Domain/Company Registrations

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Doing a whois on two domain names for companies I used to work for produced some odd results. The first one was a limited company that renamed itself - and it no longer exists, however the domain was renewed in July last year - after the company became dormant. The other one (that they renamed to) was taken over - the limited co also no longer exists, the domain appears to have been registered by some form of cyber squatters - are there folks that hang around waiting for domain expiries to snap them up?

[Durbs]

are there folks that hang around waiting for domain expiries to snap them up?

There's a whole industry dedicated to it!

Got a few bids in myself at the moment on names i need. Once they lapse (if ever), they are mine.

[administrator]

Yup, whole industry around this. Nominet will kick out domains registered to closed Ltd Cos as domains cannot be owned by a non-existent entity. Some domain baggers hunt them down and contact Nominet. The domain gets kicked and drops within a certain time frame.

If the domains were simply not renewed then they become available for re-registering three months after their renewal date, to the day. This means you know what 24 hour period a non-renewed domain will become available to register in and, if it is a half-decent one, one of the many dropcatchers will get it.

Durbs - if you are half-serious about registering a suspended domain then there is practically no way you will see it become available and register it manually as they are grabbed within milliseconds, book a dropcatcher and hope they get lucky. Although if it is a good one a lot of people will have their eye on it and the big players will pick it up. If the domains you are watching ever become available through not being renewed they will show up on public lists and the likelihood is that dropcatchers will get it. If the domains you are watching are owned by defunct companies then dob them in to Nominet and see if they get suspended. If the domains are not being used instead of waiting for them to get suspended and watch someone else pick them up you could try and contact the owners and see of they will transfer them to you.

[NickFitz]

This took me absolutely sodding ages to dig up (well, about five minutes, but this is the twenty-first century and these things should be instant when I think of something I last read several years ago) because I couldn't remember who it was from, and I had to try several different searches[*].

Still, I got there in the end, and it was from Mike Davidson, of ESPN, Newsvine and SiFR fame: How to Snatch an Expiring Domain

[*] If you're curious, the successful search terms were "getting a domain name placed a bid" - sometimes random phrases you recollect from a blog post you read in 2005 are a good way of getting Google to cough up the goods

[Fred Bloggs]

Always wondered what was going on. Some expired doimains I've used for club forums, small businesses etc... have long since lapsed. If I now browse to them today, the URL's seem to go to link farms and all sorts of weird places that I don't really understand the purpose of.