Small business owner seeking advice

[trace504]

Hello. I am a small business owner and am looking to lock up an expiring domain. I have read through many threads, but I find many things to be very confusing, so I would greatly appreciate any advice that is offered.

I have a domain in mind that I want for the name of my small business. The current owner no longer uses this domain and I doubt that anyone else would want it. Yet, because I like the way it sounds and because it took a long time to come up with this name I want it. It is currently registered under namejuice.com

I have a few questions.

1) When should I place my backorders? I don't mind using multiple registrars. This domain expires on Nov 15, but I understand that it could be 80 days (or is it 85?) before I would get to bid on it. Is there any advantage to backordering now, or should I wait for the 79th day then backorder through multiple companies?

2) Although this site generates very little traffic, should I refrain from whois searches to minimize attention? What other things should I do to not draw attention?

3) How do you know if a domain will enter prerelease? I thought I could just wait until a domain entered pending deletion and then just backorder on the last day. But how can I monitor if this will get dumped beforehand?


Thank You!

 

[SiberForum]

Wait until that domain name expiries

 

[Erdy]

1) When should I place my backorders?

The correct question is when and where? You should place it when a domain enters pre-release auction (the first auction) at the partner auction house of the domain registrar. Some domains don't go to pre-release auction because the registrar isn't partnered with any auction site. In that case you should place a backorder when the domain enters pending delete status.

You can contact namejuice.com and ask them if they have a partnership with namejet.com, snapnames.com or neither of them.

2) What other things should I do to not draw attention?

Don't contact the domain owner. Don't keep opening the domain too many times.

3) How do you know if a domain will enter prerelease?

I provide a free domain monitoring service that monitors all major pre-release and pending delete expired domains. It performs a new check every day. You can try that or you can keep checking the domain manually after you find the correct auction house for pre-release. Pending deletes appear on both snapnames.com and namejet.com. However pre-release auction appear on only one site. There is also godaddy.com for pre-release but you don't need to check that because they only auction their own domains unlike namejet and snapnames.

If somebody else who reads this is confused by the terms pre-release and pending delete I wrote some explanation on the about page of my site.

 

[ScalableDomains]

A domain name is a critical aspect to your business success. If the domain name is a good generic or brandable domain name that will ad value to your business, buy the domain name from the owner. Make the owner an offer and get the domain. Remember, Beer.com was bought for 80K, sold for $3m and resold for $133m.