I wanted to buy a domain name and the handful of variations are all unavailable. None have active webpages associated with them and all appear to be parked. I visited GoDaddy and checked the Whois info and each seems to be listed under various statuses which I’m unsure how to deduce. Most seem to be registered to private individuals though big name registrars.
What’s the best strategy for trying to obtain them? At least one is a few days expired but is still unavailable for purchase. Do you contact the person or do you keep quiet and watch the registration status? Do you contact the Registrar and hope they will “negotiate” the transfer? Every option seems to have issues and I’m unclear as to who’s most likely to work to my advantage.
Some registrars have a service that will let you “backorder” a domain, pouncing on it once it has reached the end of the redemption period.
I have used GoDaddy’s successfully - the times the domain went to redemption expiry it became mine. The times the domain did not go to redemption expiry, or I got tired of waiting, or a certain time had passed (A year? I forget, it’s been a while.), my money was returned.
For non-expired names that belong [to someone] but are parked, you might consider simply emailing the contact person (or phoning, or faxing, or physically mailing). I’ve been contacted that way for a name I was no longer using, and we used (sorry, not to push them, but I happened to use them) GoDaddy’s escrow service to complete the transaction.
I haven’t bought a name from someone who already owned it, but tried once. I also used to work for a large registrar but things may have changed a little in the last six years.
The first thing I would do is type in www.domainname.com and see what the domain resolves to. More often than not it will come up with a “This domain name is for sale!” page. If the name has expired, then you can either contact the registrant, who has a grace period to reclaim the name IIRC, or let it expire and see if you can beat the rush when the date comes. Contacting the registrar probably won’t help you because they don’t control the name.
Not sure what you’re seeing at GoDaddy if they are not the registrar. You can go to VeriSign’s Registry WhoIs to find out who the registrar is, and you can go to each registrar’s site to use their WhoIs to find out the registrant. However, lots of registrars now offer an option to hide their WhoIs data so you can’t contact them directly.
But doesn’t the registrar have to return the domain to the Registry immediately after the redemption period? I didn’t think they could retain exclusive rights to resell the domain.
Well, while they call the service “backorder”, I suspect it’s only for the benefit of Jane Clueless User.
The name does get returned, I suspect, if that is indeed the rule; but once it’s back, I don’t expect that something waiting for the bit to flip is likely to miss the bit flipping.
Hence the quotes around the term “backorder” - it’s not backordering in the retail sense we might be used to, but it effectively conveys the “if we can get it, we will get it” in short order.