The sky is fallin’! I say uh, the sky is fallin’. Quite a common phrase shouted by the doomsday collective suffering from the Chicken Little Syndrome when the economy appears to be doing too well for an extended period of time.

I share and discuss how to use GoDaddy Aftermarket data to determine a proxy bid amount likely to win more GoDaddy expired domain auctions.

Over the last 18 months and counting, I’ve noticed an uptick in the number of bidders participating in GoDaddy expired auctions. Between auction bots and increased bidder count, closing auction prices for expired domains skyrocket to unbelievable values.

While I’ve not researched data to back this next statement up, I’m guessing GoDaddy’s addition of the estimated value — based on their GoDaddy Domain Appraisal Tool — is likely the culprit to increased activity and inflated closing auction prices.

For instance, expired domain auctions that would have normally closed at or below $50 are now closing anywhere between $300 – $600.

I don’t know about you, but such pricing influx can wreak havoc on a quick-flip domain strategy, especially when considering the average domain hold time is over 400 days or so to flip.

Most domain investors, like myself, don’t sit around waiting and watching expired domain auctions with the ole’ eagle eye. I typically set a proxy bid amount, walk away and hope for the best.

Unfortunately, this once successful strategy’s pricing no longer gets the job done with the exponential swing in closing auction prices.

To gain better understanding as to how much I would need to adjust my proxy bid strategy to hopefully start winning more GoDaddy expired domain auctions, I decided to dive into the details of expired auctions with bids I’ve lost dating back to the beginning of the year.

If you’ve been around the domain industry two seconds or longer, then you’ve likely heard the name Rick Schwartz, also known as the DomainKing™.

He’s certainly not a new face to industry. A living legend, by many standards, not short on vision, stories, and facts/opinions about domain, business, and life in general, having held more than 30 jobs in a 5 year span.

It’s been almost 5 months since I wrote about GoDaddy adding sorting and filtering to its Domain Investor App.

Earlier this week, Paul Nicks, VP and General Manager for GoDaddy’s Aftermarket, took to Twitter to announce that GoDaddy released a complete re-write of its Domain Investor App.

It’s no secret that companies of all sizes have been known to invest in domain names in addition to their core business.

Some of these companies started because of a domain upgrade for their brand and digital presence.

Others invested in domains for brand protection and to stave off the competition from owning prime digital real estate.

And in some instances, companies have solely acquired companies, thriving and dying, based on domain portfolios.

While domain investing is quite common amongst a growing number of for-profit organizations, I’ll explore a few arguments for and against non-profit organizations investing in domain names.

5 years after the last T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Conference, Rick Schwartz is back at it again with the 1st annual Asheville domain investing meetup held at the historic Grove Park Inn nestled away in the sleep-hollow town of Asheville, North Carolina.

With the holy grail of the conferences for domain investing industry is NamesCon, Schwartz took a chance to establish and facilitate a small gathering of domain investors to connect, share, and do business with one another.

In fact, Dr. Gregg McNair literally communicated the same thoughts — a smaller event with limited registration for a Who’s Who of Domain Investing at a higher admission cost — almost a year ago during MERGE! (now defunct).

So, in addition to ~80 fellow domain investors, I jumped at the opportunity to pay and book tickets, travel, and lodging to attend this event the very moment Schwartz went live with ticket registration.

Everyone and their grandmother, if not great-grandmother by now, use emoji — billions daily in collective use — to communicate a multitude of thoughts and expressions daily.

Whether by email, text, chat, clothing, or billboards, emoji marketing has nearly touched every possible form of communication, including domain names.

From Apple to Taco Bell to Domino’s to name a few, a growing number of brands are committing more and more marketing and advertising dollars to the use of emoji marketing.

One of the most recent announcements for brands entering the emoji marketing space with their own branded emoji — the pickup truck — is Ford Motor Company.