Hi,

I use domaintools.com to monitor domain names of interest to me. Recently I've received 2 emails saying "<domain>.com is available for transfer".

When I check the Whois records there is no company ownership information listed, yet it is still registered through some registrar or other. The domains are unlocked and domaintools.com records say the domain status is "available".

My question is, does this mean I can just transfer the domain to a new registrar?

Naturally I don't want to give away the domain name, so sorry if this is vague. I guess I can try just transferring the domain and see what happens... but it seems a bit strange.

Cheers,
Graeme

I went to the registrars website and get:

The fact that your query returns "NOT FOUND" does not necessarily mean that
the domain may be available for registration. To search all domains, please
go to the shared registry whois located at:
http://www.internic.net/whois.html

Domain not found.

The result from internic.net is yet another registrar registered at the same address as the original registrar, using the same website template... is this a case of misconfiguration in DNS records perhaps?

The Whois for this finally returns that it is registered to Keyword Marketing, Inc. in the West Indies!

I guess I can contact them at least, or wait until the expiration date listed for the domain.

Cheers,
Graeme

Well, I'm not sure what was/is going on. I tried transferring it to my account and it has all gone through successfully. So we shall see what happens!

Firstly, I wouldn't use Domain Tools for whois searches because they are connected with or selling data to some nefarious domain companies, including the registrar of the domain you are interested in.

How did you initiate a transfer to your account? At what registrar?

Thanks for the feedback Stu... I use Godaddy. I know they cop a bit of flack, but they seem to meet my needs, for now at least. I try to split up the 'tools' I use for finding domains and purchasing. I will indeed be wary of DomainTools though. I seem to recall when they were whois.sc the 'cheap registration' they offered seemed to have strings attached.

Still, unless anyone can suggest a good domain monitoring service which is free, I will certainly continue using that side of things, and just register elsewhere. Thanks again for the advice though.

Cheers,
Graeme

The best whois lookup would be to use Linux's whois command. There are probably alternatives for other os's. On the internet side, I'd suggest iWhois.com, who supposed don't use/sell the lookups. They're pretty neat too.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. In all fairness to domaintools, I was notified by their 'watch' service that the domain I wanted was available for transfer, so used a registrar of my choice to do so. So it doesn't seem they've tried to scam me in any way.

If others are having problems then that is unfortunate. For me perhaps because I deal in some very small niche markets domains I monitor will seldom be highly merchandisable items, and getting a Google PR of 5 would be a big achievement.

However, forewarned is forearmed, and I have to agree there is the chance a monitoring company may well use data for some questionable purposes... just like the flack Google cops for their ever-creeping 'free' services from search to email to analytics... but nothing is ever 'free' so caveat emptor I guess.

Cheers,
Gaeme