How to grab a soon-to-expire domain name?

March 13, 2008 10:21 AM

What is the best way to snag a soon-to-expire domain name?

[myname].com is registered by a company. It currently redirects to that company's web page (a different domain name.) It was registered in 2000, and the registration is set to expire this year.

I've e-mailed the registrant but have not received a response. What would be the best way to go about snagging this domain?

posted by bdk3clash to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

That article Dasein linked looks pretty good, but I wouldn't necessarily bet on the owner letting it expire. I've often waited until the last minute to renew my domain names.
posted by JaredSeth at 11:34 AM on March 13, 2008

It was registered in 2000, and the registration is set to expire this year.

Do you mean very soon? Most people pay for domain registration one year at a time (most especially people with multiple domain names), so very nearly all domain names are set to expire this year.
posted by winston at 11:39 AM on March 13, 2008

Best answer: I doubt you'll have luck in this case. It looks like you share a name with the owner of the company and looking at the whois info, it seems like he's been re-registering it every May (it was created in May and updated last May).
posted by stefnet at 11:57 AM on March 13, 2008

If it is not a domain name that is likely to be commercially valuable, you could just wait until it is available. I wanted to register a .com domain in my son's name, but it was taken so I took the .org and .net domains. When the .com expired and became available, it was picked up by some outfit in Texas which tried to sell it to me for $250. I said no, so they lowered the price to $50, which was still silly. After the 5 day tasting period, they dropped it. It was then picked up by a Russian company. They kited it for about two weeks, then dropped it. Next, some Australian group picked it up for a few days. After all that, it was dropped and I picked it right up.

I think this would only work if it is not a name that would generate advertising revenue, or that no one else really had a use for. Also, domain tasting is supposed to be stopped sometime soon, so I don't know what the chances of companies picking it up then will be.
posted by procrastination at 12:09 PM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]