Tucows sending expired domain names to GoDaddy Auctions: Major shakeup

Tucows shifts expired domain inventory to GoDaddy.

In a major shakeup in the expired domain name market, GoDaddy Auctions has begun auctioning off Tucows’ expired domain name inventory.

This is the first time GoDaddy has sold a third-party registrar’s expired domain name inventory.

I reached out to GoDaddy following noticing some of the inventory on GoDaddy today. Paul Nicks, VP of Aftermarket, issued this statement to Reglike:

We can confirm that GoDaddy has launched a fresh product line to assist partner registrars to monetize their expiring domain feed using our GoDaddy Auctions platform. We launched today with one partner and will continue to add fresh partners as we expand the program. We are very excited regarding this as it allows more choice for our domain investors that use GoDaddy Auctions and provides another choice for registrars as well. Any registrar interested in joining our fresh expiry platform ought to contact Bob Mountain bmountain (at) godaddy.com, VP of Business Development for our Aftermarket.

I also reached out to Tucows this afternoon, in part to see if they are sending all or just part of their inventory to GoDaddy. I have not heard back as of the time of posting.

Tucows had been sending its expired domain name inventory to SnapNames, which is now a Web.com firm. Ahead of that, it partnered with NameJet.

While a major blow to SnapNames, this also could be bad news for NameJet (a 50/50 partnership between Rightside and Web.com). Tucows clearly forecasts better revenue with GoDaddy, which means other registrars might soon defect from the two dominant expired domain name services.

This is despite the auctions on GoDaddy starting at $12 (plus renewal fees) compared to $69 or $79 on SnapNames.

To be clear, this inventory is direct-transfer inventory that is sold ahead of it goes through the entire deletion cycle. Domain names that make it to pending delete can be picked up by any expired domain name service.