Expiring Domain Market in 2006

The expired domain market made a big splash in 2005 and this looks to continue in 2006.

[Editors note: this is the seventh in a series of posts with results from the 2006 Reglike survey. The complete results of the survey will be posted soon.]

2005 was the year of the exclusive drop agreement. Instead of domains expiring and dropping for all expired domains services to have a fair shake at catching, most sizable registrars now have exclusive agreements to “direct transfer” expiring domains. Network Solutions and Register.com have agreements with SnapNames, which has used such agreements to corner a sizable share of the market. I’ve written regarding this topic extensively. One drop service that hasn’t struck a major exclusive agreement is Pool. Still, it remains popular.

Here are the results of 582 responses to the survey:

Which expiring domain catching service do you use most often?

SnapNames 32%
Pool 27%
NameWinner 16%
eNom Club Drop 13%
TDNAM/GoDaddy 11%