How to snap .de domains

Your domain name is one of the most critical factors in the success of your company or online business. A well-chosen domain name makes your website easy to find, and allows you to link up with present and future customers effectively, so that you can grow your business successfully. 

Of course, this also means that some domain names are very popular, so it’s harder to obtain them to use for your website. In particular, Top Level Domains (TLD) are often highly sought after. If you conduct business in Germany, then owning a .de domain name should be a critical part of your marketing strategy.

So why are these TLDs so important, and how do you go about securing one for your use?

Why are domain names so important?

Your choice of domain name is very important, because it helps your customers find you easily. The .de suffix is the largest ccTLD (country code Top Level Domain), meaning that it is the best domain name suffix linked specifically to Germany. In fact, it is the second highest TLD after .com, making it a much prized domain name suffix. Owning a .de domain name will help you to attract customers based in Germany

Restrictions

Regulations require that you need a local presence in Germany to function as administrative contact in order to use a .de domain name, but your domain name registration company can act on your behalf for this.

Domain name auctions

Domain names can be bought and sold. A specific domain name can be bought for a limited period (often for one or two years), but ownership will then expire. It can be renewed by the existing owner, but if they decide they no longer want to use it, or they forget to renew it, then the domain name can be sold. 

Naturally, there is sometimes high demand for popular names, so it’s essential to be able to get in quickly to snap them up before anyone else gets a chance. This is why the process is known as ‘snapping’.

If you want a particular domain name, or you want to buy several for future use or sale, then you may need to become involved in an online auction. But to achieve success, you must understand the precise timeline of a domain name being released for sale, and be ready to make your bid at just the right moment.

The timeline for releasing a domain name

When date for expiry of a domain name is reached, the owner has 40 days grace period in which to renew. Services that support the website may be stopped during this period, but the option to renew is still valid. There is no penalty for the owner if they renew within this period.

If the owner doesn’t opt to renew, then the ‘Whois’ data starts to be removed from the site. ‘Whois’ is the protocol data that allows the website to be recognised online. The owner will have to pay a penalty to renew during this period – usually around 135 Dollar. After this period, the domain name becomes locked for 5 days – known as the ‘deletion phase’. 

At the end of all this, if the owner has still not renewed, the domain name becomes available to buy. The whole process takes 75 days.

What is ‘The Drop’?

When the domain name becomes available for sale, there is a time window of around three hours covering the period between when the domain name is removed from database and when it becomes visible to the public for purchasing. (This is generally referred to as ‘The Drop). In hotly contested domain name purchases, the moment when the name becomes visible is critical, so buyers keep a careful watch and try to buy the name the instant it appears.

What does ‘snapping’ mean?

The process of buying up a domain name at this critical moment is known as ‘snapping’.

How does snapping work?

Although it’s theoretically possible to manage the buying process individually, in practice it’s very difficult to be sure you will see the domain name the moment it appears. So many buyers prefer to use a third party company to do this for them. Some hosting companies offer a snatching service, but there are also specialist companies that deal in snapping domain names for their customers, such as SnapNames.com and Pool.com. These organisations use the power of their servers to make repeated hits, trying to grab domain names as they are released. 

.de domain name auctions

If you are after a particular domain name, you can register an interest with a snapping company before the expiry date, and they will try to get it for you for a fee. If you are the only interested party, and the company succeeds in buying up the name, then it is yours for the agreed price. However, if there are other interested customers, then an auction takes place. Interest bidders will be contacted (usually by email), and invited to make sealed bids for the domain name. In some companies, the highest bidder wins outright, but some providers operate a second auction for the top bidders.

In the online auction, you set the maximum amount you are prepared to pay, and system bids for you by proxy. In a straight sealed bid auction, the highest bidder wins. If a second round takes place, then once again you set your maximum offer, but you can increase it at any time. Once again, the highest bidder wins.

Because the .de domain names are so highly sought after, it’s very likely that you will need to bid for one via a .de domain auction. It’s generally agreed that it’s impossible for a person to compete manually with the automated systems of the big hitters in the snapping business. So making use of a domain snatching service to snap your chosen domain name is probably the best way to ensure you get the .de domain name you are seeking.

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