Domain Name "Theft" Warning With a Twist

12 years ago

I touched upon an awesome domain name a few years back and I had already sold it for a lot of money in my head. It was a sure seller.

I "registered" it though it wasn't actually officially registered (with nominet) after 7 days so I chased it up and I was fed some speil relating to the domain name already being taken - which it clearly wasn't evident by several WHOIS checks.

To this day I'm convinced that the registrar seen the value in it and registered it on their behalf.

Thanks

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barbling

12 years ago

I feel your pain.

Normally when I go searching for domain names, I'll use Network Solutions to see if they're available, and then immediately register them thru GoDaddy.

I've heard of such tales as yours.....that's lousy. Hope you can devise an even better name soon!

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kursat

12 years ago

I also learned to play safe with domain names.

So when I find a good one, I would normally just buy it. Worse case, I don't use the domain and lose a few dollars.

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ConsumerCPA

12 years ago

Wow I never exactly thought about that happening. But it does make sense and probably happens everyday. I usually just buy everything from godaddy and search it on there. Thanks for the warning though!

Thanks
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jwmann2 12 years ago

Terrible. Just terrible. Very sorry to hear about that. However, every misfortune is a blessing in disguise. You will come up with an even better idea for a domain name. Protect it!
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tpw

12 years ago

I have never had that happen to me.

But some jackwad one time created a software application designed to abuse the crap out of my server.

Had he spidered my domain once or a few times, then no problem. Instead, he was spidering every page on my site 164 times a day. I noticed it because the domain that was allotted 6gb per month and only used 2gb per month ran out of bandwidth in the first 10 days of the month.

I found that dude had already named his product, but had not yet purchased the domain by the same name as his nifty little application.

So I snagged the domain, and I blocked his IP block.

If he was going to be stupid enough to continue using the same product name, then I was going to waste him.

He was smart enough to change the product name before public launch. But he had to go change the name of the product in his code, where ever it had been put in the code.

At least I got to return some of the aggravation to him that he had given to me.

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Ken Leatherman

12 years ago

Yea Bill. I applaud you. Keep Kicking Butts.

Ken

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Damielle

12 years ago

Wow,that really sucks...

I had to learn this lesson the hard way too.
Had the perfect domain name to brand my business, I was amazed it wasn't registered but for some strange reason I didn't register it right away.

About a month later, I went to register it and found that it was taken. The worst part is that the person was only using the domain as a redirect to an affiliate product that had a similar name

and was wasting a perfectly good brand name in my opinion.

Lesson learned...

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Gene Pimentel

12 years ago

There are apps specifically designed for domain 'hunters'. You visit a website, and it automatically captures every domain name mentioned on that site. It then checks all those for availability, and gives you the report. I don't recall the name of the app, but they're out there.

Thanks

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HeySal

12 years ago

Been there. Done that. Looked up several domains then went back to buy one and couldn't get even close to any of them. Ended up with a lame domain that is helping me in no way that I will ever find.

I'm about to take my products down from that domain and shuffle them off to Kindle or some such - will keep the design to use later, but just can't continue paying for a domain that isn't helping me sell. Lesson learned the hard way.

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Nicola Lane

12 years ago

Be careful where you do your research.

The one time I checked through Godaddy, the names were all snapped up within a few days. With Namecheap I've never had a problem.

Thanks

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cenmegasys

12 years ago

This issue has happen to me several times.
Its better to search for domain with whois than to use a domain registrar.

Thanks

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davezan

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Mark Singletary

I can't believe I let this happen.

We know that some domain registrars will register your cool domain name if you search for it and don't immediately buy it. Lesson learned - be careful searching if you aren't prepared to buy.

The new twist is this - I had a site up with category names for content and one of the names was pretty cool in my opinion. I planned to use it obviously or it wouldn't be on my site and also "protect" the domain name for future use. This site was getting no real traffic because of no promotion - it wasn't ready yet but it was getting those various crawlers (searching for domain information) that you may have noticed in your site logs.

When I went to register the domain for this category name, it was taken - and recently. It HAD to be a result of those crawlers because I can't imagine anyone would come up with this on their own. Also the fact that it's now for sale for $367 makes me believe that it was this.

I have no one to blame but myself.

Lesson - don't put cool names that you may want to brand yourself with up on the web without registering the domain name first if appropriate.

You've been warned.

Mark

Sorry, I'm not really clear on this post. So you did search, found the domain is
available, did not take it on the spot, then it was registered a few days after?
Just making sure I understood you.

On the side, you folks might find these beta tools interesting:

VERISIGN® DomainScore™

Domain Finder

They come from the very same source everyone (and I mean everyone) goes
through. Note that they're both beta, though, so they are not necessarily nor
totally accurate, albeit they can give some ideas.

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David

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Mark Singletary

12 years ago

Originally Posted by davezan

Sorry, I'm not really clear on this post. So you did search, found the domain is
available, did not take it on the spot, then it was registered a few days after?
Just making sure I understood you.

No I think I wasn't clear. Even though that has happened before - this is different hence the twist part.

I had a name of something on a site that I wanted to use in my business. I also wanted to buy the domain name because I wanted to use this name as part of my branding.

A domain crawler apparently came along, saw the cool name and someone registered the corresponding domain name.

An example: You write an article where you mention the word Atracaus which is a product you want to develop in the future. It's not very likely another human would come up with such a unique name but someone registers that domain name. The only people that have seen that name are spiders that have visited your site but the page that mentions Atracaus isn't indexed by any search engine.

Despite that someone registered the domain which is now for sale. And this happened right after the site went online.

Who did it?

That's what happened to me. So the lesson I learned is don't put words of products or unique ideas out there if you want to register the domain until you actually do register it because someone may beat you to it.

Thanks
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Meharis 12 years ago

I don't want to sound like know it all but, I check the domains availability
by going to : Internic | Whois (obviously, not affiliated)
I trust no one else no matter what.
Meharis
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Domain Name "Theft" Warning With a Twist

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