Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with domainname

What should I do about my lost domain name?

doubtless — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:26:23 -0800

So I lost my domain name. Now what? For a few years, I had a personal blog. Then the super cheap hosting service I used (Vizaweb) suddenly vanished, charging my credit card one more time before becoming a eerie and apparently deserted spam-trap.

My blog disappeared, but the domain continued to be registered to Vizaweb (I hadn't registered it in my own name).

So, I watched patiently over the course of a few months, as the name expired and went into pending deletion, thinking I'd buy it when it came up again. I figured that my very low traffic blog address (not a name that seems very marketable, either) wouldn't be worth anyone's effort to steal.

However today the name apparently became available and someone managed to buy it before I could register it again. Now it is owned by "c/o eNom, Inc. on behalf of eNom, Inc. Customer." It also says, "Expiration Date: 19-nov-2010." I've already visited the site on line (which perhaps was a bad idea?). It's now just a spamy set of links to hotels, ring tones, etc.

So, as I see it, I have 4 options:
1) wait till the name expires next year, then buy it.
2) email the owner and ask to buy it
3) buy the .net version and use that
4) forget about the old domain entirely

However, there are problems with each option:
1) they might renew it
2) he will probably ask a huge price for it, and I'm poor. I'm also not sure if, on principle, I'd want to pay more than maybe $50 to this domain name squatter
3) this would be ok, but .com is better known, and would probably encourage the new owner to renew the domain next year and/or to charge more for it if I ask him to sell it
4) this will really annoy me, as the name has some personal importance. But it is an option.

Anyway, I know that there's no great solution here, but I guess I'd be interested in what you'd recommend. (As a secondary question, how could I have avoided this? How could I have reserved the name that was held by my defunct hosting company?)

Thanks for any advice.

How do I buy this parked domain?

harriet vane — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:18:11 -0800

I'd like to buy the domain name "myfirstnamemylastname.com" (but with my actual first and last names). Unfortunately it's parked with GoDaddy, full of ads, and shows up as already taken when I do a domain name search. Do I have to buy it from GoDaddy or the owner or what? Or should I not bother, and go for the .net instead? This is the first time I've wanted a domain name that wasn't actually being used for a real website before.

How me get website?

SebastianKnight — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 08:27:42 -0800

I'm thinking about making a website but it's years since I last did this, what are the best registrars, hosts, and insidey bits nowadays? I'm in the UK. I'm working on some creative projects at the moment (visual art, collaborative research - it's all very nebulous right now) and sooner or later they're going to need an online base. It's years since I last did any of this stuff and I'm completely out of touch - help me get up to speed.

The site structure needs to be flexible enough to house blog-like sections (serially updated content) and portfolio-like sections (non-Flash image galleries etc.), and I want to house several projects at one domain name like this www.domainname.com/project1 www.domainname.com/project2 and so forth. I'm not a techie person at all but I don't mind using an admin interface if it's straightforward. I really don't want to be fending off new exploits or spending days on setup and things like that though. Please ask specific questions if my thinking is too unclear.

I'd really appreciate some feedback from people who really know their stuff rather than from miscellaneous one-time satisfied customers. Keep in mind that I'm in UK, if that's at all relevant.

- Can you suggest any general resources for domain name ideas?

- Who should I register the domain name with? In the past I've used the godaddy service where they conceal your name and address from WHOIS queries. What do you think about that?

- Who should I buy hosting from? I'm not expecting much traffic and my budget is very tight but I would like to go with a company who've been proven over time. Easy setup is a plus. And I want to be able to do redirects easily (e.g. www.mydomainname.com/survey1 would redirect to something like Survey Monkey).

- When I have the name and the empty hole it points to, how should I put something in it? MTCreations recommended Wordpress to another poster here - do you agree with those comments? Would they fit my intentions?

I think that's it. My problem is that I want a good quality end product but that I don't have the knowledge or discernment to get there on my own, or the budget to buy someone else's.

Thanks everyone - you're saving me hours of reading in circles.

Multiple domains, one hosting package, same content. Why?

entropic — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:23:13 -0800

Why does the domain I just registered and added to my existing hosting account (with 1and1) contain the same files and folders as a domain that was already on that hosting package? When I registered the new domain, I connected via FTP and noticed that it contained exactly the same directory and file structure as a domain that was already setup on that hosting package. If I make any changes to the new domain via ftp, it affects the existing domain as well. Obviously I'd like to be able to have different content on this new domain, but I can't figure out how to make that happen!

Why can't I use a period in my domain name like other sites do?

dancestoblue — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:23:35 -0800

Let's say my name is Fred McMurry. Let's say that I want a new domain name for myself, but I don't want fredmcmurry.net or fred-mcmurry.net but rather I want fred.mcmurry.net -- it seems that the rule is no periods in your domain name. Okay, got it, except why does google have maps.google.com and mail.google.com -- maybe someone here can tell me how I can buy mcmurry.net and then turn that into fred.mcmurry.net? I mean, rules are rules, right? Why do larger organizations use whatever.google.com; is mail.google.com a subdomain of google.com? And, since they can do that, why can't I? Or can I?

Please critique my spam

goshling — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:42:22 -0800

Received the following email yesterday in regards to my domain name. My first reaction was to hit delete, but I thought I'd just make sure I wasn't ignoring something I shouldn't be ignoring. Is this spam? Are they waiting for me to respond defending my "property" at which time they'll hit me with a pile of SEO crap for a "small fee"? Is it a scam? Legit? My domain name is {suburb}massage.com. I also have {suburb}massage.com.au and {suburb}remedialmassage.com My registered business name is {suburb} Remedial Massage. I'm in Australia. Obviously there are many places called {suburb} and many businesses offering massage in those places.

Dear Sir/Madam,

We are a domain name registration center in Hongkong,mainly dealing with domain name registration and internet intellectual property rights protection. On June.29,2009 we received a formal application from a local company of your country who is applying to register some domain names with the keyword “{suburb}massage ” and register it as their internet keyword. After investigation,we find that you are the original user of the keyword. As this refers to your company name or trade mark, and in order to avoid the confusion and dispute on the internet, we inform you and would like to know your ideas, if you agree about this issue, we will finish the third company's registration, If you don't agree the third company to register, please inform me.looking forward to your reply.thanks for your understanding and cooperation.

Should I respond to this or just hit delete?

Have the .com what about the .net

Gratishades — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:28:12 -0800

My company a domain name ending in .com. We have been contacted by a company claiming that someone else is trying to register the same address with a .net, .info, and .org suffix and have offered us first option (they contacted us because "they got a request for these and saw that we had the .com and were giving us first option)... OK so these guys are not ICANN registered so two elements to this; how often does this occur as scam (we're in the EU) and what is the legality of someone speculatively buying, say, www.notverygooddomainname.net when we have notverygooddomainname.com? Appreciate thoughts. We're not a huge company and forking out for all the variations of the domain name seems like overkill but appreciate thoughts experiences take on legalities and datapoint anecdotes.

Register domain name. That's it.

dicetumbler — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 08:58:29 -0800

I want to register two domain names that I think I may use at some point in the future. I don't need hosting just yet. This is probably obvious to some, but I couldn't find a definitive answer. How do I go about it?

What is the best process for back-ordering a .CA domain?

chudmonkey — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:31:55 -0800

What is the best process for back-ordering a .CA domain? There is a .CA domain name expiring this May which I would like to secure for myself. I can say with certainty that the existing registrant will not be renewing the domain, and also don't expect anyone else to be after it either.

I know that various companies offer a back-ordering service for .CA domains, but I am seeking specific recommendations with an eye towards finding the best price. (I have other domains registered with GoDaddy, but they do not seem to offer .CA backordering.)

Were I to forgo using a back-ordering service, would I simply be able to register the domain for myself on the day it expires, or will there be some waiting/holding period before the domain becomes available to the public again?

Thanks in advance for any perspective or experience you can share!

60 or less

scribbler — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:46:43 -0800

I need to register a domain name and get hosting services for $60 (or less)/year. Very specific details follow. So I need to register a domain and host a site for something like $60 (Canadian!) a year. I found this thread helpful but my situation is a little different.

This was originally supposed to be $50/year but I'm beginning to think that's impossible. In addition to the domain name, I need PHP, MySQL, webmail (at most, 10 addresses or so) and enough memory/storage to run the groupware we're using. The site is very low-traffic and we aren't storing much data or anything.

So far the only host I've found that comes close to meeting these requirements is 1&1 (mostly because of the free domain registration and maintenance). Recommendations?

trademark vs. my domain name

rhizome — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:08:31 -0800

I think a company is trying to do an end-around to get my domain name, what can I do about it? I have a domain name that another company wants. They used to have a different name, but now they've registered the trademark.

A few years ago I started to get occasional emails from someone asking about one of my domain names. I always had plans (not so well fleshed out) and didn't want to let it go. I never entertained selling it, never mentioned money or any bad-faith things like that. I did some Googling and found out about the company with the slightly-different name (think "Bob's X" where now they're dropping the "Bob's") existing in another part of the country (USA).

Today I received an email from UPS about a package that was going to be delivered to the city I had found before, using an email address at this domain. I did a search at USPTO and found that they had received (I think) the trademark about six months ago.

The frustrating thing is that I had explored getting the trademark based on my plans, even talking to a lawyer, but not following through. I'll likely be talking to this lawyer later, but I want to probe the hive.

foo.biz versus foosoftware.com

alms — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:55:55 -0800

Which is better: mypreferrednamesoftware.com or mypreferredname.biz? Or do I have to keep trying to find anothergoodname.com that isn't already taken? In case the summary wasn't clear, here it is in more detail:

After much searching, I have some company names that I like. Unfortunately, the .com's for these names are held by squatters. That has led me to purchase names that are something like the following:

littlelessons.biz
littlelessonssoftware.com

littlestories.biz
littlestoriesbooks.com

I've read this thread and talked to friends, so I get the consensus that anything-other-than-dot-com is the suckage and if I use a .biz domain I'll lose lots of traffic. But am I any better off tacking a stupid helper word ("software," "books") onto my name so I can use the .com? Will people end up at littlelessons.com and littlestories.com if I use any of the options above? Is my only choice to keep looking for a company name that has the .com available in its simplest form and hope that I can come up with something decent?

Yes, I will try to purchase the .com's from the squatters, but I don't want to spend a lot on this, so I'm not hopeful I'll be able to get them.

TheLastReal.Com

B(oYo)BIES — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:20:59 -0800

Domain Naming Troubles - I have spent the last week and a half trying to come up with a clever dot com for my web design company. I am looking for suggestions on keywords that I can use to form a good domain name. .COMs are hard to get a hold of using standard dictionary words, as it is, but it seems that all domain names concerning web development are gone. I know this isn't true, I just need help being a bit more creative when it comes to naming this particular domain.

Please give me a list of words that work well for a web dev site. I am not necessarily looking for you to name my site (although, if you have something great, that is available, I may just snap it up), I am more so looking for words that I can play around with to name it myself.

Thanks MeFites.

p.s. Using part, or all, of my name really isn't an option as it is pretty common and just not something I really care to do. I also don't care to use my state or geographical information as I feel it limits my target audience.

How do I pick a professional looking domain name?

dcbarker — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 07:22:25 -0800

Help me pick a professional domain name for email. All reasonable combinations of my name are already taken (the same goes for GoogleMail addresses). I'd like to avoid firstnamelastnameUK01321@googlemail.com if I can. I'm going to be using it mainly on CVs. So, because my real name (any reasonable combination of it..) is taken and I can't get my real name on GoogleMail, I'd like to pick a reasonably professional domain name (a .co.uk) to handle all of my email. That way I can just have firstname.lastname@mydomain.co.uk

The problem is.. Every domain I think of seems to sound like a lame social networking username or a dot com bubble company name. It'll be used on job applications, recruitment services and CVs. Nothing much else as I'd like to keep it separate from everything else.

I want to avoid getting a friend to forward mail from an already established domain for the same reason I'm not going to use one of my existing domains - I want a little self-contained email domain for work stuff.

I'm not so much looking for actual domain name suggestions - I'd really like advice on how to pick a suitable domain.

So, any ideas? Thanks!

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

bdk3clash — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 10:21:14 -0800

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?

domain name registrars that don´t suck

signal — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:14:36 -0800

What domain name registrars for the .com TLD hit the sweet spot between ease, reliability and price at present? Searched for previous questions, but the most recent one I found was in 2005, and I figure the landscape might have shifted.
Success / horror stories welcome.

FOSS project website takedown over legal threat. What can be done?

_aa_ — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:24:05 -0800

Webhost takes down open source project website in response to legal threat from small company with similar name, similar product. What can be done? A friend of mine administers an open source project whose website was taken down by their webhost after the host received a threatening notice from a small company with a similar but not identical name and a similar but not identical product.

Let's, for example, say that the open source project's name is "Recipitome" and it's a software application that manages recipes. The small company's trademarked identity is "MegaRecipitome" and they make a hardware recipe manager. The company does preexist the open source project.

This strikes me as Coke being able to take down any domain containing the word "OK", but perhaps this is standard in trademark law.

Being a small open source project, obviously there is no money for legal representation.

Is anyone aware of or has anybody had a similar situation with a project or website? If so how was it resolved?

It's pretty crucial for this project to retain it's identity. Any strategies or suggestions for restoring and then protecting their website in the future?

Thank you in advance.

WHOIS that? It's nobody...

Don-da-lah — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 09:14:49 -0800

I recently registered a .co.uk domain name. I've since found out that my full name is visible on a WHOIS. What can I do to hide it? I've contacted Nominet (the registrar for all .uk names) and they've said that it is possible to change the name by registering it to someone else, but I need to provide proof that the person exists.

Basically, I just want no personally identifying information to be available online. I don't mind a completely wrong address being available, or whatever. Just assume for the purposes of this question that I'm extremely paranoid. Ahem.

1] Would it be simplest to pay a friend to "take over" the domain name? Nominet are requesting a utility bill as proof that the other person exists, so obviously it has to be someone real.

2] Could I register the domain as a business, but put no personal information in the business address box? I'd just give it a try, but I don't want to mess up again.

Are there any other options I should consider?

I'd like to be able to use the name, but if there is no way of hiding myself, then I'm prepared to not-use it. Nominet do have a privacy option for individuals, but it only hides the address, not the name.

i let my domain expire and someone picked it up

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 18:34:36 -0800

I let my company's domain name expire, and now someone else owns it. What can I do to get it back? I recently let my company's domain name expire. It was my fault, and I'm an idiot, but I never transferred it from my old registrar. I just realized it, did a quick search, and was able to register .net, .org, .biz, .info, and .us. Unfortunately, .com is taken.

I hadn't set up a website at the domain name yet, although I have an S-Corporation set up in that name, and I've been doing business with it for nearly five years. The name is very specific (it includes "software" in it), so the person that took it can't really claim to be using it for a company not related to what I do.

It appears to be registered by a regular guy. There is very specific information listed as the Administrative Contact. Luckily it's not megadomainsnatchersrus.com or anything. I'm still apprehensive about contacting him though, as I'm worried about him trying to gouge me when he realizes it has value to me.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to proceed? Do I have any recourse given that I am the owner of the corporation that holds the name? If you'd like to contact me via email, feel free to use ask@spamhole.com. Thanks!

Master Of My Domain

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:08:03 -0800

A few years ago, I bought the .biz version of a domain name. The domain name is a common word, and the .com version was purchased by a new and now very large company. Now, I'm thinking about selling the name, or leasing the redirect. A while back, the Large Company offered to buy the name from me, but I turned them down. They then sent me a Cease & Desist letter, claiming I purchased the domain name in bad faith (which was nonsense, since I purchased the name before the company existed) and I was infringing on their trademark, and I must hand over the domain name. I hired a lawyer who told them to back off and they did.

But now I'm thinking about selling the name or leasing the redirect, but I suspect if I was to offer the domain name for sale, I'd face another series of challenges from the large company. What are my options?

How can I find the registration info for a lapsed domain name?

Hat Maui — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 11:43:23 -0800

How can I get registration information for a domain name that is expired? I have a friend who is in a legal dispute with someone. If there is some way for him to conclusively prove that a particular domain name was taken out by this person, it would be helpful to him in the dispute. However, the domain is lapsed and there is no whois information. Is this information on file somewhere? The site was registered in late 2005 or early 2006 and expired a year subsequent to that.

Buying a .org but not the .com

Plutor — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 12:50:01 -0800

It is a commonly held belief that enough Internet users foolishly expect every Internet domain to end in ".com", it would be a mistake to purchase and promote a domain ending in ".org" unless one can also purchase the corresponding domain in the ".com" TLD to redirect these foolish Internet users to the proper URL. Is there any statistical evidence that there are so many foolish Internet users out that that this is a necessary practice? Or is this merely unsubstantiated myth?

Someone wants to buy a domain name I own that I'm not using.

Argyle — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 09:46:37 -0800

Someone wants to buy a domain name I own that I'm not using. The domain is my last name .com, it's also his last name too. I use mylastname.org for web/email. Back in the hazy dotboom, a company registered mylastname.com and .net for nefarious purposes. After they went bust, the registrations expired and I registered the .com and .net and point them at the .org domain. My domains are all set to auto-renew and are locked to prevent me from ever having a lapse in registration.

I was contacted by a man with the same last name as me, but we are not related. He's been doing business for 15+ years as Mylastname Consulting and would really like the mylastname.com domain for his business use.

A few dilemmas:

1) On the personal side, he is a blogger of one political extreme, while my family tends toward the other political extreme.

2) I once wanted a domain that was unused, but registered. I contacted the owner and while he said he had no plans for the domain, he would simply not give to me. At the time I was very frustrated with this and felt that this was wrong. Five years later, he's still done nothing with it.

3) I have no idea how to measure the value of a domain name. Or how a brokered domain transfer is handled these days?

4) Will future generations of the Mylastname family curse me for handing this over or will be retaining .org & .net be enough?

I'm going to speak with my father & brother this weekend about their thoughts. Do we ask a donation to a charity? Ask for cash? Give it freely?

Ideas and suggestions welcome.

How to query lots of DNS records

TungstenChef — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 16:59:10 -0800

50 domains, 3 registrars, and DNS records hosted at 6 different providers. I need help inventorying this mess! I've been given the task of inventorying our domain name situation so that we can make it a little less insane. So far I've been able to collect all the domain names and their nameservers into an Excel document. What I want to do next is get all the DNS records (hopefully) or at least the A, NS, and MX in a format that I can easily bring them into Excel. Ideally I'd like to run a batch or script to do this all at once, but my limited knowledge of nslookup and dig has failed me. Help me hive mind!

W W What's up doc?

zingzangzung — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 11:15:42 -0800

I need to know a lot more about domain name hosting than I do right now. Earlier this week our web host told me that they were moving our site to another server and we would have to have the domain point to that new server. The actual domain names are held with a different company from the web host.
So my workmate has to ask the domain hosting person guy in our company to contact the domain hosts to repoint the domain name to the new IP. (still with me?).
He asks in the format "please change domain zingdomain.com to point to new IP". He gets a reply "the A names have been changed"
Two days later the domain starts resolving on zingdomain.com, but with an error when you use www.zingdomain.com. We discover the www domain name has not been repointed, but the non www has, so we have to go back to our guy and ask that the www name be also done (the web host tells us this).
OK so the question is, WTF is happening here?
1. Do you always need to specify for www and non www variations?
2. Why is nobody saying something like "do you want the www's done too?" when we ask for changes?
3. Does it always take at least 2 days for IP changes to resolve?
I know little about this stuff and am at the mercy of our host, our network guy etc. Please help me understand more and fuck up less.
We are going to be farming all this out soon, but in the meantime have to live with the situation as is.