Domain Drop Catching 101 – Things You MUST Learn

What Is Domain Drop Catching?

Drop catching refers to the practice of waiting for a domain to expire, and then quickly snapping it up before anyone else does. Domain owners often forget to renew domains or simply don’t want them anymore; people also start websites they quickly lose interest in. This means there are always plenty of expiring domains to be had, many of which are valuable beyond the knowledge of their previous owners.

Catching Domains With Inbound Links For Parking

There is also another key aspect to drop catching that lures in domainers, and that is buying for the purpose of parking. A recently expired popular domain will still having plenty of inbound links pointing to it, and this will attract on going traffic. If you place ads on the page of the parked domain, the result will be a decent revenue stream from traffic clicking on the ads. Of course, the can links will drop in volume as time goes by, but many will stay in place for quite some time.

Before you get excited and go out hunting domains to drop catch, there are a few things you will need to be aware if you want to be successful at drop catching.

Understanding The Domain Expiry Process

First off, a domain doesn’t expire exactly one year after it was registered. The date a registrar gives an owner for expiry is know as the “renewal date”. Once the domain has expired, the domain then enters a 40-day grace period whereby the previous owner can still reregister. In this period, all Internet services associated with the domain will be terminated.  After 40 days is up, the domain enters a “redemption period” of 30 days. During this period, the previous owner can still renew but has to pay a fee of around $100 for the privilege. It is highly likely that a domain will become fully available once it has entered the redemption period. After all, the owner is unlikely to pay out the substantial fee renewal fee at this point.

How To Find Out When A Domain Will Expire

To find out when a domain you are interested in will expire, you can check the public WhoIs online database. If the details aren’t available there, you can also use your domain registrar WhoIs service to find out information. You can also use a dropped domain notification service like the one offered at DomainSuperstar.com

How To Get There Before Other Domainers Do

Drop catching is a very competitive area of domaining, and you can bet your bottom dollar that if the domain you are watching is a good one, then plenty of other domainers are watching it, too. To get in there first, you can use an auto registration tool, because honestly, doing it manually will be too slow to beat other domainers. For a fast service consider Pool.com or SnapNames.com, and for a cheap but perhaps not as fast service, you can use GoDaddy Domain Alert Pro.