It’s no secret to anyone active in the expired auction scene that Huge Domains and their bot are a big deal on GoDaddy auctions.
A thread titled, HUGE DOMAINS SNIPING GODADDY CLOSEOUTS got things going on Namepros. The thread has 21,000 views and 430 replies.
It’s a long read and an informative read, if you have not read it you should bookmark it.
Today Namepros member Dave put forth an interesting post that dealt with the HD bot piggybacking human research. It’s an interesting read that some have known about, to be honest I never tested the piggyback theory. Others are claiming that they play games with the bot to get Huge Domains to pay more for a domain then it’s worth. GoDaddy had a great earnings report this week and announced a $500 million share buyback.
Here is Dave’s post read the whole thread here.
I’ve been warned not to share such information publicly, but I feel I
must so others know what they’re letting themselves in for when it comes
to GD expired auctions and being up against the Huge Domains bot on
GoDaddy, which is usually bidder id 913932.
For a while I thought the Huge Domains bot that runs rampant everyday
worked against a predefined list of domains to go after. I assumed it
had a set list every day and it would bid up to 9-12% of the GD
valuation.
This assumption was wrong! As I discovered a while back.
The HD bot is actually working by piggybacking of the research and
effort put in by us human investors and then simply placing bids based
on that, using a typical 9-12% range of the GD valuation to do so.
I’ve known for a while now key ways to help me identify when it is the HD bot that I’m up against on a GD expired auction.
Today, I bid on two domains that had just 1 bid and less than 30 minutes
remaining. I already knew due to it having 2 bidders the HD bot would
love to come out and play!
In my opinion this is not a fair playing field at all.
You as an investor most likely spend a fair amount of time researching
domain names before you place a bid. All your time and effort is now
being put at risk, or causing you to overspend on your inventory, simply
because a bot with seemingly endless funds can watch what is going on
at the auctions at all times, and piggyback of the effort you’ve put in
on a day to day basis to browse the lists and research.
I advise you to really think before placing a bid on a domain that
currently has no bids. I think if there is a domain you’re really after,
you actually have better luck of getting it for $11 or less at
closeouts. If you wait for the auction to finish, and then keep checking
very frequently until it appears again as a closeout.
Hypothetically speaking, with this knowledge at hand, I suppose it is
possible for someone to lure the bot in on purpose and drive up prices
to make it overpay on purpose. Hypothetically if this were to happen
enough, this may make them reconsider what they’re doing.
Again, purely hypothetical.
If you think a bot and a company that profits from the work of others is
a fair playing field then in my opinion you are wrong. It is wrong.
These sort of bots need banning from any and all types of auction places.
