A History Of The Backorder, Then and Now

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All this talk about backorders has me reminiscing about the days of old, I remember when the first companies and registrars started grabbing expiring domains and offering backorder services and auctions. Probably the first registrar to start grabbing expiring domains was Signature Domains, this was in late 2000 early 2001 when Kevin Ham approached the registrar with his newfound knowledge about grabbing expiring domains, he worked out some kind of deal and Signature started competing with Yun Ye and a few others for expiring names, in retrospect it was a very smart move.

The first company to offer a service to grab expiring domains for the public was SnapNames, this was in late 2000 early 2001 also. I remember reading about Snap and I thought I would try the service, I was one of the few people that had figured out how to get decent expiring names at that time but I had a dial-up connection so I had a hard time competing with some of the others for the really good names, so I figured I would give SnapNames a shot, I assumed they could do better than I could, the only downside was now I would have to pay Snap $35 for a name instead of a $10 reg fee, but the names that were dropping at that time were worth much more than $35, no doubt.

So I backordered a few names at Snap and they didn’t get any, not one, as a matter of fact I even beat them out on a few with my slow dial-up connection, so I was a little disappointed in their service, why start a drop catching service if you can’t grab a domain? I assumed if they were starting this service they could at least compete with the few other folks that were getting these names, no registrars were competing yet, but their service wasn’t getting any names.

So one day in January 2001 I saw a name dropping that I really wanted, it was MedicineDirect.com, I called Snap and said to the guy “MedicineDirect.com is dropping in the morning and I put in a backorder and I want it bad, so work hard to get this name”, the guy at Snap replied that nobody knows when expiring domains drop, it is random, so how could I say this name would drop in the morning?

I couldn’t believe what this guy was saying, only a few folks had figured out the drop cycle of expiring domains and I was told by others when they saw I figured it out to keep it a secret, and why wouldn’t I, very valuable domains were expiring so why would I want any more competition than I already had, and now I had just accidentally let the cat out of the bag to SnapNames, oops, I just assumed if they were starting a backorder service they knew when the domains dropped, they didn’t until then, my bad, anyway after that Snap started getting some decent domains, they didn’t get my MedicineDirect.com backorder though unfortunately.

It was about this same time that Kevin Ham let Signature Domains in on this little secret, this was upsetting to the small group that were getting all these names up until then, including me, but all is fair in love and war and this was war, if I remember correctly the first really good name they grabbed was Performance.com in February 2001. Kevin Ham and I had been communicating alot before this as we were both trying to figure out how to grab an expiring domain, Kevin had DNSIndex.com that offered lists of expiring domains, he just didn’t know how to get one yet, neither did I but I was getting his lists anyway and trying to figure it out.

A funny side note is Kevin sent me a check for something, I can’t remember what, but he called me and asked if I would please not deposit the check for a few days, I told him I had already deposited it, the check came back NSF lol, that’s right Kevin Ham wrote me a bad check, it was not his intent and he made good immediately but it is a funny story now, I bet Kevin Ham is not writing any bad checks these days, now he is “The Man That Owns The internet“.

This brought the next phase which was registrars getting in the expiring name game, the first was Dotster’s Namewinner.com, they basically created the current auction model, if you wanted a name you would put in a pre bid and if they got the name it went to auction, whoever backordered the domain got to bid, high bidder got the name, I wrote a post about Namewinner.com a few months back when the domain showed up in my expired domains list. Snap later adopted this auction platform also, but they started with the “First Come, First Serve” model at $35 a name, lol.

Now we have lots of companies offering these services, NameJet.com really shines these days, SnapNames.com is still rolling along, Pool.com, Name.com, Pheenix.com, GoDaddy.com, Dynadot.com, Epik.com, and more. For pending delete domains, domains that have expired and are definitely dropping as opposed to a pre-release, all these companies have an equal chance, what makes the difference is their scripts, talent, and a few other complicated back end things. NameJet.com has really done well but now I also see Pheenix.com is becoming a very worthy competitor and it looks like Epik.com, controversial as they might be, are in the game now too.

I posted the other day about Name.com getting Mouthwash.com for a $50 backorder fee, no auction, they offer backorders on a first come first serve basis so only one person can BO a domain and if they get the name it’s the BO holders for only $50, but they have a hard time competing with NameJet and some of the others so usually a Name.com BO on a good dropping .com ends in a refund, this I why I was so surprised to see they picked up Mouthwash.com.

I also posted about Epik.com getting CNM.com the other day, I had not seen Epik.com pick up any names of this caliber so I was surprised to see this also, they say they did not get it as posted here but regardless of whether Epik keeps domains for themselves or gets them for one of their BO holders, they and their partner registrars are looking like contenders now.

Stay tuned for “Why Kevin Ham Owns Mark.com and I Don’t”…