Snap .fr: how millisecond capture of a domain name works

You have probably heard of "snap" or "drop-catching" for .fr domain names. The principle seems simple: a domain expires, it is released, and the first to attempt registration wins. But behind this idea lies a fascinating technical universe where everything plays out within a few milliseconds, with specialised servers, dedicated protocols and algorithmic strategies honed by years of experience. Here is exactly how a snap unfolds, from the moment your target domain enters redemption period until the actual capture at drop time.

The precise moment when a .fr domain becomes available

It all starts with the standard life cycle of a .fr. A non-renewed domain name first enters redemption period for about 30 days (the original holder can still recover it). Throughout this period, the domain simultaneously displays the "redemption period" and "pending delete" statuses: contrary to a widespread belief, there is no additional 5-day "pending delete" phase after redemption. Finally, at the end of these 30 days, the domain is deleted (the drop), then released into the public pool and becomes registrable again. It is precisely this drop moment, and not the entry into pending delete, that the snap targets.

This release does not happen at a single moment for all domains. AFNIC carries out a daily batch in which each releasable domain is processed individually. The exact release time of each domain name depends on technical parameters internal to AFNIC, but several empirical observations (including a well-known DomExpire video published in 2024) suggest that there is a predictive order based notably on the date of first creation of the domain.

The EPP protocol: the official access route

To register a .fr domain name, there is only one route: through AFNIC's EPP (Extensible Provisioning Protocol), accessible only to accredited registrars. EPP is a protocol standardised by the IETF (RFC 5730 and following) that allows encrypted XML commands to be sent to the AFNIC registry server on port 700.

For a snap, the critical command is domain:create. It tells the AFNIC registry: "I am registering this domain name in the name of such-and-such holder with such-and-such configuration". If the domain is available at the moment the command is received by the AFNIC server, the registration is validated. If another registrar sent a similar command a few milliseconds earlier, that registrar wins.

FR Rush: the AFNIC service dedicated to snap

AFNIC observed the emergence of a commercial activity dedicated to drop-catching from the mid-2010s. Rather than fighting it, AFNIC legalised and framed this practice by launching a specific service in 2016: FR Rush. It is a dedicated EPP server, optimised for fast capture operations.

The main characteristics of FR Rush:

• Price: 150 euros excluding VAT per month per active EPP connection (source: AFNIC 2024 product catalogue).
• Cap: 60 connections maximum per registrar. Beyond that, you have to multiply registrars.
• Authorised operations: only domain:check and domain:create. Administrative operations (update, transfer, delete) remain reserved for the standard EPP server.
• Rate limiting: 0.1 seconds between two operations on the same connection (i.e. 10 operations per second maximum per connection).
• No token system: unlike standard EPP, FR Rush does not impose a bucket of 50 tokens per 24h. Failed creations (domain already taken) do not penalise the account.

FR Rush has become the standard for those who seriously want to attempt to capture valuable domains. AFNIC published in its 2024 annual report a +71% growth of the FR Rush service over the year 2023, which confirms the market's enthusiasm.

Latency: the real technical differentiator

When two registrars attempt a snap at the same moment on the same domain name, the one whose command arrives first at the AFNIC server wins. Network latency therefore becomes the critical variable.

AFNIC hosts its servers in the Paris region (head office in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines). A registrar located in a Parisian datacenter with direct France-IX peering can reach a latency below 2 milliseconds towards the AFNIC EPP server. A registrar located in another European country, even connected by direct fibre, will accrue an additional 10 to 30 ms. This difference, invisible to a human, makes all the difference in a snap race.

The most serious players in the market optimise down to:

• The physical hosting of the snap server (Paris datacenter, direct AFNIC peering)
• Pre-compilation of the EPP request XML (generated in memory, ready to be sent in a single network operation)
• Maintaining "warm" EPP connections (already authenticated, ready to send immediately)
• Sub-millisecond clock synchronisation via NTP stratum 1 or PTP
• Pinning on a dedicated CPU core to avoid any interruption at the critical moment

The role of the "drop list": knowing what to snap

Before knowing how to snap, you have to know what to snap. The "drop list" is the list of domain names that will be released in the coming hours or days. Several sources exist to build it:

• AFNIC open data: AFNIC publishes each month a public CSV file that lists all registered .fr domains with their creation date and possible withdrawal date. By cross-referencing this data with daily RDAP observations, the droplist can be anticipated by about 35 days.
• Daily WHOIS scraping: observing each day which domains enter redemption period. Legally grey but practised by certain players.
• Paid third-party services: DomainTools, ExpiredDomains.net and other aggregators offer ready-to-use droplists (50 to 200 euros per month depending on the service).

The advantage of a good droplist: not only do you know what to snap, but you can filter upstream the value domains (backlinks, TF/CF, age) to concentrate snap resources on the real targets.

The critical phase: T-0 and the burst of creations

As the release time of a target domain approaches, the snap server enters a critical phase. The typical scenario:

1. T-5 minutes: sanity check on all active EPP connections, re-authentication if necessary
2. T-60 seconds: pre-compilation of the CREATE request XML (the domain name, the contacts, the nameservers, the randomly generated authinfo)
3. T-10 seconds: pin the process on a dedicated CPU core, deactivate CPU optimisations that could introduce jitter
4. T-1 second: high-precision sleep via clock_nanosleep
5. T-0: simultaneous sending of the CREATE command on all active FR Rush connections (potentially 10 to 60 parallel connections)
6. T+2 milliseconds: re-sending of the command on each connection (in case of lost packet)
7. T+50 milliseconds: reading of AFNIC responses, identification of the connection that won the creation

On highly contested domains (generic keywords, valuable trademarks), several players trigger their burst within the same time window. The capture is then decided to the millisecond: even to the microsecond on the best optimised players.

The "hare" algorithm: a well-known strategy

On domains released in series (for example during a daily AFNIC batch), there is a historical strategy known as the "hare". The idea: rather than firing at a predicted moment which can vary by a few milliseconds depending on AFNIC load, we observe in real time the release of a "hare" domain (a less interesting domain that is released just before our target). As soon as the hare becomes available, we know that our target will be almost immediately, and we trigger our creation burst with tenfold precision.

This strategy presupposes knowing the exact order of release of domains by AFNIC. This order would be based on the date of first AFNIC creation of each domain (and not on the visible WHOIS date). It is data accessible via public RDAP queries, which makes this strategy theoretically reproducible.

What happens to the domain after the snap?

Once the CREATE command is validated by AFNIC, the domain is officially registered in the name of the holder indicated in the request. Several commercial scenarios can follow:

• Public auction sale: this is the approach of platforms like Milodomain. The domain is put in the catalogue, interested buyers bid, and the highest bidder wins. Transfer to the winner's registrar takes place after payment.
• Pre-reserved backorder: a client has paid upfront for us to attempt to capture a specific domain for them. If the snap succeeds, the domain is allocated to them directly.
• Fixed-price catalogue: some snappers sell their captures at fixed prices on a marketplace-style catalogue (Sedo, Dan.com, etc.).
• Portfolio retention: the registrar keeps the domain in stock to resell it later, or to use it for commercial purposes.

How much do you earn by snapping a domain name?

It all depends on the value of the name. Some benchmarks:

• AFNIC registration cost: 5.07 euros excluding VAT per creation (registry fee). This is the cost paid by the registrar for each successful snap.
• Mundane domains: 30 to 100 euros at resale
• Mid-range domains (acronyms, common words): 200 to 2,000 euros
• Premium domains (3 letters, generic keywords): 5,000 to 50,000 euros
• Exceptional domains (2 letters, valuable trademarks): 50,000 to 500,000 euros and beyond

To give a historical example: the domain cmu.fr (3 letters, generic trademark linked to French Social Security) was snapped in February 2023 by WebExpire at 4.50 euros, then resold for 11,000 euros to CMU shortly after. This is the type of opportunity that drop-catchers are looking for, but it remains rare and requires a sense of commercial acumen as much as a solid technical infrastructure.

Why Milodomain?

AFNIC-accredited registrar for 20 years, Milodomain combines several advantages:

• Optimised snap infrastructure: dedicated server, EPP connections on active standby, capture code written for performance.
• Total AFNIC compliance: prior INPI filter on registered trademarks, strict respect for naming rules.
• Radical transparency: we publish each month the public barometer of the .fr drop-catching market, which no competitor does.
• Upcoming catalogue: we are preparing the launch of our public auction platform, with priority access for waiting list registrants.

If you want to be notified as soon as auctions open, or if you are looking to snap a specific domain name for your brand or your SEO project, contact the Milodomain team. We support both occasional buyers and SEO agencies and companies that have recurring drop-catching needs.