70% (same quantity), 8.48%, 6.06% and 5.45%. This is only from my data though, and I must point out that it only includes catches of the primary domain, i.e. if both the .co.uk and .uk were dropping due to 'right of registration', it only includes the .co.uk; but if the .uk was dropping independently, it has been included. Rob will have much more accurate data than I have.

I feel I might be getting too deep here, hope it makes some sense!

 

[gimpydog]

All Erik can provide is their success rate

Good. Aren't we looking to compare catch-rates, rather than strategies. At the end of the day, that's what Erik's potential customers are interested in.

He came here claiming a 57% catch rate, but what I want to know is his success rate for sought-after domains, not the dross. Probability suggests it will be a single digit number.

Btw, back in the day, if a catcher was getting 57% of the domains worth catching, questions would be asked

 

[martin-s]

You say "dross", but that's what this game is all about. Never has the saying "one man's trash is another man's treasure" been more apt than in domain investing.

I wouldn't register much more than 1% of the names that go through DL - even if they were FTR and someone suggested them to me.

 

[gimpydog]

"one man's trash is another man's treasure"

True.

Currently 85.7% of domain forum members polled do not use a domain acquisition service with a 57.18% success rate.

Go figure.

 

[ian]

He came here claiming a 57% catch rate, but what I want to know is his success rate for sought-after domains, not the dross. Probability suggests it will be a single digit number.

I suspect the majority of their catches are what you'd consider "dross" (I call them non-contested domains), but don't forget they are only chasing domains that someone has determined to have value and therefore have placed a bid on. The same goes for the public catchers we know well, who chase what is ordered. I would imagine in reality, their success rate on contested domains is a single figure percentage, but from my data, they are certainly in the top few tags regardless.