WhoHitJohn.com MUST BE MINE. Help me get it. thanks.

December 3, 2007 5:31 PM

How do I get this domain?! It's making me crazy. It should be expired but I can't get verio to register it for me.

I really want whohitjohn.com. It's got some dumb aol placeholder on it right now (as it has had on it for ages). The whois lookup from a couple months ago said that the license expired on Nov 27 of 2007. So I waited until Nov 28, did a whois lookup and it said the there was no match for whohitjohn.com. So I thought to myself, "sweet, yo." I called up verio, was all like, "Hey - I'd like to open up a sweet-ass business account with all the fixin's, please give me whohitjohn.com thank you very much." And she said that it wouldn't expire until Nov 27 of 2008. "Sux," I said, and hung up.
How can this be?
How can I obtain this url?I don't want to be whohitjohn.net, or whohitjohnband.com or anything else.
I emailed aol but they didn't respond.
Help me!

posted by Baby_Balrog to Technology (9 answers total)

Best answer: domains have a redemption grace period of at least 30 days, sometimes as much as 90, in order to prevent people from sniping domains from people who forget to renew.
posted by phil at 5:38 PM on December 3, 2007

Best answer: you may find this article on "getting the drop" helpful.
posted by phil at 5:41 PM on December 3, 2007 [1 favorite]

Best answer: i feel a bit odd continuing to reply without anyone in between but i can't help myself. just because the web page has a placeholder does not mean the domain is not in use. the owner could be using it with other protocols other than http, such as smtp.

assume the owner really is using it for email only.

on the 28th the owner's friends call to let him know they can no longer send him email. after some poking around it is clear the problem is he forgot to pay the bills. he still has a minimum of 29 days, although in all likely hood 74, to renew before you can register. in this case it sounds like he did.
posted by phil at 5:51 PM on December 3, 2007

The article phil linked to is very helpful. I followed the advice in it, used snapnames, and acquired for my (at the time) employer a domain that is very valuable to them, for a relatively insubstantial cost.
posted by dersins at 5:54 PM on December 3, 2007 [1 favorite]

FYI, don't contact anyone remotely connected to the domain -- you'll just be begging them to re-register it once they know someone is interested, as happened when one of my less-smart clients did this, after I strongly suggested they not. As dersins said, go the snapnames route if the domain is that important to you. It's pretty cheap, and it (usually) works.

Oh, and kudos to phil -- that article is the shizz; I read it several years ago, but it's still valuable info.
posted by liquado at 7:43 PM on December 3, 2007

Best answer: Previously a similar thread. Also, this. Also read this article.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:49 PM on December 3, 2007

Best answer: What I got from the previous threads and the article that phil linked to was to lay as low as possible. Do not go to the site to check. Do not do a whois. I took the advice after I had inadvertently, and stupidly, let two domains expire because my contact email was an old email I never used. I refused to pay the blackmail higher rate for renewal after the 30 period that Network Solutions wanted. At one point a bulk purchaser who I think was associated with Network Solutions registered the name, but let it expire after the trial period. I then grabbed it through the Google apps-- Go Daddy process.

Be patient. Do not look anxious.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:54 PM on December 3, 2007

Best answer: This is just a helpful tip and not a lecture. In the future, don't ever tell any one on a public message board how bad you want the domain. The people who DO know how to grab domains will do it. They use sophisticated software that alerts them the second it's released completely, and in some cases can even purchase the domain. Make no mistake, they can do exactly that knowing they have an eager buyer on the other end who has publicly proclaimed how important it is to them to own. Call it a kind of hostage taking. It's terrible, the ICANN rules suck in many ways, but as it is now, if you really want something - read, research (lots of good links above) but don't ever let on to your desperation. At any rate, good luck!
posted by Gerard Sorme at 8:03 PM on December 3, 2007

Response by poster: Yes! Good information. Thanks people.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 8:06 PM on December 3, 2007