Registrar monitoring domain name searches...?

[nstaff]

A weird thing happened the other day and I was kind of looking for anyones ideas/comments/suggestions - thanks in advance.

I did a domain availability search from a very popular registrars website and the domain name was available. I didn't get it but a few weeks later went back to buy it and it had already been registered - by a subsidiary of the registrar I had used to search for it's availability.

I know first and foremost it could be a complete coincidence, this company has a great rep so why risk it for my domain name, but has anyone had this happen to them or heard of it going on?

Thanks again,

Nick Staff

[email protected]

 

[RJ]

This theory about registrars stealing ideas has been floated around before. I don't buy into it. First, most registrars are not in the business of buying name and reselling them themselves. Only one big one that I know of does and that's buydomains, aka domaindiscover. Second, there are much better ways to come up with available names than sifting through the leftover unregistered names that people have searched.

It's much more likely that someone else had the same idea and registered it. When you come up with a great idea for a domain, you can't sit on it for weeks and expect it to still be available. I've had this happen far too many times (and it sucks!), so have learned my lesson about delaying.

 

[Tippy]

It has happened to me a few times but the name was registered by someone else within 48hrs., it does make you wonder though...

 

[Dave_Z]

This is one business where time is of the essence...

 

[matrics]

Tippy, by any chance, was it at name.com?

 

[AdoptableDomains]

I heard of this happening quite often a few years ago. Often non-registrar sites were set up to help you find names. They then used the data themselves to register good ones that were found or to keep track of popular keywords. I have not heard of this much in the past couple years. It may also have been hackers monitoring traffic to the web page. Use a secure site for searches that is encrypted and this should not be possible.

As stated, it's also likely that any popular keyword is being searched by many others...haste or waste...