Domain Sniping: Everything You Should Know
Before domain sniping, you must be aware of the fundamentals to avoid putting your foot in the wrong place. What are the most important aspects of domain sniping to be aware of? This blog post will focus on everything you need to know when domain sniping.
Let’s get started.
What is domain name sniping?
Domain name snipping is registering a domain name that has already expired with the intention of reselling it.
Let me explain in detail.
Domain names are registered for a specific time by domain registration companies. The registration period is between 1 year and 10 years. As the registration ends, domain registrars remind owners to renew their domains.
If the renewal is not done in time, the domain enters an expired status, which is kept on standby for 40 days. The owner can renew the domain during this period for the usual renewal fees.
After the expiration of this period, the domain enters the redemption period where. During this period, the domain name can be purchased by anyone through your domain registrar. Anyone who outbids other interested buyers is referred to as a domain sniper.
However, domain auction sites such as Godaddy and Snapnames prevent domain snipping by implementing a trigger that is activated whenever a user tries to place a bid in the last few seconds of the auction. This event postpones the domain name auction for a while, invalidating the snipe attempt.
What to consider when domain sniping
Domain name traffic
If you’re interested in starting a domain name service, or just domain sniping for your sites, then you should be aware of the domain traffic. Domain name traffic provides an overview of the domain’s value to your business. A good domain for sniping should have had tons of traffic.
For instance, if you’re a company, finding a domain name with lots of visitors will mean you start your online business with loads of customers. If you’re domain sniping to resell, you’ll earn more money if the domain has many visitors.
Page Rank
Another thing to consider when domain sniping is the website’s page rank. Page rank will provide information on how the domain performed when it was life. A domain name with a higher page rank is ideal for domain sniping to earn more when reselling or building an authority site quickly.
Page authority
Page authority refers to a single page’s strength when compared to page ranking. When domain sniping, a website with high page authority for its pages is ideal. You can check the page authority of each website, as it will help optimize SEO. The higher the page authority, the better the chances of earning more by reselling your website and performing better on search engines.
Domain authority
Domain authority refers to the quality of the domain and its subdomain in ranking. When domain sniping, you must use SEO tools such as Moz to verify the authoritativeness of the domain. The higher the domain authority, the easier it will be to boost your site’s performance.
Additional metrics
While domain sniping, you should also be aware of other factors. Metrics such as ranking keywords, visitor demographics, location of visitor and backlinks are important. Each metric can help you understand the domain better before sniping it.
How to prevent domain sniping
ICANN discourages domain sniping. Domain registrars have a limited number of domain refunds allowed to deter them from domain sniping. However, as a domain name owner, here are some ways to prevent your domain from snipers.
Renew your domain name promptly.
The best way to keep your domain ownership is to prevent it from expiring. As the owner, you are responsible for your domain. Several domain registrars provide you with an auto-renewal option. If not, you’ll have to renew your domain name manually. Failure to renew your domain in time means you’ll lose it.
Update your WHOIS information
Notifications and updates, such as domain expiration notifications, are sent to the WHOIS email address. You must keep your contact information current to receive the expiration notification.
Lock your domain
Domain locking prevents unauthorized domain transfers. You can turn off the domain locking function from your domain management dashboard.
Allow domain privacy
Domain privacy is important in protecting your domain’s business and personal contact information (WHOIS). Domain snipers can be less likely to target your WHOIS contact information, including your name, address and email address. If you’re on Bluehost, read this post on why you should sign up for domain privacy.
Ignore spam messages
Several times you’ll forget to have domain privacy protection on. In such a case, domain sniper will access your email address and send you spam messages. They’ll either manipulate you with threats or requests. In such a case, ignore such messages. Furthermore, you can go ahead and block and report them to the email provider.
Should you start domain sniping services in 2022?
With domain names expiring daily, the domain name sniping industry has grown massively. The competition has become extreme. As an individual, competing with well-established drop catch services such as snapnames and Godaddy is hard.
These established domain snipers use servers to safeguard popular domain names when made available. The only way to get a domain name is to use a reliable drop catch service provider to do the work for you.
If you’re looking to start domain sniping, hopefully, all of the points above of domain sniping will prove beneficial to you.
