Grabbing Expired Domains

[applesofgold]

How hard is it to grab expired domains? I have my eye on a domain that is expiring in 3 days, but I don't think it's quite that simple. Doesn't it go through months of waiting to become available?

Is there an easy way to grab domains that are set to expire? Are the services that offer this type of service good? And who do you guys recommend?

[StreamlineMetrics]

I buy most of my expired domains through GoDaddy Auctions. Once you win an auction, it typically takes 4-5 days before the domain name is transferred to your account.

Also, I use www.registercompass.com to evaluate expired domain names.

[loopyal]

The ease of grabbing an expired domain depends on many things.

If nobody else wants it, then it is easy.

The first time I did one, several years ago, I failed.

You pay the money and it gets you a backorder credit, that lasts for a whole year. If you fail, you try another one, because you don't lose the credit until one of two things happens - you get a domain or your credit expires.

On my third try, I did get a domain.

I also tried another method before using backorder - I wrote to the existing owner, - he didn't even know it had expired. He wanted $1500 for it, and I said it was too much for me. He renewed it. He still has it, and has never done anything with it. That was a bad move on my part, because its not likely anyone else was interested in it. That is what made me try the backorder method for other domains.

Godaddy backorder is now $20.99 - I do them for $18.95

It is about $8.99 for private backorder.

In my system, I think you can also request a refund if you fail to get the domain you wanted and you don't want any others. Godaddy is probably the same.

[icecarats]

I think it goes that after the initial expiry date there's a two week 'grace' period where the original owner can renew, and then another period. This article explains it all, though it's from 2005:

http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2005/03/how-to-snatch-an-expiring-domain

I've never actually sniped an expired domain but to be frank I haven't tried that often either. The impression I get is if a domain is actually valuable there's an army of domain squatters/speculators out there who can snag them way better than I.

[Francisco_Meza]

I have never done a backorder, but I agree with kjay. You can go to GoDaddy and pay for the backorder service. However, I think it's $20.

Maybe you should find where it is registered and ask them.

[SEOKeith]

It depends, if it's a .com you are going to be waiting a month at least probably 2, same for a .co.uk

You can use godaddy to back register domains then as soon as the domain is available it will register it for you, I think it costs around $10 per domain.