Listings: The 7 listing sources

Introduction

This guide covers the 7 listing sources feeding the aftermarket platforms, as below:

1. For sale by users

2. For sale by registries

3. Expiring by registrars

4. Expiring by registries

5. Catch services: On delete

6. Catch services: On first availability

7. Catch services: After catch

Note that it does not exist any industry standards defining the naming of these different listing sources.

Keep in mind that many other names are in use. We indicated some of them while describing each source below.

In addition, different sources are often listed together without any distinction. A Whois lookup is then often required to determine the exact status of a domain, so that the listing source can be derived.

Deriving the listing source is sometimes useful to understand the pricing and whether the listing is published on one or multiple sites.
 

1. For sale by users

Aliases: Private Seller, Direct Lister, Marketplace, Portfolio

Registered but unused domains may be put for sale by their domain owners. These domains are no longer available for a new registration as they are already registered.

When a sale occurs, the domain is transferred from the current owner to the buyer, which becomes the new owner.

Note that such domain can also be listed by portfolio managers, on behalf of their clients who owns them. 

These listings can be published on marketplaces or portfolio sites. Note that some marketplaces allow sellers to create a portfolio page.

When a sale occurs, the marketplace usually gets a commission. The marketplace can also request a fee for specific listings, such as auctions and featured listings (e.g. homepage, at the top of a list, etc.)

Summary:

2. For sale by registries

Aliases: Premium, Premium gTLD

Some registries have classified domain names under two primary categories: standard and premium.

Premium names are considered as more attractive, potentially leading to a higher demand. Consequently, premium names are priced higher by these registries than standard names.

These premium names are usually not yet registered. However, some registries have registered their premium, so they appears registered while being for sale by their owners, which is actually the registries themselves.
This can be identified by doing a Whois looking and reviewing  the owner fields of such domains. 
 

Registry premium names are usually available from registrars, along with standard unregistered names.

However, some registries also directly promote their premium names on dedicated sites to create demand. It is worth marketing them as their pricing is higher than for standard domains.

Summary:

3. Expiring by registrars

Aliases: Expiring, Pre-Release

These listings features expired domains that can be acquired before being flagged by the respective registries as "to be deleted".

In other words, when an expired domain is acquired, the expiration process is not carried to the end and the domain never gets deleted. 
The domain either remain in the hand of the current owner - if he renews it - or it is assigned to the acquirer.

Note that the original registration date is retained as the domain never gets deleted.

Note that not all extensions are eligible to this type of listings, as it depends on registry policies. 
However, this is a common type of listing as it is applicable to .COM, .NET, .ORG and many more.

For those who want to understand the mechanic behind the scene, here is how this is implemented. It relies on a dual expiration date, one at the registry-level and one at the registrar-level. And it mainly consists of three events:

1. Once a domain reaches the expiration date, the domain is automatically renewed by the registry, while updating the registry-level expiration date.
   
   

2. When the domain is renewed by the domain owner, the registrar renews the domain, while updating the registrar-level expiration date.
   
   

3. If the domain is not renewed by the domain owner, the registrar issue a delete command to the registry, who in turn cancels the auto-renewal and flag the domain as "to be deleted".

These listings are usually published on the registrar's marketplace. When a registrar does not run a marketplace, they are usually published on a  third-party platform.

Summary:

4. Expiring by registries

These listings feature expired domains that are already flagged as "to be deleted" by registries.
Such a domain is no longer under the control of the registrar who used to managed it, and the previous owner can no longer renew it. It is fully under the control of the registry.

Before deleting them, some registries (e.g. NIC.IO for .IO domains) try to find a new owner for them.
This allow such registries to take part of the very lucrative market of expired domains, by trying to sell them before they reach the very competing drop catching platforms (see the next section).

There are thus two outcomes:

• A buyer is found:  it will become the new owner as soon as the domain gets deleted.

• A buyer is not found: the domain will be deleted and available for a new registration on a first come first serve basis, either via a hand registration or a catch service battle.

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5. Catch services: On delete

Aliases: Pending delete, Deleting, Dropping, Quarantine

These listings feature expired domains, i.e. domains that are inevitably to be deleted - or dropped - by the registry. Once deleted, such domains are available for a new registration on a fist-come first-served basis.

This is where catching platforms come into action. Such platforms aims to register - or to catch - domains within the milliseconds following their deletion. 

For high-demand domains, many platforms may compete to register them. There is only one winner per domain, i.e. the first one who succeeds to register the domain.

Some registrars have created dedicated platforms focused on catching those domains. 
Given the expiration process may differ from one extension to another, these platforms are specialized in catching domains endings with some extensions only.

Summary:

6. Catch services: On first availability

This is a special category as there are no listings as such for these domains, as none of them have been registered yet.

When a new extension is introduced on the market, it follows a set of initial phases.
These phases allow to give brand owners a priority to register their brand names first.
Then, it allows everyone to register domains while paying an extra one-time early registration fee, which is above the standard registration fee.

When all the initial phases are over, registrations are open to everyone on a predefined hour on the release day. The extension is said "Generally Available" from that point onwards.
These registrations are accepted on the first-come first-served basis and at the standard registration fee.

Only the first registration will succeed, so demonstrating the importance to be quick, especially for high-demand domains.

This is where catching platforms come into action. Their expertise allows them to have more success in such registration.

Note that many registrars also offer a pre-order service for such domains.

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7. Catch services: After catch

Aliases: Dropped, Caught

This type of listing is only applicable when the 3 conditions below are met for a given domain:

• The domain is listed by the catch service using the listing type: Backorder + Public auction

• The catch service received backorders from multiple clients for the domain

• The catch service caught the domain (see Catching: On Delete above)

In such case, the domain is relisted by the catch service platform in order to organize the public auction.

As it is a public auction, the auction is open to clients having placed a backorder as well as to anyone else. 
The winner of the public auction will become the new owner of the domain.

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