Horse Race Stops Expired Domains In Australia

It appears that AusRegistry didn’t release .au expired domains today. This would normally happen on National Public Holidays, but its not a National Public holiday….

It just so happens that in Melbourne, Victoria (where AusRegistry is based) its the running of the Melbourne Cup.

In February, 2009 auDA announced that it had extended its .au Registry Licence Agreement with AusRegistry until 2014. They have a few more Melbourne Cups to get it right.

Expired Domains Explained

I wrote this guide to expired domains a few years ago, in order to help newcomers to the domaining industry. Given I’m still getting questions via email and posts on forums, I thought I’d post it up on Domainer Income. Hope it helps.

Purchasing A Domain Name

Anyone can register a domain name. The person or entity (company) that registers a domain name is typically called a registrant. The company that sells you a domain name is called the registrar. For example: Godaddy or Moniker. The company that manages the top level domain is called a registry.  For example: Verisign manages .com

Domain Expiration

A domain name is registered for a period of time. Depending on the type of domain name, it can be registered for up to 10 years. Once registered, the domain name becomes active. You can see the status of a domain name by viewing the whois information and looking at the status field. Note that there are a variety of different status codes (which is beyond the scope of this article).

In the first five days from the date of registration, a domain can be deleted by the registrar and the money refunded to the entity who purchased the domain name. This is called “Domain Tasting“. Most registrars do not allow you to do this; those that do, usually charge you a fee.

Domain Renewal

Lets say you register a domain name for 1 year. Usually 30 days before a domain expires, the registrar will send you a reminder notice, asking you to renew. In this example, if you don’t renew and the 1 year period is up, the domain name changes status to Redemption Grace Period. When this happens, the website and email for the domain name stops working. Of course, you can still renew your domain name and get it back.

If your registrar (eg: Network Solutions) has an agreement with a backordering company (eg: NameJet), then the backordering company is informed that your domain name has changed status. The backordering company may display the domain name on their website as being “available soon”. However, a user may decide to renew their domain name at this point and pay fee to get it back.

Dropped Domain

If the user does not renew their domain name, the domain state changes to Pending Delete. It stays in this state for approximately 5 days.

Once the Pending Delete period is finished, the domain name has expired. The domain is then released by the registrar (in theory) and becomes available to anyone to register. This process is called “the drop”. What happens in reality is that the registrars “hand over” their expired domains to the backordering companies, who then auction them off to the highest bidder. Domains that go through this process are also called dropped domains.

Expired Domains

Most domainers would agree that almost (if not) all expired domains are renewed and tasted. This is done to see if the domain can be monetized. If it can’t make money, then its left to expire. At this point each day, a large list of expired domains are available for anyone to register.

And that’s the circle of domaining life! Hakuna Matata.

Cry Baby Domainers Locate Godaddys Warehouse

To the left is a secret photo taken inside a leading domainers office. The photo was taken after a recent blog post which alleged that GoDaddy is warehousing domains.

If you look at clause 9 in the ICANN Registrar Agreement it states “Registrar shall abide by any ICANN-adopted policy prohibiting or restricting warehousing of or speculation in domain names by registrars.” As ICANN does not have any adopted policies in this regard, it can’t actually enforce anything.

So, welcome to the world of commercial reality where companies set up subsidiaries to hold their assets. In the case of Godaddy, its been alleged that Standard Tactics LLC performs this activity.

DomainerIncome has recently learned that a rogue group of blonde domainers is heading down to New Mexico to find the actual warehouse belonging to Standard Tactics LLC. Best of luck with the trip.

Still Plenty Of Fish In The Sea

A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with a group of domainers, when someone asked the group if anyone owned a “dictionary word” domain. Everyone looked at each other and paused. I kind of got the feeling that nobody wanted to say anything. So, I did – yes of course! But then someone else jumped in and started complaining about how  people like me grabbed them all up in the “good old days” and that there were “no good domains left”. Of course, I disagreed and gave some examples of domains that I purchased that very week.

Unfortunately, there are those amongst us that can’t complain enough about parking revenue, backordering fees, adsense blah, blah, blah – and I’m tired of it! I don’t want to be around negative people, however I do want to set the record straight.

Here are a few dictionary words that will expire over the next few days:

April 23

altimeters.org
backboards.org
broodmares.com
defectives.org
ferrous.org
hairdrier.org
humanization.org
hymnbooks.org
lariats.org
paratroops.org
pooed.net
premolar.net
setsquare.org
starfruit.org
tensile.org
terrycloth.org
vaquero.org
zealotry.net

April 24

contortion.net
defecated.com
enthral.net
half-baked.net
meriting.com
militarise.com
motorboated.com
peasantry.net
reedit.net
spinally.com

April 25

deactivation.net
gipsies.net
goldfinches.net
moires.com
overmodest.com
prelates.net
presided.net
rebuttals.net
starchier.com
thrushes.net
tromps.com
trustfully.net
turtledoves.net
two-faced.net

April 26

mullein.net
no-no.net
perambulator.net
recommissions.com
tieback.net
titivate.net

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that you will make a million dollars out of these names, but dictionary words are still around and yes, you can backorder them! Best of luck in the auction.