Can the name registrars know the domains you are searching ？

[ilucky21c]

Just now, I was sitting on the toilet, randomly searching for available domain names to register, using the Aliyun app（Alibaba‘s domain app）,and came across the word interface. Most taken, but there was this interface DOT design showed available with the usual price of 69￥（about 10$）. What I regret now is that I did not take it instantly but kept on searching for other keywords. Then after a while, I finished and came out and could't forget the name. So I put the combination in Bing.com and found it worth registering. Then I opened godaddy and entered some random letters with .design in the searching bar and found the price was about 20$, higher than that in Aliyun app. Now I made up my mind and acted fast to reopen the app and entered interface. Scrolling down, passing all the taken tlds and premium ones, finally I got to interface.design in the bottom of the list. Then what？Taken？Then I thought,maybe it was taken long before, even days ago, and it was the app's bug to show it was available, such thing happens, no big disappointment. But I checked whois anyway. The moment my eyes were set on the time, 2018-05-26T09:45:53.0Z , I felt a sudden fear. TODAY! And the owner seemed like toplevel.design at Poland, the launcher of the design tld. Then I checked the time in my time zone of UTC+8. It was 2018-05-26 16:52, just now.I just have this instinct that somebody or somebot might be watching all of this all the time. They might filter every search. My instinct might be wrong and it might be right. Who knows？(Sorry for my poor foreign English but I think I have to ask the question)

 

[Name Trader]

To answer the question in the title. It is almost certain the operator of any nGTLD is watching your searches. Which is born out by your experience above. Some may be faster than others to take any actions, and some may not care to do anything about finding the domain available.

 

[branding]

I've had this happen before. Now all of a sudden my domain is a 'premium' and trust me, there's nothing premium about it.

 

[Name Trader]

I've had this happen before. Now all of a sudden my domain is a 'premium' and trust me, there's nothing premium about it.

Which nGTLD?

 

[ilucky21c]

To answer the question in the title. It is almost certain the operator of any nGTLD is watching your searches. Which is born out by your experience above. Some may be faster than others to take any actions, and some may not care to do anything about finding the domain available.

Oh got it. Guess a big brother is watching in the domain world.

 

[ilucky21c]

I've had this happen before. Now all of a sudden my domain is a 'premium' and trust me, there's nothing premium about it.

Last winter, I registered play.futbal and some other domain I now forget the name（bet.futbal？） on uniregistry with the normal price. Money was deducted from my credit card instantly and I did not get the names. I could still see them available with the normal discount price of 6$ or so. After several days I inquired and they replied saying that the names were premium ones. Then yet some other days passed, I saw these names' price tag changed to huge figures. I said this was a contract, I paid what you asked on your price tag, I should get the goods. .They said it was not their biz but the organization who issues the name made all the decisions and now they thought they are premium so the price much higher. I got the money back later anyway. So don't care about this any more.

 

[Name Trader]

Last winter, I registered play.futbal and some other domain I now forget the name（bet.futbal？） on uniregistry with the normal price. Money was deducted from my credit card instantly and I did not get the names. I could still see them available with the normal discount price of 6$ or so. After several days I inquired and they replied saying that the names were premium ones. Then yet another some days passed, I saw these names's price tag changed to huge figures.

I would imagine play.futbol and bet.futbol would have been valued as premium domains from the outset. That sounds like a hiccup in Uniregistry's control panel if they were priced at regular regfee. which explained why you didn't win them. I think I experienced something similar when these nGTLD's first came out. But I would also not put it past Uniregistry to have reclaimed these domains. These nGTLD's are farther west than the wild west.

 

[branding]

Which nGTLD?

It was a .network

I don't have much nTlds as most of my users don't get them but it would have been nice for internal use.

 

[xynames]

As well if you ever want to buy a domain from a place like BuyDomains or hope that they will drop it, don’t search for / access it via their own search engine! especially do not search/access it regularly.

 

[bee]

Yes, they know.

 

[bee]

Thank you for sharing your personal experience!

 

[searchnaija]

The domain registrars knows when you search for domain name in their website. I have experience cases with Godaddy when i search for some unique domain names that worth it, after some few ours the domain name are no longer available.

 

[DotKing]

Worst case happened to me in 2002 with netsol for very good .com name. I registered .net version instead which I sold for low xxxx. com version sold for 20k. Thanks to mymsearch. Since then I'm always cautious when hand registering and when I have an eye on domain to buy.
As @xynames mentioned, do not make repeated search queries and visit domain very often.

If name you are registering is fresh drop then it's probably someone who watch dropped list just like you.