Drop catching is the race to register domain names at the exact moment they are deleted by the registry and become available again. For .com and .net, deletions happen in a daily batch known as “the drop”.
Specialized services operate many registrar accreditations and send registration requests at very high speed to maximize their chance of winning valuable names. Because individuals cannot compete with this infrastructure manually, buyers usually place backorders with these services.
Valuable names caught this way are often sold at auction to the backorder holders. Names nobody wanted remain available for normal registration afterward.
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Related terms
- Expired domain
- An expired domain is one whose registration period ended without renewal; it passes through grace periods before possibly being deleted and released.
- Redemption grace period (RGP)
- The redemption grace period is a 30-day window after deletion when the former owner can still restore a gTLD domain, usually for an extra fee.
- Pending delete
- Pending delete is the final 5-day status of a gTLD domain after redemption, when it cannot be restored and is about to be released.
- Auto-renew grace period
- The auto-renew grace period is the window after a gTLD domain's expiry, up to 45 days, during which renewal is still possible at standard cost.