Learning about drop catching

[thudufushi]

HI Guys,

Can you give me a few pointers on where I can learn more about drop catching?

I've just looked at this thread for the first time and I clearly have a lot to catch up on, lots of mention of 'bookings' and 'slots' but no overview of the process.

Any links to reading material where i can research further would be great.

With .com I know that you use a big name dropcatcher, is it different for .co.uk'S?

Do you need software and is it for sale? Do you need any specific hardware? Who do you register the domain with?

Thanks
Steve

 

[accelerator]

You need to get your own Nominet Tag, then either buy or write a catching script, and host it on your own server (that has good performance levels and good connectivity with Nominet).

I'm sure you'll find a lot of useful info if you search this forum.

Rgds

 

[monaghan]

Everything you need to know can be found searching on this forum and taking a read of the EPP & DAC technical pages on the Nominet site.

There's no secret to the process (although how people implement the process is often a closely guarded secret)

If you don't have the time / skill / energy to roll your own solution, then book names at the public drop catchers (again, a quick forum / google search will show these for you)

 

[thudufushi]

Thanks both.

I have learned a fair bit in the last 48 hours, at least enought to know what a booking and a slot is, what polling is, how to be a member of nominet and 92 days .

Question; I have applied for Nominet membership ( I have a lot of domain management!) , how long before I get a reply from them and get a tag?

Question 2: This private .co.uk domain catchers club must be pretty exclusive, if you had to hazard a guess how many would you say there are and what percentage use this forum!?

Question 3: I would not set myself up with a server and a script but might one day play with a managed service. droppr is £250 a month, any competitors or other options ?

Thanks Everyone.

Steve

 

[Edwin]

50 people, half on this forum - that's a guess, and that's "regular drop catchers" i.e. people who do it on an intensive basis rather than once in a blue moon.

 

[thudufushi]

Wow, thats a small number. The hosted services cant be earning a fortune then, not surprising they charge what they do they must only have 10-20 subscribers.

On a domain drop day is it in business hours only or 24 hours? How do you know where to focus and is it a screen watch all day process or can you just leave your settings to do their thing?

Thanks ,
Steve

 

[monaghan]

According to Nominet, a domain will be deleted at random at any period during the day (and experience show it to be correct as I've had catches within the 1st few minutes of the day and also past 23:45)

Nominet don't publish when each domain drops, the average drop system will simply roll round polling the DAC until the domain becomes available, no manual intervention is usually needed.