Removed catching thread.

[martin-s]

I haven't bothered to test it, but I also wonder whether it's not just the interval, but the timing of that interval.

Maybe checking at 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0 isn't as effective as 0.22, 0.42, 0.62, 0.82, 1.02.

I believe you can calculate the exact time on Nominet servers based on knowing the latency of a request/response and querying one of the timestamped EPP records?

I've had lots of thoughts about optimisations, but not tried many of them out recently.

For the record, I'd agree with the observation about response times pre-drop.

 

[Retired_Member42]

I haven't bothered to test it, but I also wonder whether it's not just the interval, but the timing of that interval.

Maybe checking at 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0 isn't as effective as 0.22, 0.42, 0.62, 0.82, 1.02.

I believe you can calculate the exact time on Nominet servers based on knowing the latency of a request/response and querying one of the timestamped EPP records?

I've had lots of thoughts about optimisations, but not tried many of them out recently.

For the record, I'd agree with the observation about response times pre-drop.

There could well be a pattern. Even domains dropping in the last half of a second would double your coverage / amounts of queries within a given window. If domains are deleted from Nominet at a fixed time at the start of a whole second for example and they take X mliliseconds before coming available - if you knew that figure, that in itself would be a massive advantage.

But even knowing that, I still think a slick script will win over polling speed every time. Even if you can manage to 2, 3 ,4x your polling speed.

 

[SF]

Who is this order would you put at the top tags

1:
2:
3:
4:
5:

 

[SF]

so i am 5th that ill do nicely?

 

[bonusmedia]

Sorry to barge into the technical talk...

What is the ROI on catching?

What do you actually earn per hour of research and setup etc, assuming you rent a script at say £50 per month and you already have a Nom tag?

If I finally get a Nom tag, am I actually allowed to lease out my DAC, and if so what's the going rate?

Is there some way of finding the real premium drops without trawling through droplists for hours?

 

[WalkinDude]

Another fantastic row. Gripping read. Well done to all participants. This place is getting more interesting than TheGuardian. Not being sarcastic either.

 

[Retired_Member39]

I think this thread has been a decent civil discussion. Some very good points from the likes of Invincible about the factors involved in certain people being more successful at catching domains which has helped me understand more about how it all works. Thing is if this isn't properly explained and it's just oh x has a better script then ofc questions might be asked if person x and y are catching everything. To the average Joe the main thing was just how could someone with 1 DAC quota beat 100 DAC quota's consistently.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for the dozens of members who have spent x,xxx's on nominet membership/catch credits/hosting chasing to ask questions in a reasoned manor.

 

[julian]

the meat of it is, if Nominet finds there has been unscrupulous behaviour by a tag holder, what sort of punishment are we looking at?

 

[Retired_Member39]

the meat of it is, if Nominet finds there has been unscrupulous behaviour by a tag holder, what sort of punishment are we looking at?

An evening with Invincible.

 

[bonusmedia]

Depends how much you sell what you catch for. I think it can be a nice little earner a month but probably not something one should solely rely on.



No idea what people make nowadays. If you're catching to keep rather than catching to flip quickly via end user or DL you won't make any money immediately. Many of today's catchers seem to want to flip their caught domain names much more quickly. That could either be because margins are now thin and they cannot afford to keep the names long or because multiple catchers are pooling resources hence are forced to sell so everyone contributing to the resource pool gets their cut of cash.



Best you ask Nominet.



The daily lists shouldn't take you long to scour. It's the juicy out of sequence suspended domain names that some catchers go for that occur for a variety of reasons, often because someone notices a ltd has been dissolved and reports the associated domain name to Nominet. Once the domain name has been suspended some catchers have an idea of how long it will be before it drops. I also believe Nominet have sometimes given away the future drop date of out of sequence suspended domain names, or at least the date the domain name was suspended. That might depend how pally you are with someone in Nominet CS.

I think it could be easy to burn £10k on an ultra high speed setup. I don't believe any catchers are effectively their own ISPs and lonap members, hence they don't peer with Nominet directly, but twelve months of colo space, setup costs of running cables, purchasing servers, a router, a switch lonap setup and fees could wipe out that kind of budget. However most catchers seem to simply lease server space at one of a number of ISPs that they believe give them good connectivity to Nominet (via Linx or lonap), perhaps because that ISP will plug them into the switch closest to their Linx or lonap router port.

Aside from this operating multiple memberships will give you an advantage over trying to work with one. If it didn't, why do Nominet ban it in their rules? The problem with multiple memberships is unless you're lucky enough to have someone who is happy to let you use it without any expectation of a return, you'll have to compensate them some how. That can be financially or with catches or with a cut of sales. Trust me, pooling of resources and splitting of sales prices of the resulting catches occurs.


(from iPad - K)

Thanks - appreciate the info.

On reflection I don't really have the time or inclination to invest/learn/look through lists etc.

I could do with some sort of middle ground where catchers let me know if anything I would like is dropping so we can make some sort of deal.

Ive been putting off Nom membership but it's getting to the point where I need it anyway, so maybe someone could use my DAC in return for some catches, sort of using it on my behalf... would anyone be interested in that?

 

[Murray]

On reflection I don't really have the time or inclination to invest/learn/look through lists etc.

You would be surprised how quick and simple it all is really.

The "advanced bid" on domainlore pretty much gives you a solid base of what to catch, though not every worthwhile domain has a prebid of course.

It takes about 2 minutes to look through a list on domainview for what's dropping everyday, just sort it by first registered generally, almost anything good will have been registered in the 90s

The toughest obstacle will be finding a proven script to use at an affordable price.

 

[Skinner]

Sorry I'm calling BOLLOCKS, big hairy ones on this.

Its none of your business nor anyone elses who I choose to host with, and as far as I'm concerned, my host disclosing this is a breach of my privacy.

This stands of any host (dac or standard) releasing who their clients are.

If you think this is acceptable to release private information, where do think the line is ?

Would you be ok with me emailing your host/nominet, and asking them for a list of all your domains and a marker noting which have sites on them ?

If you're ok with that, please post the list here for everyone to see

Have you noticed that no hosted DAC/EPP service appears to want to be upfront and publish the Nominet members and tags they host?

Edit: since you like reasons, I don't want who I host with public knowledge, because should I do well, I don't want competition signing up and making it harder for me. Basic business sense, trade secrets etc.

 

[monaghan]

Agree!

I'd not publish my customers and I'd not expect anyone I host with to publish my name against their service without giving permission.

It takes time to sort systems out, work out the technical elements and other "secrets" to get the best from both the platform and catching code, why hand this over to the public domain? I built my original catch system out of technical curiosity, but even so, how I did it and what I've found to work well is not something that I'd share without exchange of a suitable fee. If you publish tag and provider, that allows another method of building a bigger picture.

Anyone who thinks someone isn't playing by the rules should raise it with Nominet as they are the only ones who can switch off registry access to the offending members.

Personally, I like the "tell us what will drop tomorrow and then delete them all in a single short window" method. Combine that with a system level enforced rate limit and then there's still an element of randomness, still an element of systems design and coding skill. Nominet's method just encourages wasteful 24/7 connections.

 

[RobM]

Why hasn't the DAC/EPP host not got the legitimate right to state, in their advertising material, which domain names they caught for their customers with their technology?

Does it say somewhere that we can't do that? I think people should have the choice.

 

[RobM]

I obviously misunderstood you. I thought you meant the host did not have the right to list a caught domain. So it just boils down to if they want to or not.

 

[monaghan]

The trouble is the results of the registration are published in the WHOIS against your name. Why hasn't the DAC/EPP host not got the legitimate right to state, in their advertising material, which domain names they caught for their customers with their technology? How would any *legitimate service* gain a reputation in the wider field, in the true sense of being open to all, if it didn't?

I'm sure I could ask my customers to give me permission to release the list of names caught, but why would I? There's only limited catch slots available and if they are regularly full, then advertising would only lead to more people after the limited slots each day (unless I get a Nominet membership for each of my children and pets to increase my capacity!). I don't complain if someone indicates that my system caught their name, but on the other hand, I don't expect them to automatically want to publish which service they use. In the physical world, if you find a good service with plenty of product at a good price then you tell your mates, if there is limited product availability and you want to keep supply options open, then you tend to keep it to yourself, why should domaining be any different?

Never said anything about handing out code.

Neither did I, but the code is not the only part of the equation and we all know how catchers like to keep their "secrets". Any data if you hand out freely will ultimately help a competitor to build another element to their data models (whether or not that will actually help is a different matter)

 

[Skinner]

You want for example DropSystem (which gives no indication on whois output they are behind a catch) to list which tags they host, but you draw the line at them identifying the membership behind them ?

The line would be listing the Nominet members that use the DAC/EPP host.

Unless I'm missing something listing a tag leads to the member...

"Registrar:
Steve Morley t/a Steven UK [Tag = MORLEY]
URL: http://www.steven.co.uk
"

My other tag lists my name but no t/a/url, but still identifies my membership by name.

Isn't that Nominets Problem, and frankly my membership fee should ensure they detect this kind of thing. If someone smells a rat they report it, and nominet should investigate.

The problem with that is there's no transparency and if the DAC/EPP host is legitimate, and not actually a front for someone operating a concert of memberships they actually control themselves, they aren't going to be able to demonstrate to prospective new customers how good their service is. Those services have a right to be able to market their services with verifiable result data. I suspect that many of these seemingly closed DAC/EPP hosts aren't transparent because they're a vehicle for one or a small number of people to collude under the auspice of being something open and operating at arms length.

I only know 1 (out of about 9 dac/epp) who openly posts names caught on their system (and whois output would identify tags/members), and as far as I know, they do allow these names to hidden/removed at clients request/choice.

Since all dac/epp host are closed or potentially so, are you suggesting many or all are hiding something sinister ?

 

[Skinner]

Nothing is stopping someone setting up that business model, DropSystem, Drop and DomainJunky all do this. The more you bid the higher the priority, and more resources you get. Just like real life, there are many different business models, people choose different ones for different reasons.

If someone came along and wanted to pay you more than an existing customer for a slot, wouldn't it possibly be good business sense to consider terminating a customer that can only pay less and replacing that customer with one that will pay you more? This is supposed to be proper business, at arms length, after all.

Tell me about your business, where do you advertise for more clients ?

Surely you want to attract more, so give me some links to your adverts, you're still involved in domains, this is a domain forum, where better to advertise and tell us who some of your clients are ?

The DAC/EPP host is a business itself. A good business usually wants to maximise profit. If a successful DAC/EPP host isn't permitted, by its customers, to advertise its catching successes then how can it ensure it maximises profit by attracting more or higher paying customer?

 

[Skinner]

Alex is talking about his public catching service, thus I assumed that was the subject ? Hence his limited slots etc ?

Noooo, you're talking business practice. why would people not advertise etc, you're a business, thus fair game.

why won't you answer ?

It seems like you're talking about public catchers above, since surely a customer of a DAC/EPP host would have all the resources permitted by a single membership to them self in return for the monthly fee they pay for the software service hosting?



Can we stick to the specific industry of DAC/EPP hosting at hand rather than try to look at something that isn't that? You're aware that DAC/EPP hosts and their customers are supposed to operate at arms length in order not to contravene anti avoidance rules I assume?

 

[Skinner]

Sure, I haven't checked these recently and are off the top of my head.

Caught, RTL, DropSystem, DomainView, Transcom, DomainCatch, Devaid, NamesPlace and Alex (mentioned he can add members if he wished). OK, I'm reaching on the last one, I actually had 8.

I'm sure there are others too, I just haven't looked in a while.

You're aware of 9 DAC/EPP hosts? Care to list them?

So you want to pick and choose where transparency is ?

This is exactly the problem, you either want transparency for all, or your hiding something yourself. Isn't that what you implied, a host who doesn't want to publically share information is probably hiding something.

Yes its different businesses (least I assume it is, you could still be a Dac/EPP host for I know) but your resisting transparency in your own game, why would you expect any other not to resist in their game ?

The business practices of a very specific element of this industry and that alone.