By: Raymond Hackney
Go Daddy Auction Changes
Today Go Daddy changed the time increments for bidding on their auctions. Auctions now
will extend 10 minutes for bids placed in the last 10 minutes. I spoke to Paul Nicks at Go Daddy today and he said they wanted to improve the bidder experience and give them more than 2 minutes to get their bids in.
You may also notice that when you have a name on your watch list and click through to see the data after it closes its no longer there. We always pasted the names in our Daily Sales Recap so that you can see things like traffic, age and the bidding history.
Now when you click through that data is no longer kept, you will see the following: We're sorry, but the domain name you are looking for is no longer available through auction.
Try searching for another domain name.
Paul Nicks said this was done for data storing reasons and not having to store all those past auctions allowed for faster loading times in your watch history.
I also asked Paul what Go Daddy did about non paying bidders, since last week we had the talk about naming and shaming with a deadbeat Sedo buyer. Paul said that Go Daddy closes the membership of the deadbeat buyer and that after that the seller is on their own to go after payment.
I respect Paul and appreciate him being straightforward, however I also don’t really think these changes are beneficial to anyone.
You basically have (2) options now –
1.) Stick around wasting time as an auction keeps extending.
2.) Enter a higher proxy bid and trust anonymous bidding.
Neither option is that appealing to me.
If this is the new standard going forward I will just take the majority of my domain investment capital elsewhere. I suspect some other people might do the same.
Brad
Thank you for commenting Brad,in speaking with him they saw that the hour with the .info and .org auctions brought about more bids. So its in the hopes of getting more bids and probably for a new person or non domainer its a benefit, for the domainer who knows Go Daddy inside and out its probably a hassle and will have people get frustrated.
Brad you are correct in your assessment, this is too long.
Ughh 10 minutes is to long, people have jobs, lives, nobody wants to sit around waiting 2 hours for a $5 auction increment war…
Thanks for the comments Thadeus and Ron
Honestly I can’t believe it took them this long to change it. Before you could place a bid at 2 minutes 10 seconds and no time was added to the total. So by the time the email was sent to the first bidder the auction would already be over. Which I am sure equated to hundreds of emails from pissed off original owners of domains trying to get their name back after they let it expire accidentally.
Those that used this time tactic it hurts but now being able to extend auctions to infinity will see lower overall prices on domains and people playing long drawn out waiting game auctions. Godaddy thinks they helped themselves but I think it will actually hurt their bottom line in lower auction prices. People don’t have time to sit and play a waiting game and Godaddy loses that “bidding frenzy” which equates to higher than normal prices. In the end its a “Lose” situation for Godaddy.
Some good points there Todd,thank you for commenting.
Hey don’t fell bad, I won an auction that did was not paid by the original bidder with GD.
They gave me 24 hours to pay but it ended up pulled from the account in less than 12 hours for no reason at all. It was a x,xxx value name. I have copies of everything. I wonder if they are removing all old information from the accounts.
I am just going to laugh when this all catches up to them.
Godaddy auctions are notoriously bad. I could list a lot of them, but the one that is the worst is when you actually win an auction, you pay for it, and then a week later Godaddy sends you an email and says “we apologize but your domain has been renewed by the original owner”. This is crazy how they can auction a virtually deleted domain, put it for sale (by Godaddy, not the original owner) and then once you pay for it or place a bid on it previously, they renew it for a year based on your bid and then give it to a person that didn’t win it in the auction.
Wow. This is bad news. 10 minutes is too much. 5 minutes would sound a lot better. I agree with others, I don’t want to sit for two hours following an auction. Also, most of the time you follow several auctions while having a specific budget to spend that day. 8 minutes extend was one of several reasons why I hate SnapNames.
GoDaddy, Please think it again.
@ John
you have to understand how the Godaddy auction process works for it to make sense. When you have a name registered at Godaddy they give the original owner until the 18th to renew the name. If you are a preferred account holder who has 100s of names they will then give you an extra 7 days to renew at just renewal fee. So now we are up to day 25 after expiration. On day 26 if I don’t renew the name it starts the auction process where anyone can bid on the domain and if nobody bids on it the domain will then become a closeout domain on day 36 were anyone can buy it but if I am the original owner and at anytime during the auction process whether it be during bidding or while the name is in closeout status I can pay what is called a “redemption fee” of $80 and the name is put back into my account and whoever else had thought that they won the name or bought the name in closeout is refunded their money. The only time the domain will become yours 100% is on day 42 after the expiration date. Once this day comes the original owner has no way of getting the domain back and it becomes yours completely. It sucks sometimes, but thats the way it works.
10 minutes is too long. This would extend the good expiring domain auction for several hours!
I agree with Todd – “Auctions now will extend 10 minutes for bids placed in the last 10 minutes” means that a bid place 9 minutes before auction end will change the remaining time to 19 minutes!
Actually Todd you have until day 45 and Go Daddy will send you an auth code and you can transfer away for $$8 to another registrar.
Yes I know you can get the code and transfer away but I don’t think your average domain owner would understand that so I didn’t say it. I’ve renewed lots of names and bought lots of names off Godaddy auctions site and its always been day 42 but you got me wondering so I found this on their site to confirm
Note: A registrant can renew an expired domain name at no extra cost up to day 18. If they renew an expired domain name anytime between day 19 and day 42, they must also pay an $80.00 redemption fee. The domain name cannot be renewed after day 42.
Maybe they changed the policy but this straight from their site. Here is the link
http://support.godaddy.com/help/article/6700/what-happens-after-domain-names-expire?pc_split_value=2
Paul Nicks left in the comments here of the interview I did with him.
On the 42nd day we will cancel the domain name if no other customer has expressed an interest in it via either the auction system or a Go Daddy backorder. If, however, a customer has expressed an interest via either of these platforms we will move the domain to their account on day 43. Since the domain is still in the Go Daddy ecosystem we do allow, in rare circumstances, the original registrant to get the domain back via our redemption system up until day 45 which signifies the end of the grace period.
Our help documentation (http://support.godaddy.com/help/article/608/what-is-your-process-for-handling-expired-domain-names?locale=en) specifies day 42 for deletion because our registrants need to understand that if they do not redeem prior to that date they could lose their domain forever. However, we will continue to err on the side of the registrant when it comes to the edge cases where a domain owner calls asking whether they can get their domain back after day 42.
I hope that helps ease any confusion around this topic.
-Paul
“Since the domain is still in the Go Daddy ecosystem we do allow, in rare circumstances, the original registrant to get the domain back via our redemption system up until day 45 which signifies the end of the grace period.”
What would constitute as “Rare Circumstance” that they would give the name back to you? It seems like they may or may not give it back to you between days 42 and 45. Doesn’t seem to clear to me so I’ll stick to 42.
Good info that I did not know Raymond.
You make a very good point Todd, I did ask exactly that what would be the rare case, and that is everytime there is a name that gets a bid or buy it now in closeout. So if there is a bid it is always until day 45. Paul said the name is not yours as a bidder where you can feel safe until day 46.
Great info
Thanks Todd and thank you for your contributions, it would be nice if it were simple and defined, this is the day you win the domain, no worrying about transfers or anything else.