sneaky namecheap employee has a side job

[Madruga]

I somewhat knew what I am about to say, but in the same time I didn't really thought it's really such a thing... that they track each searched domain name for availability.

Months ago I searched for several domain name availability on namecheap. Spend nearly all day, because I have a fixation on a perfect catchy domain name. Found 5 domains, from which 3 were really great and 1 of them was insanely good in that niche. My mistake was that I said to myself I'll register them tomorrow and that day didn't come right away as I delayed it and got busy with something else.

Fast forward 2 weeks later, I check all 5 domains again on namecheap, and guess what...3 of them were registered on godaddy, already prompting me to place a bid to purchase them... So next time you're searching for a domain, better register it as soon as you find it available. I knew about this practice since many years, but I just couldn't believe it enough that it would ever happen to 'meee'. Got so pissed I dropped the whole niche meh

 

[djw1606]

Namecheap and GoDaddy have been doing this for years. It can be really annoying. I search for domain names on namesilo now

 

[jcsuperstar]

I had something like this happen, which was really underhanded by Easyspace many years ago. I'd never use them again.

 

[Sunmoluvic]

Lol, it happens alot, I was looking for a nice expired domain name online, I eventually found one, and it's available for purchase on GoDaddy when I searched for it, few weeks later, it was already listed as a premium domain name for sale over a thousand USD.

 

[SamLewis]

Yep. I found this out years ago. Still I make the same newbie mistake last month. Searched for domains for use at a later point check a week later and the best ones have been registered.

 

[HoNeYBiRD]

This is not the doing of a single employee, two employees or more. It's institutationalized theft on site level, which is happening since i can remember. Often you don't even need to wait a week or just days, you check a domain, it's available, you check it again a few moments later and it's gone.

 

[AngelSeo]

Guys, are you for real? There are probably about a million+ availability checks on Godaddy daily. Do you really believe that they are registering what, 100k domains per day because someone checked them? Seriously? How exactly they are sorting your 1 "very valuable" domain name out of the thousands and thousands checks they have? Answer that, and ill believe you.

 

[artka]

Guys, are you for real? There are probably about a million+ availability checks on Godaddy daily. Do you really believe that they are registering what, 100k domains per day because someone checked them? Seriously? How exactly they are sorting your 1 "very valuable" domain name out of the thousands and thousands checks they have? Answer that, and ill believe you.

Finally someone that has common sense.

 

[MrDenz]

It's all business at the end of the day.

I'm not surprised honestly, they 110% have their own software running 24/7/365 on "what people type" and probably register the most searched ones in 24h or some crap like that.
Not 100k domains but, anywhere from 100 to 1k *maybe.

 

[Deleted member 15724]

Guys, are you for real? There are probably about a million+ availability checks on Godaddy daily. Do you really believe that they are registering what, 100k domains per day because someone checked them? Seriously? How exactly they are sorting your 1 "very valuable" domain name out of the thousands and thousands checks they have? Answer that, and ill believe you.

I'd assume it wouldn't be that difficult. Set up a rule for one or two word domains, domains with less than X characters, the amount of times the same domain was searched, etc. I would assume they have something more complex than that, but simple logic could filter "valuable" domains. And considering Godaddy pulled in 2.9 billion in revenue last year, and as a registrar they pay less than $1 (I believe $0.20) per domain, it's not exactly farfetched.

This never happened to me, but I've had 2 friends that wanted to get into IM and after searching for a domain on Godaddy, a week later they were taken. And when I checked back on those domains, no website was ever built, but always had the option to bid. It could be a coincidence, but that's enough for me to register domains as soon as I find the one I like.

 

[Brickbat1]

Guys, are you for real? There are probably about a million+ availability checks on Godaddy daily. Do you really believe that they are registering what, 100k domains per day because someone checked them? Seriously? How exactly they are sorting your 1 "very valuable" domain name out of the thousands and thousands checks they have? Answer that, and ill believe you.

All it takes is a script embedded in their site.

 

[BrandingCat]

Paranoia, not namecheap.

 

[praetserge]

Guys, are you for real? There are probably about a million+ availability checks on Godaddy daily. Do you really believe that they are registering what, 100k domains per day because someone checked them? Seriously? How exactly they are sorting your 1 "very valuable" domain name out of the thousands and thousands checks they have? Answer that, and ill believe you.

I beg to differ as I've seen it on godaddy with my own eyes.

 

[Dresden]

This is not the doing of a single employee, two employees or more. It's institutationalized theft on site level, which is happening since i can remember. Often you don't even need to wait a week or just days, you check a domain, it's available, you check it again a few moments later and it's gone.

This is exactly what happened to me when I found a good and short domain on namecheap. It said that the domain is available, so I tried another variation, then I typed in the first one to register and it said the name was already taken. I can't remember what the domain was but I do remember it was short and I was really surprised that it was available. Maybe it was a bug but you never know since I've seen a few of these threads before here and on Reddit.

 

[AAW]

Shouldn’t be this illegal? I mean it is similar to the insider thing in stock market!! Why shouldn’t godaddy or others get penalize for spying on their customers and try to pump up the prices on searcher domain names claiming they are gone unless you bid on them.

 

[Deleted member 15724]

Shouldn’t be this illegal? I mean it is similar to the insider thing in stock market!! Why shouldn’t godaddy or others get penalize for spying on their customers and try to pump up the prices on searcher domain names claiming they are gone unless you bid on them.

You can say it's not ethical, but I'm not sure they're breaking any laws. It's similar to buying tickets for a Justin Bieber concert cheap and marking it up aftermarket. We would all do the same if we were in their position.

 

[Snidex]

if its correct thats really ugly

 

[aa33030]

Whenever I search for a domain name and don't buy it right away I always remove it from my cart until I am ready to purchase it.

 

[terrycody]

Namecheap and GoDaddy have been doing this for years. It can be really annoying. I search for domain names on namesilo now

Yes I also heard same thing, especially for Godaddy, but one Namecheap staff claim they don't do this, I quoted his as below:

I cannot speak to GoDaddy's practices. However, I can say that for Namecheap, this is not something we would ever even consider doing.

In my experience though, lookups are more complex than most think. We are querying so many different sources to give you availability status, some of which are less reliable than others. For example, with smaller TLDs like .ai or .is, lookups may be less reliable than a well-oiled machine like Verisign, which operates the .com and .net TLDs, among others. As a result, sometimes with a less reliable registry, there can be false positives, resulting in the registrar showing a domain as "available" when it is actually registered.

In addition to registry connection reliability, there are also many different aftermarket sources that registrars often pull from. You know when you see a Premium domain (registered and usually higher priced) in search? That could be coming from any number of 3rd party aftermarket platforms, which also can have varying reliability and/or stale listings.

Lastly, you have to consider that some registrars handle the "drop window" differently than others. If a domain deletes and is removed from the zone, ergo, becoming available again, some registrars have a buffer period before they show it as available again.

Personally, i trust namecheap, but shitdaddy? Never, ever, ever...

 

[gap]

Namecheap employees are actually working lizards. Not humans.
Btw. Bill Gates invented covid to make more cash.

I actually experienced the same ...I think it's just a bug.