Hosted Dropcatching Vs. Own Script? Will Pay For Help

[manny]

Hi all

Great forum, and great to be part of this community.

So I'm new to dropcatching. In the last few weeks I've managed to catch a few domains though with a very poor success rate. The ones I caught were nothing special, and I suspect I could have registered them for free the day after (just wanted to be on the safe side)

I've mainly used Caught.co.uk for this - really put off by this service because of the poor customer support.

It seems like all the good domains I am going after are being caught by private catchers - I've been checking the Whois for them and I'm seeing a pattern with familiar names.

So this leaves me with one option really..To become a registrar.

From what I've been reading on here, I have 2 options after that:

1) Hosted dropcatching - with services like DomainView and DropSystem

2) Writing my own script and doing everything myself

I'm considering both at the moment. When I do something, I like to take it seriously so I do it properly. I'm willing to invest money in both options 1) and 2) but not sure which one would be better for me right now.

Does anyone have any experience with hosted dropcatching, and if so, how successful is it? Better than Public dropcatching services?

And...

Does anyone have any experience with private catching using their own script. Would anyone be willing to share their script or put me in the right direction? I'm happy to pay for help on this.

I employ a website developer, with the correct information, would he be able to code this script or is it something that only a domain specialist could do?

TO SUMMARISE

My post is getting a little long. I'm really wanting to hear from anyone who does hosted dropcatching or 100% private dropcatching. If anyone has tried both, please share your experience...

If you think you could help me in either of these, feel free to post below or drop me a PM.

I suspect I won't get all the information I would need for free - so if anyone has good experience and is happy to consult, I'd be happy to pay.

Look forward to your thoughts

Manny

 

[grantw]

Hosted catching is basically the same as private catching but you won't have access to the script to make your own changes etc. so yes, hosted should be a lot better than public because you're using all your resources on just the domains you are going for. Obviously that all depends on how good the hosted script is.

The basics of writing your own script is simple but to make it competitive can take months/years of tinkering and experimenting, so it's highly unlikely anyone will share decent information with you.

If you want it easy go with hosted, if you want a big challenge and possible major glory then do it yourself. Either way, you'll need to be a Nominet member and pay for DAC access which is an initial £600+ outlay before you start.

some reading:

http://registrars.nominet.org.uk/namespace/uk/registration-and-domain-management/query-tools/dac

http://registrars.nominet.org.uk/na...n-and-domain-management/registrar-systems/epp


Grant

 

[martin-s]

Several of the private catchers on here will occasionally offer free slots. That might be the best value option?

What technologies are you experienced in otherwise?

 

[monaghan]

If you want to write your own system, take a good long read of every thread mentioning it, you'll find all the technical info you need, however, as to individual tweaks and where to host and so on is often the difference between success and failure. Getting to the point where you can respond to a domain dropping is quite easy, being 1st past the post with the registration request is where the fun starts

The links above will give you the DAC & EPP detail. In very simple terms you just loop stuffing names into the DAC and when you get a "not registered" you push out an EPP CREATE and bingo (or mostly get a "Domain Already Exists" response)

 

[manny]

Thanks for your thoughts Grant, Martin and Monaghan...

Actually second thoughts...maybe not the best idea to try and come up with this new "magical" script. Who am I kidding? Sounds like it will take a lot of tweaking, investment and time to be able to compete with the guys who have already been established for years!

Which leaves me with the other option of the hosted solution.

Does anyone have any experience with DomainView and DropSystem?

Aside from that, teaming up with successful private catchers!

I've already had a couple of PMs...if you've got a script and are getting good success. Drop me a PM and let's see if we can work something out

Would appreciate any further thoughts on this - particularly on the hosted option

 

[martin-s]

The technical elements of catching are not the hardest bit of being a successful domain investor. Sales skills and an eye for what makes a domain valuable are much more important.

It's definitely worth having (if not writing) your own script and DAC allowance, particularly if you already need decent hosting for other projects.

 

[ian]

The technical elements of catching are not the hardest bit of being a successful domain investor. Sales skills and an eye for what makes a domain valuable are much more important.

Would agree with you there, only have to look at recent sales on DL (albeit it is a domainer to domainer sale outlet really), examples tyson £300, luis £96 and I think operate went for some silly low number too. You'd normally be trying like hell to catch these types of domains, only for them to return very little.

I've had domains booked with around 10 of the major public catchers and had no luck. Starting to believe the only route to success is private script, or that offered by the two main providers already mentioned (which come highly recommended).

 

[martin-s]

The domain industry is a funny one. It is a stock-led business, but instead of the cost of storage, you have the cost of renewals.

So there are three schools of thought:

1) You wait until you get 'value' for the domains you sell - and accept that you're probably going to hold considerable amounts of stock. This is a self-perpetuating model because the more domains you hold, the more you need each to sell for to make your effort financially viable.

2) You take a turnover led approach and acknowledge that selling a domain is almost always 'profitable'. In most other retail industries, you'd be happy with a 50% margin. In domain names, even if you set your minimum at £50 you're getting 1,000% on a 2-year registration (assuming you catch with your own script and write off the catching overheads against other projects you have).

3) You focus on the real value - targeting a particular niche and developing the domains yourself. Probably in combination with options 1 and 2, because you'll catch more domains than you can ever develop.

I've always thought that the secret to becoming wealthy is to focus your efforts on developing assets which earn and appreciate in a way not directly related to your ongoing effort. Options 2 and 3 fit pretty well with this, and you can always sit on the occasional premium domain waiting for the big bucks too.

 

[signature]

I do agree with Martin-S, I myself just look into the second level of the domain business model.
The guys with the script do a good job and secure these names, they will bring it to the market, most of the time Domainlore or Sedo and get paid, sometimes it's a big payday and sometimes they get low income like Luis.co.uk. Another factor to Domainlore sales price is demand, if you have two people that wants a name badly, they will go for high price and if you don't have much interest on the day, it goes for low price. Domainlore is mainly a market for domain traders and sometimes get end users but not often.

I think Martin-S analogy is correct, most domain catchers follows model 2 while I think a combination of 1 and 3 is probably where most of us will fall into.