Won't bother telling you all the long story....

But to the point...How long does it take for an order placed and given to a registrar for the registrar to do what they do and make it show up as taken on the whois db's?

*I have a clue, but am not sure so any input is appreciated.

Most registrars it should be in near time. Some TLD's such as .ca and co.uk are not realtime and can take several minutes to appear as taken

for com/net/org it is instant.

Thanks for the fast replies. I thou so. I guess time to call up the registrar and see if I can resolve this issue.

It will show in real time that it is taken with the same registrar or the other registrars but it will take minimum 12-24 hours to show up at www.internic.com

Whois info is also available in 24 hours..

The problem you MIGHT have is the payment processing.
A domain I registered with hostway
is still not going through.
I dont know wat to do.