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Ask HN: Why can't I buy this .app domain?
I just had a weird experience on NameCheap. I found a .app domain that I really liked and wanted to buy it. Unfortunately, I got an error message after trying to add it to my cart.
As an example I'll be using `drive.app`. There is no whois record for this domain, but https://domains.google says it's unavailable:
$ whois -h whois.nic.google drive.app
Domain not found.
>>> Last update of WHOIS database: 2018-12-29T10:51:11Z <<<
Here is also a link to my screen capture of domains.google: https://i.imgur.com/an9Gp4M.gif
Thanks!
- whttheuuu 8y agoFunny enough, I did the same thing a few days ago and noticed the same thing. Noticed it was available, then tried to register it and after a refresh it was unavailable. Not sure if it was just a glitch or whether NameCheap was registering domains.
- sbr464 8y agoI bought a few hundred for a project, which one?
- billconan 8y agoI had a similar experience that a domain was shown as available, but when I check out, it said unavailable for purchasing or something.
- therealmarv 8y ago.app is owned by Google. Google can make their own rules on this domain top level and block e.g. drive.app !
- jeremija 8y agoThey seem to have blocked a lot of single-word domains that do not have a WHOIS record. They mark some as premium, but even with that, there's no way to buy any of them.
- Tomte 8y agoYou might be surprised to hear that Google has a product named "Drive".
- jeremija 8y agoI know. I used that as an example because I didn't want to share the domain name that I wanted. There are a bunch of single-word domains which are not available, but have no WHOIS record.
- Tomte 8y agoMy guess stays the same: your word is either a Google trademark or a domain name Google is itself interested in and has reserved it for possibly future use.
- offsetr 8y agoJust for laughs why not email the Google domains team?
- jeremija 8y agoI might just do that :)
- throwaway8879 8y agoI imagine it's not available. Namecheap does that sometimes. It says something is available when it's not. Incidentally, I own a drive.* domain. Have no idea if it's worth anything. I've been meaning to point it at my personal nextcloud instance but been too lazy.
- jeremija 8y agoYeah I figured it happens because they only check if there is a WHOIS record. At first I thought they registered it automatically after I showed interest (like people claim GoDaddy does sometimes), but that's why I started investigating. Looks like domains.google is the "source of truth" since Google owns .app after all. I've previously thought that if a domain is not available, there would be a WHOIS record, but I guess that's not the case here.
- throwaway8879 8y agoI'm not sure whether public WHOIS records cover all TLDs or not. Perhaps the newer ones like .app are not available? In any case, running whois on drive.app in the terminal tells me "domain not found".