I had a domain name I wanted to register, and it was taken. But when I ran a whois search on it, it says "no match for domain.com" (or something like that) The only thing is that the domain *seems* to be registered from dotster, but netsol and dotster's whois both return no info.

Needless to say, there is also no site on that domain. It's like a ghost domain.

Does anyone know how to find info on such a domain and especially how to find out when it expires?

Thanks,

Peter

The PUBLIC whois database is probably not updated or the domain is on hold or pre-registered.

For example neulevel.biz updates their whois database every 12 hours so you get a DOMAIN AVAILABLE but when you go and try to register it you get a DOMAIN ALLREADY TAKEN because of the realtime database access.

It could also be pre-registered by many people and it still has to be assigned to someone.

The domain I was trying to register was a .com, also, It has been more than 12 hours since I last check.

Is there anyway I can try to find info/expiration time for this domain?

Thanks,

Peter

Originally posted by ckpeter
I had a domain name I wanted to register, and it was taken. But when I ran a whois search on it, it says "no match for domain.com" (or something like that) The only thing is that the domain *seems* to be registered from dotster, but netsol and dotster's whois both return no info.

Can you register it at Netsol (pretend to register it)? If not, then it is taken but details have not been updated. If you can register it, then most likely it is just stuck in dotster's system, and still available.

I cannot register it at netsol, it says its taken. Netsol even offered to backorder that for me(snapname).

Could it be that the name was registered just a few moment before I checked? How long does it take for the whois info to update?(I started checking yesterday)

Thanks,

Peter

I've seen whois take days to update correctly. Chances are if it's a "desireable" name somebody has already got scripts set to attempt to register wholesale over and over as soon as there is any hint that it is free.

Greg

Stay away from the backorder service from NetSol. I did a test. I have a domain that doesn't expire for 10 years and I tried the domain checker and they still offered to back order it.