Waiting for domains to expire is such a loathsome hobby, and I know I'm not the only slave here to this forbidding passion - so I was hoping you could help me.

Contrary to what one should expect, I find that the registrars' whois searhes are of varying quality. I tend to use names4ever.com's or speednames.com's. Does anyone know of a better site from which to access the whois database?

I would like a domain currently hosted by Dotster, but I hesitate to use their monitoring service in case they should notify the current owner that someone is interested in his domain. Is this paranoia?

Some registrars, like Dotster, hold the domain for some time after it has expired, which makes it quite hard to figure out quite when it will be available. Is monitoring the only solution to this?

Best regards
Anders

and you have to hope that the domain is not interesting for the registrant, for example 3 or 4 letters, name of city or others of particular interest, my experience since 1995 with Netsol and other.

good luck, bye

(but ICANN exists?) :mad:

at www.buydomains.com you can do a specific search for expired domains!

how much is a 4 letter domain worth? (i have one :)

greets and good luck

ZYE

Depends on lots of things.....4 letter .com? if it is .com it might be worth a little but 3 letter.com are the domains possessing the value

Originally posted by theboss
and you have to hope that the domain is not interesting for the registrant, for example 3 or 4 letters, name of city or others of particular interest, my experience since 1995 with Netsol and other.

good luck, bye

(but ICANN exists?) :mad:

Do you mean to say that the registrant may become aware of a domain name because I monitor it? That's like the checkout girl buying the goods you've collected, only much worse. More like the vicar running off with your fiancée!
Anders

its a .com ist also very good located on the keyboard :-)
like kijn

For checking the "whois" database I frequent internic (http://www.internic.net) and openSRS (http://www.opensrs.net). If you have some time and want to browse, you can search deleteddomains (http://www.deleteddomains.com) for some interesting catches. As for domain monitoring, I am using SnapNames (http://www.snapnames.com) and since I don't just want to monitor the domains I'm interested in, I want to own them, I'm using their SnapBack service. I have not heard any negative experiences with dotster's monitoring service and not sure they will buy your targeted domain for you once it becomes available, something you might want to consider.

If the domain name is really good the registrar will take it for its use.

Hey, thanks a lot, Scott! SnapNames is just what I need! In fact, I wrote Dotster suggesting a service of this kind, and they told me they would think about it. Well, here it is! The price seems fair: $50/3yr. As far as I understand, you get a new 3-year period possibly with another domain if your first name hasn't expired after 3 years. That's more like 50 for life, in the event the domains don't ever expire. Why don't they advertise that? Any hidden fees?
Best regards
Anders

Glad to be of some help :)

No hidden fee's that I am aware of; and my experience with their support staff has been great.