Bogus GoDaddy "domain is taken"

[cache]

Last night I tried to register quite a few domains at godaddy, I got
message "domain is taken", I could not register it nor could I backorder it.
Then I tried from another registrar, and successfully registered it.

Does this happen to other people? It is not just one domain, I tried quite a
few of them, 80% showed "domain is taken", only a few showed available.

 

[psalzmann]

Sounds like a scam. They are probably monitoring all search keywords for certain characters and if they match they will just show as unavailable so they can pick them up for their auctions.

Who knows. But don't you find it odd that people are selling L.com and LL / LLL.com's at sedo but you go to any registrar and the "min. number of characters" are too short?? What's going on there!! Now that's a scam.

 

[Peter]

Who knows. But don't you find it odd that people are selling L.com and LL / LLL.com's at sedo but you go to any registrar and the "min. number of characters" are too short?? What's going on there!! Now that's a scam.

That is because those domains were bought before a minimum length rule was implemented. Any domain that was already registered stayed in existence but if they do not get renewed they will be lost and not able to be registered again.

 

[psalzmann]

Great info to know. Never knew that.
Thanks Peter!

 

[floatingworld]

Sounds like a scam. They are probably monitoring all search keywords for certain characters and if they match they will just show as unavailable so they can pick them up for their auctions.

I very much doubt there is any evidence for this unless you think Godaddy is something out of the X-files.

 

[sdtrader]

Does this happen to other people? It is not just one domain, I tried quite a
few of them, 80% showed "domain is taken", only a few showed available.

Don't worry you are not alone.

Although I can never verify it I ran into some similar but not identical searches at godaddy.I do not register names there but used the search program out of convenience.

I am just too suspicious of their domain search. Understandably I may be imaging things but when a few obscure names suddenly get registered hours or minutes after a search if I didn't complete the transaction, I now do searches elsewhere.

It could be honest coincidence such as my searches becoming part of their suggestion tool but I have had developed a distrust with them for other reasons.

Others have reported suspicious activity surrounding Godaddy whois searches
for eg.
http://www.namestalkers.com/index.php/topic,31.0.html

Much of my research into domain tasting,domain kiting and domain spying seems to finger point this register.At the same time they have been vocal against these practices.

 

[DotWeekly]

Just my 2 cents.....

Godaddy's system is NOT Live and only updates at certain times. So if you check availability at Godaddy and it says it's not available and you check it at Moniker.com (live system) and it's available, then the system is just not updated yet at godaddy.

As long as Monikers system shows it's available, and godaddy's does not, you can still call godaddy and reg the domain there. I do it several times a day (if you want to reg with godaddy) or just do your searches at Moniker.com or EnomCentral.com the 2 live systems I know of. Then you will know right away.

 

[Ronald Regging]

or just get a $6.95 account through Moniker and never have to worry about this stuff again

 

[cache]

thanks for the info.

Just my 2 cents.....

Godaddy's system is NOT Live and only updates at certain times. So if you check availability at Godaddy and it says it's not available and you check it at Moniker.com (live system) and it's available, then the system is just not updated yet at godaddy.

As long as Monikers system shows it's available, and godaddy's does not, you can still call godaddy and reg the domain there. I do it several times a day (if you want to reg with godaddy) or just do your searches at Moniker.com or EnomCentral.com the 2 live systems I know of. Then you will know right away.