I totally agree with you . I find an excellent .me domain is available, I hesitate for a while and it is registered by others .I was so angry with myself . The domain is at least worthy $3000 now .
So, to summarize a little our common practice. 1. Domain name registrars track your searches for domain availability and can register the domain you like for themselves or through a 3rd party if you are not too smart to buy it immediately. 2. You are not guaranteed against domain squatting when typing desirable address in browser navigation bar. These requests are monitored for traffic. And can potentially lead to name squatting. But I think this is mainly in cases the name misspelling traffic is really high. Thus, one more time. Found some good name? Buy it without a portion of hesitation immediately.
I believe your suspicion is true. I went to a registrar that is famous for free transfers... I spent 4 hours one day doing keyword research and finally tried to get the domains associated with the actual keywords. It was available. about 5 domains, different topics. I went to drop my kids to school. came back and tried to follow through with the domains. ALL 5 domains were no longer available. this is the 2nd time this has happened. The first time this happened. I had a serious issue back and forth for a vacuum cleaner domain. I wanted to purchase the .com and .net. I received the ok all the way through to the payment page and then the assholes said that the only extension left was the .info was available wtf??? I refused to let it go... I got 5 trouble tickets and to no avail.....I even got a clueless agent who tried to explain what ext. info stood for. I told her that I am not a noob nor even an intermediate marketer and could give her a lesson as well. she passed me on to another agent and finally they just gave me a credit.... FYI..... buy the domain the very minute you see it is available. if not, just know you will NEVER EVER EVER BE ABLE TO GET IT.
99c .com ? Where? i don't know its working but i got one domain using code 99domain or 99domains at godaddy. that was valid for only one domain per account. chk if its working.
manjifera, yes, GoDaddy registers one .com domain for $.99 for one year after you apply the promotional coupon 99DOMAIN if it is your first experience with GoDaddy.
I think it is ok to name here megaclever registrars that steal your domains during registration. I'll summarize then and create a kind of list of shame. We already have NetworkSolutions.com in the list.
This has happened to me before on a "respected" registrar so don't think you're safe searching anywhere for domains. If you see something you like, grab it immediately...or pray that they're just tasting and come back later to see if it's still there.
This is not a common practice for all registrars. It is unethical, and I would be willing to bet that doing so could compromise a registrar's ICANN accreditation. This doesn't happen anymore. In 2008 ICANN fixed it so domain that tasting ends up costing registrars lots of money, effectively making tasting names a significant financial loss. I wanted to link a DotSauce article about the ICANN policy change, which also touches on the NetSol issue that was mentioned, but I can't post URLs yet. You can find it if you go to DotSauce's Web site, and click on Archives. Click on ICANN in the list below, and it's the forth item down. The title is "Domain Tasting Goes Sour: ICANN Will No Longer Issue Registration Refunds."
Guess what, my workmate registered a .com domain. It was quite a good name and it was surprising nobody has yet taken it up. Well, he registered the .com version of it since he just has the bare minimum in his paypal account. Today, he went to grab the .net and .org version of it and guess what...all domain extensions of it, apart from .mobi, are gone. Though it could not be classified as a premium name; it was a very nice, pronounceable name nevertheless. The registrar was MadDogDomains.com
NameWrangler, though ICANN stopped domain tasting, registrars are still grabbing domains being checked whether they are available. So, this does not solve the problem. Hoster1983, supplemental domains for a .com one can also be registered after you register it. And this registration can be done by any 3rd party, not just registrar you used.
It wasn't actually stolen since you never owned it. However, I read something a couple of years ago about some hackers that could get into domain searches from many domain registration companies. I can not remember where I seen it but there were many people there who swore that their domains were swooped up shortly after they searched if they did not register it. I am not sure if it was true but I have seen a few i searched grabbed shortly after I searched for them even on big name companies.
good advice here....This actually happened to me on yahoo. I was searching for a domain, found one I liked and was available, 2 hrs later it was gone!
same here, and then the asshole put it up as a premium domain for $900. It wasnt even worth 1/16th of that much money, but it goes to show how this issue is very real.
Your post sounds as if all registrars are doing that. You might be interested to know some of them have actually complained about it as well, since they too have been negatively affected by this. I've searched available domain names on Network Solutions' site the past two weeks, and none of them have been registered by them soon after. Their ex- CEO Champ Mitchell was once quoted in Infoworld they'll stop it if ICANN does something about it, and it seems they've kept their word. I invite you folks to go to their site, search for any available name, don't take it, then post back here with results. Let people know what you find. As NameWrangler said, ICANN recently enacted a measure to make tasting a more costly venture. They released an initial report on their site that it's cut down domain name deletions under their 120-hour Add/Grace Period by 80% (of which AGP allows tasting), but it remains to be seen if that'll indeed solve this problem. Again, folks, just be ready to register the domain name on the spot. You are needlessly frustrating yourself if you expect an available domain name to stay that way by the time you get around to it, only to find it taken by then.
This happened to me using whois.sc, however after being registered for a month it was then available again! Never understood that, but I grabbed it right away!
Dave Zan, thanks for info. I tried some ugly domains with NetworkSolutions.com, like gflwilsvsfweasdf.com. Nobody pretends to grab them. Anyway, I can't say they are bad guys. I am with GoDaddy at the moment and feel myself comfortable.
I do to check if a domain is available. My domain I've been planning to purchase for about 6 months is still there, and I'm surprised :X