Who.is shows a domain expired 1-29-11, but it's still "pendingDelete"?

[ruthlind]

Hello Everyone,

A domain I'm interested in expired in January, but it's not available as of today. A "last update" is shown for 4-11-11. Does anyone have any ideas as to why it would not be available? It shows "Status: pendingDelete". It seems that it would have been deleted by now and available...

Also, does anyone know if there are sniffers on registar's websites? A couple of times when I have searched for a domain name and the name has had a high search number on the Google keyword tool, the name has been available, but then became unavailable very shortly thereafter. Once it happened within 5 minutes and I was shocked.

Thanks for any feedback :cy:

Ruth

 

[chat111]

Pending delete means it will be deleted any day now. This status lasts only for 5 days.

Domains becoming unavailable within 5 min is nothing! They are snatched within fractions of seconds, the moment they are deleted. (Good ones of course)

 

[ruthlind]

Thanks! That info really helps me out. Customer service at my registrar told me it could be another month or two...

 

[chat111]

Don't take my word on it! Usually it is everywhere 5 days, but who knows with that particular registar?? Still if you want to secure the domain best to assume there is very little time left, and if you think it is a good domain name (likely to be snatched) I would register with couple of snatchers, namejet, pool and similar.

 

[alien51]

Based on my experience, sometimes whois software gets screwed-up for some reason. For example, I've been eyeing a dropped domain for about 3 months now (waiting for a 1.99 Godaddy to come along). When i check the domain using DomainTools, the domain is reflected as TAKEN. In reality, it was already dropped. Some other whois already says it is AVAILABLE, but in DomainTools it remains TAKEN. Tried to "practice" buying it with my registrar account (waiting for a 1.99 Godaddy to come along) and it showed i can add it to my shopping cart which means DomainTools is wrong.

Regarding search sniffers when using your registrar's search tool, they call it "front-running". They detect that you might be interested on the domain so your registrar snatches the domain for you and try to resell it to you for a profit. Check the threads here in NP, i think a lot has been discussed about it in the past.

 

[DomainTalker]

Also, does anyone know if there are sniffers on registar's websites?

Good tip:


If you're interested in, say, the .com of a domain - and want to see if its available to register - then, specifically check the .net, or .org, of the name at your Registrar (NOT the .com)....In addition to showing the status of the .net, or .org, it'll show you the status of the .com.


...This way, the Registrar thinks you're checking for the .net (and might snatch that) but has no way of knowing you are really interested in the .com (and won't snatch it).

.