Before we try to come up with the "best" auction rule for a given situation, it is useful to start with ready-made parts and learn how to choose from them and put together something that works for us. I always advise starting with finding a suitable cake-mix, suitable add-ons, to learn how to bake, before starting with flour, sugar, and the works.
There are four basic off-the-shelf auction rules that have been traditionally studied. These are called the standard auction rules. I will describe them next and discuss how the outcome of these auctions are predicted. Predicting the outcomes of each auction is necessary to decide which auction rule is best suited for an auctioner's purpose. So let's for for it.
The auction rules can be classified into sealed-bid and open-bid rules.
Sealed-bid rules:
There are two sealed-bid rules - the first-price auction and the second-price auction
Open-bid rules:
There are also two open-bid rules - the English auction and the Dutch auction