Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,

I have joined Domaining.com this month and it’s my first post after enrolling in – thanks to Francois.

Today I would like to share the domain backordering companies I have worked with. None of them are listed in any specific order.

SnapNames.com

Since long time I am using their service and witnessed they have the best catching ratio by far. I am always confident giving BO with them because most of the time they are able to catch domains and beat the competitors even though there are some new companies recently launched.

They also offer pre-release domains as they have done partnership with many registrars and those expiring domains are exclusively auctioned off at SnapNames. You can find many good domains out there.

Name.com

They are good at catching .tv/.cc domains but once in a blue moon Name.com will grab a decent .com on your behalf. Not sure when that they will come for me like it happened with the owner of Mouthwash.com which was some time back caught by Name.com. No harm is giving BO with them but most of the time good names are already backordered so very slim chance left if you are going to BO when a name enters into PendingDelete status. What you can do is to place BO when the domain enters Redemption Grace Period (RGP). At this stage, people normally don’t place BO with Name.com because they charge you upfront and your money is stuck until the domain gets dropped and will be available.
Personally I don’t use Name.com much for backordering .com domains because chances are quite low and I don’t need to stuck my money with the company who normally grabs almost nothing good. One thing I like about them is they take BO on first come first serve basis but there is lot of room left for improvement in increasing the catching ratio.

DomainMonster.com

I have used them in past to backorder .cc domains and was really happy to see them catching some good domains for me. Wrote a review about them in past. When they newly launched the BO fee was as low as $19 + domain reg fee. Since then they have increased up to $64.99 which is costly. The only thing I like about them for .com backordering is they don’t charge you anything upfront. Only when the domain is successfully grabbed on your behalf. But that never actually happens 😀

Pheenix.com

This is a new company and to promote themselves they offered people to backorder on first come first serve basis. I was excited to see new competitor in backordering business and some time later they changed their business model to private auction. I left them for quite some time and the CEO of Pheenix.com “Tan Tran” actually offered me couple of free BO credits which I declined because I was disappointed to see them making private auction system. They started with first come first serve basis just to get clients and when they reach their target, everything was changed.
Recently I joined back Pheenix when I saw them beating SnapNames and other companies. Impressive to see them catching some good domains and I have won some nice names for myself.

DropCatch.com

I have joined them since their launch of “beta” and I don’t need to say much about them. One of the greedy  companies I have ever worked with. I just dislike their system of making public auctions. People’s hard work is drained off in seconds who placed backorders initially. You can read more about them here.

NameJet.com

They are not as good as SnapNames in catching Pending Delete domains but you are going to find lot of great domains auctioned off daily from the pre-releases. Similar to SnapNames, they have many registrars affiliated with NameJet and all expiring domains registered at them are auctioned at NameJet.

GoDaddy.com

I used to BO domains with GoDaddy several years back and I can say they are one of the poor companies in backordering domains. Never caught a single decent domain. I have even heard that some people successfully beat GoDaddy by hand registering domains and at the same time the domain was backordered with GoDaddy! Funny and may be true story because I have read this from many people. Also I have previously written about GoDaddy backordering service here.

1API/Hexonet.net

 They launched backordering service for .cc domains in 2010 and I was in the first few to join them. When they caught first domain, there was another person who had placed backorder for the same name and it went to public auction. The same greedy business model which is currently operated by DropCatch.com. It was a domain which were merely worth few hundred bucks but they auctioned at GoDaddy Auctions for some days. That domain went for over $1,000. I was really angry at them and their CSO responded it’s newly launched service and we are soon going to make it private auction system and they did it some time later but since than I have never used and I feel it was a good decision by me. I wrote in detail about Hexonet.net in the past which you can read here.

Dynadot.com

They charge you upfront some $14.99 so I paid them in advance thinking they will some day catch a domain for me. Yes, they are also doing private auction so not as bad as greedy DropCatch. But I found the poor thing about Dynadot was when I backordered several domains and they failed each time so I thought to ask for a refund but they declined to refund back and said I am forced to use this fund at Dynadot.
That’s nonsense really! Now for this purpose I cannot backorder some crappy name to get rid of them. Personally, I don’t recommend any one using them because they don’t catch any good names for you so the money is left with them.

What’s your experience with any of the above companies? Feel free to share any other backordering service you know.