NFIB

The 6:30 a.m. Domain Gold Rush
05/ 03/ 2004

The 6:30 a.m. domain gold-rush

by Lee Hodgson

If you weren't able to register the domain name you wanted for your company's Web site, you might have a second chance. Domain names are registered for a fixed period of time; when it's time for renewal, many registrants don't. The name is put on hold for 60 days and once that period expires, the name is placed on a six-day countdown, and given the status of "soon to drop." The name is then available for anyone to register at precisely 6:30 a.m. (EST) on the sixth day after the name becomes "soon to drop."

Thousands of domain speculators are clogging up the world's registration systems trying to register domains that the old owners didn't want. I talked to Alex Kovalenko, the founder of DomainsBot.com, a firm which specializes in tracking on-hold and "soon to drop" domains.

"Although the majority of on-hold domains have little or no resale value, there are often hundreds of names dropping each week that do," he said. "We track all of the thousands of on-hold domain names, and inform our members when they are going to drop. In particular, we alert our members to particularly valuable names about to drop."

Kovalenko is right when he says that valuable names drop each week. Recently dropped names include valuable three letter dotcoms such as jcw.com, sfi.com and bsb.com. These types of domains sell in the resale market for anything up to $100,000. In addition, many generic two-word dotcoms also become available again. A few recent examples include winterbreak.com, knockout.com, stockdealing.com, and travelshop.com.

Currently, the on-hold domain industry is booming. The number of on-hold domains is increasing weekly, and the number of people interested in registering on-hold domains is also on the increase. Kovalenko offers one explanation for this: "At the beginning of last year there was a massive explosion in the number of people speculatively registering domains. Many of these people registered hundreds of domains because they thought doing so would make them rich. A year later, and reality has hit home. Many are choosing to give up the names rather than pay huge renewal bills. All these names come back into the system, and the best ones are picked off by the savvy domain speculator."

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This article originally appeared in the July/August 2001 issue of MyBusiness Magazine, NFIB's member magazine.

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