Drop Catching
The practice of registering a domain at the exact moment it drops from expiry back into the available pool, also called backordering or domain sniping.
Drop catching is the timed re-registration of an expiring domain the instant the registry releases it. After a domain hits redemption and then pending-delete, it drops back to available, typically around 11:00-14:00 UTC for .com. Specialist registrars (SnapNames, DropCatch, NameJet, Dynadot) maintain pools of EPP connections and fire register requests in the same second the drop happens. Multiple catchers competing for one valuable drop trigger a private auction. The economics are why expired domains with backlinks or brandable strings rarely become available to a normal manual registration.