Wanting an Expiring Domain Name
I need a domain name for one of my many pet projects. Unfortunately as is so often the case, the domain name that I want is taken. When I go to that site though, nothing is there. I checked the WayBackMachine (which is a wonderful site for seeing how some of your favorite sites used to look and also a reminder to be careful what you put online because you can’t always take it down yourself) and see that there hasn’t been a site there for going on a year now.
Doing a Whois search on the domain name reveals to me that it’s slated to expire this coming August 2008. That has me thinking that perhaps if I just wait, I might be able to snatch up the domain name I want for just the standard $15 a year registration fee. Ideally I’d like to launch my site before then, but the idea of getting the domain name I want on the cheap is very alluring.
I’ve debated also making an offer to this person for the domain. After all, their name is in the Whois search (why I would pay some company $20 or more to broker this deal is beyond me when I can just contact them and handle it myself). But doing this raises the chances that they’ll want more than I’m willing to pay (and given that this is personal site and I’m a cheap bastard, that’s not a lot). And if they see there is interest in their domain name, they might not let it expire either.
Letting it expire might have other issues too, namely domain name squatters. The domain name of which I speak is short and I think is a rather good one. That makes me worry that some squatter checking lists of recently expired domain names could swoop in and pick it up. I thought they made domain name squatting illegal actually, but it still seems to be happening. If a squatter picks up the domain name, it is all but surely lost to me.
So for the time being I’m just going to do nothing and keep working on my site. I’ve got at least a month worth of work on it before I could ever consider making it live and probably longer than that, so waiting until August to see what happens isn’t out of the question. And if the chips don’t fall the way I’d like, I could always go back to the domain name drawing board, as the final name is more cosmetic and less important for the functionality of my site.
0" he
This article has been view 395 times.
|