Domains Expiring - Backordering and Domain Sampling -

At one time, registering a domain that had dropped was as easy as being the first one to the checkout page.  Those good days are long gone thanks (or not thanks) to the ability to backorder a domain name.  Domain Backordering is where you as a customer pay a company (such as Godaddy.com, pool.com or snapnames.com) in hopes that the company will register a domain that is about to be available to the public.  Companies use what is called a drop registrar, a domain registrar who specializes in just catching dropped domains.  The drop registrar has an automatic computer system that submits hundreds of registration requests when the domain drops.  As you can imagine, companies can make a good profit by offering this service and it’s all automated.   The catch to backordering a domain is that you never know which company will be the first to grab the domain.  Pool.com could win the backorder, or perhaps Moniker.com will win it.  On a few rare occasions, the cheap Godaddy.com backorder has a valuable domain.

The price of ordering a backorder varies depending on the provider.  Places like pool.com will grab the domain for free but charge $60 if you are the only person who requests the backorder.  If someone else also requests a backorder on the same domain, you go into a bidding war with the other person.  The person who bids the highest wins the domain.  Other places, such as godaddy.com have a set price and you pay before you backorder.  If you don’t win the domain, you can place another backorder on another domain name and can do so as many times for free until you catch a domain.  Godaddy is not known to be a reliable domain backordering company.  If you are serious about winning a domain you should use several different domain backordering sites.

Another less important tool that domainers use is called "Domain Sampling".  Lately google has been cracking down on domain samplers and not letting their results get yielded into google.  This has put a hamper in the use.  Domain sampling is where someone registers a domain for around 3 days and monitors the traffic.  If the traffic is good, the domainer will keep the domain.  If the traffic is bad on the domain, they will request a release and get their money back.  It's like temporarily buying it and then asking for a refund.  Many people used this tactic in order to pick and choose domains that have good traffic.  There use to be some sites that even offered free domain sampling, however I can no longer find any links to them and I do not believe the exist anymore.  Odds are if you went to a page that had a parking page on it for a few days, that domain was being sampled for traffic.  We've all bumped into domain sampling pages.

Although domain sampling is a handy term to know, it is seldom used anymore.

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