Category Archives: Domains
Feb 22, 2012 by Matt | Posted in Domains, Featured
I recently tried my hand at buying a previously-owned domain name. There was a domain that I had wanted for years, but it had already been taken. On a whim, I ran a whois search on it a couple weeks ago for some reason or another. I was surprised when I saw that it had expired back in November, and immediately began researching the domain name expiry process.
I found a good article on the subject, How to Snatch an Expiring Domain, from which I refreshed my memory on how the crazy business known as “Drop Catching” works. When a domain expires, it is marked as expired in VeriSign’s database. It remains in that deactivated state for forty days, unless the owner pays the usual fee to renew it. After that initial forty-day period is over, the owner still has a final chance to save the name before it is deleted, but they have to pay a $100 fee to do so. Seventy days after the expiration date, it’s status is changed to “locked” and it will be deleted from the ICANN database five days later during a three-hour window between 2:00pm and 5:00pm EST. As soon as it drops from the database, the name is available for registration.
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Dec 26
As if there weren’t enough reasons to not do business with GoDaddy, they recently made it clear that they not only support SOPA, but that they were involved in the authoring of the bill. Polis pointed out that SOPA and Smith’s amendment already excluded…
Dec 5
There has been a sudden outbreak of design and development blogs having their domain names hijacked and held for ransom. It seems to have started with David Walsh’s site, when his domain name was mysteriously transferred from GoDaddy to Name.com and from there to…
Jan 31
WoW Insider is perhaps the largest World of WarCraft blog online. As part of the Weblogs Inc. network, it has similar traffic numbers and weekly post counts to Engadget, TUAW and Joystiq. It also shares the misfortune of being owned by AOL. In their…
Jul 21
The .CO Top Level Domain is the geographic domain for Colombia. It has recently been made available for general registration, and the registrars are busy hyping it as “the new .COM.” Unfortunately, there is one major downside: you have to pay $30/year for a…
Mar 31
I probably don’t need to subject you to another rehash of “Oh, it’s so difficult to find domain names. All the good ones are taken…” You’ve likely heard that story at least a few times by now. Wordoid.com is a website that hopes to…
Jan 11
I recently read an interesting piece from Mashable that suggested that ICANN allowing non-Latin (Unicode) domain names is a security risk. The problem is that Unicode characters can be rendered in browsers as Latin characters, which opens a new window of opportunity for phishers.…
Jun 12
The Coalition for ICANN Transparency (CFIT) is trying to persuade the courts that VeriSign, with their exclusive contract to manage the .com domain registry, is breaking antitrust laws. According to a group of disgruntled registrars, the whole situation is an antitrust nightmare, one allegedly…
Jun 11
In mid-March I posted a poll asking the question “How Many Domains Do You Have?” The results have been interesting. The “2-5″ option recieved the most votes (35%), and “20+” was the second most popular option (23%). After that came “6-9″ (18%), “10-15″ (10%),…
May 14
How many domain names do you have registered at this time? Do you just have one, or do you have a massive portfolio, some you’re actively using while others are stashed for a future project or for sale? I’m somewhere in the middle. (They…
