
Ask HN: How do I auto buy domain names? - thedangler
Hello, I&#x27;m wondering how to automatically by domain names.  It seems like there are companies that swoop in and buy them faster than the manual process.  I can&#x27;t seem to find a reliable way to buy them automatically.<p>Anyone have more insights on this?<p>Edited - fixed title.
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simongr3dal
I understand that no matter what there are going to be some squatters out
there hoping for a chance to strike gold with a unique domain name, or maybe
they are just collectors for some weird reason.

But, please don't make the problem worse by hoarding/snapping dropped domain
names automatically.

~~~
pickle-wizard
I have a nonsensical word that I use for naming things when testing. The other
day I decided to register the domain as sometimes it would be handy to have
some throwaway DNS names for things I'm testing. Well the .com was taken and
on the page they have it listed for sale for $2400. No one is every going to
pay that.

Now that the .dev TLD is GA, I just bought the .dev domain for $12/yr. Works
good enough for my purposes.

I really have a strong dislike for domain squatters. They are literally adding
no value.

~~~
geophertz
Like * drop shipping * trading * and so many other jobs that make money out of
money without benefiting anyone except themselves

~~~
rob_b
That is a completely inept comparison. Domain squatting serves no purpose
other than lining the owner’s pockets in what many would consider an unethical
manner. Domain names are finite and cannot be replaced as a manufactured
product can. A more accurate comparison would be buying every lot of land in
an area, another finite resource, without any intention to use the land for
yourself with the only goal of then marking it up significantly to milk a
potential purchaser without adding any value to the transaction.

~~~
simongr3dal
I know of an owner of a grocery store in a small town where I used to live, he
bought a few lots of land here and there in the surrounding area such that
there wasn't any contigous area big enough for a competing store to be.

It was a small town of maybe 500 people, and the nearest city was 6 miles
away.

~~~
rob_b
I’m not too sure which one I would consider worse. That approach would be
similar to buying every desirable domain containing a certain keyword when you
operate within the same market. I personally believe the way to beat out
competitors in a market is by the quality of service and value added, not by
utilizing an artificial barrier that prevents anyone else from entering. I can
understand his approach even if I don’t necessarily agree with it. Although, I
also believe that competition is better for any market.

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Finbarr
Buy a tag and become a registrar[1] with your target TLDs. Try to colocate
your servers with the registry you are targeting. This gives you root level
access to the registry and you'll have lower latency than a lot of the
dropcatchers. It used to cost about $100k a year to get a .com tag, but I'm
not sure nowadays. The fees vary by registry. Every time you setup a dropcatch
or use a registrar, you are adding an extra service between yourself and the
registry where the domains are actually registered.

[1] [https://www.verisign.com/en_US/channel-resources/become-a-
re...](https://www.verisign.com/en_US/channel-resources/become-a-
registrar/verisign-domain-registrar/index.xhtml)

~~~
howard941
This sounds like the best answer. Becoming a registrar allows you to do other
cool (questionable) things like domain tasting.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting)

~~~
gcb0
And from yesterdays frontpage article, all the cool kids are doing it!

> As messages pointing to one particular web site would quickly get blocked by
> spam filters, RX Limited would open up new sites. Initially the new domains
> were purchased individually from domain sellers such as GoDaddy, until RX
> Limited set up its own domain seller, ABSystems, allowing RX Limited to
> spawn new domains on a much larger scale. --
> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Le_Roux#RX_Limited](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Le_Roux#RX_Limited)

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rafaelm
I used to do this and I would just place orders with the top dropcatching
services:

    
    
      - snapnames.com
      - namejet.com (I think orders placed on NJ are now also added to Snapnames)
      - pool.com
      - dropcatch.com
      - pheenix.com
    

If you want .io domains, park.io

Place orders on all of them and just wait.

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dhruvkar
Mike Carson hints at his methods for this in interviews on how he built
Park.io.

Basically lots of custom scripts to try and buy dropped domains using
registrar API (i think gandi.net has one). The skill was in increasing the
speed of these scripts. Apparently he and another person competed for dropped
domains by speeding up their scrapers.

1\. [https://www.failory.com/interview/park-
io](https://www.failory.com/interview/park-io) 2\.
[https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/034-mike-carson-of-
park...](https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/034-mike-carson-of-park-io) 3\.
[https://saasclub.io/podcast/million-dollar-saas-mike-
carson/](https://saasclub.io/podcast/million-dollar-saas-mike-carson/)

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petercooper
If you mean domains that expire, I've used
[https://www.snapnames.com/](https://www.snapnames.com/) several times over
the years to do this with success each time. park.io, mentioned below, is also
good but not so useful for .coms.

~~~
epc
Seconding snapnames.com. I've been using it since 2007 to grab interesting
domains when they expire. You can place bids on registered domains and they
just wait until the domain expires. My favorite thing is to track acquisitions
of companies with interesting domain names and bid on them. Inevitably the
acquiring company stops using the domain and lets it expire.

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77yy77yy
The top dogs like HugeDomains own hundreds of registrars and using their
connections to chase domains. These are not resellers, the registrars are
there only to catch domains. Your chance of winning the drop game is near zero
if they want it.

If you want to scoop up free names, there's lots of bulk tools on registrars
to let you buy in bulk.

[http://domainincite.com/21309-dropcatch-spends-millions-
to-b...](http://domainincite.com/21309-dropcatch-spends-millions-to-buy-five-
hundred-more-registrars)

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pytyper2
No but your question made me think of this: Someone recently tried to scam be
by offering to sell a domain similar to one I already own. The message I
received wanted 200 USD, a reasonable price for a domain that was owned and
unavailable to purchase for years, I had even attempted to contact the owner
and received no response. Instead of responding to the 200 USD offer, I pulled
the domain up in aws, it was available, I clicked buy immediately for 12 USD.

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
A lot of Spammers do this same thing, but send that first email out a couple
weeks in advance of the domain expiring so it looks more legitimate.

If you agree to buy, then they buy on expiration and sell to you for the
higher price.

If you agree, but then the actual owner renews they just ignore you. And if
they aren't totally evil return your payment.

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pepijndevos
I used to work for Freenom, and while they have a policy against domain
squatting for free tk/ml/ga/cf domains, they have an API that lets you buy
domains from any other TLD at cost price.

Freenom themselves make money from ads on residual traffic after free domains
expire.

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mindcrime
I'm sure there are other ways, but I believe Route 53 has API support for
domain registration. So you could write code to do this for you, based on
whatever your criteria are. Not sure if they have any tld limitations that
might be a problem or not...

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sergiotapia
I snagged sergio.dev in the dutch auction when it fell in price using
Gandi.net - maybe they offer a snatching service?

I picked what price point I wanted to buy it at, and they auto-purchased for
me.

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william203
You can choose a different company to buy a new domain. But you suggest a
domain name similar to your work.

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nik736
There is [https://park.io](https://park.io)

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mprev
Why do you want to do this?

