5 ms·

What are you implying? If GoDaddy purchased every domain searched through their site, they'd go bankrupt. It's not a very sustainable business model. Isn't the

What are you implying? If GoDaddy purchased every domain searched through their site, they'd go bankrupt. It's not a very sustainable business model. Isn't the more likely explanation that someone else also thought of your excellent name and purchased it?

gfosco 14y ago
Not every domain... but yes, that's what he's implying, and this is not the first time the claim has been made. I've had it happen personally, and so have others I know.
joahua 14y ago
I don't think the author's suggesting GoDaddy purchase every domain, but it'd be reasonable to think they might determine the relative value of domains to purchase based on search volumes. Dubiously ethical, but technically straightforward and a simple enough numbers game on the business side.
mistercow 14y ago
Nope. There's a five-day grace period on domain registrations. They snatch the domain to encourage you to buy it from them, and if you don't, they delete the registration and get their money refunded. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting
- zcvosdfdgj 14y ago
  He doesn't claim that it happening here. He said: I searched for a domain, and 3 days later someone else registered it. He has no complaint here. He has no right to domains he simply searched for but refused to buy.
  - mistercow 14y ago
    >He said: I searched for a domain, and 3 days later someone else registered it. No, he said he searched for a domain, and when he went to register it 3 days later, it was already taken. That is consistent with the hypothesis that GoDaddy is tasting, since 3 days would be within the 5 day grace period.
    - zcvosdfdgj 14y ago
      He said it was registered through godaddy. Not that godaddy owns it. Honestly, if he really believes godaddy is tasting, there's a simple way to end the debate. Post the name of the domain so we can all see the whois. Of course he won't do that, because his entire post is BS
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
reitzensteinm 14y ago
As another commenter has pointed out, there's a grace period where they can purchase the domain and cancel it without paying anything. So it is sustainable, plausible, dirty, and very much in line with Godaddy's track record.
nivla 14y ago
I agree. Although not a big fan of GoDaddy, I have both searched and purchased tons of domains with them and atleast to my knowledge, they don't put a hold on the searched domains. You can do a simple experiment: search for the domain "acmenewdomain.com" in Godaddy, wait for a few mins/hours and see if it is available at say Gandi.net. However, I can't say the same about Network Solutions. For the paranoid, just do a whois lookup yourself. If you have a linux machine edit your .profile and add "alias whoise=/root/whoise" to it. Then create a file /root/whoise and insert the following line into it whois $1 | grep -i exp.*: Now whenever you want to check for a domain's availability, just execute "whoise domain.com". If you receive a blank response, it is available otherwise it returns the current expiration for the domain.
- gojomo 14y ago
  A 'whois' lookup won't help the deeply paranoid: • what about the operator of the whois service you contact? My impression from some quick Googling is that whois.networksolutions.com is the default in Ubuntu. If you fear NetworkSolution's web interface, why would you trust their whois interface? • AFAIK, the 'whois' protocol isn't encrypted. An enterprising domainer could be sniffing for promising lookups.

gfosco 14y ago

Not every domain... but yes, that's what he's implying, and this is not the first time the claim has been made. I've had it happen personally, and so have others I know.

joahua 14y ago

I don't think the author's suggesting GoDaddy purchase every domain, but it'd be reasonable to think they might determine the relative value of domains to purchase based on search volumes. Dubiously ethical, but technically straightforward and a simple enough numbers game on the business side.

mistercow 14y ago

Nope. There's a five-day grace period on domain registrations. They snatch the domain to encourage you to buy it from them, and if you don't, they delete the registration and get their money refunded. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting

zcvosdfdgj 14y ago
He doesn't claim that it happening here. He said: I searched for a domain, and 3 days later someone else registered it. He has no complaint here. He has no right to domains he simply searched for but refused to buy.
- mistercow 14y ago
  >He said: I searched for a domain, and 3 days later someone else registered it. No, he said he searched for a domain, and when he went to register it 3 days later, it was already taken. That is consistent with the hypothesis that GoDaddy is tasting, since 3 days would be within the 5 day grace period.
  - zcvosdfdgj 14y ago
    He said it was registered through godaddy. Not that godaddy owns it. Honestly, if he really believes godaddy is tasting, there's a simple way to end the debate. Post the name of the domain so we can all see the whois. Of course he won't do that, because his entire post is BS
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

reitzensteinm 14y ago

As another commenter has pointed out, there's a grace period where they can purchase the domain and cancel it without paying anything. So it is sustainable, plausible, dirty, and very much in line with Godaddy's track record.

nivla 14y ago

I agree. Although not a big fan of GoDaddy, I have both searched and purchased tons of domains with them and atleast to my knowledge, they don't put a hold on the searched domains. You can do a simple experiment: search for the domain "acmenewdomain.com" in Godaddy, wait for a few mins/hours and see if it is available at say Gandi.net. However, I can't say the same about Network Solutions. For the paranoid, just do a whois lookup yourself. If you have a linux machine edit your .profile and add "alias whoise=/root/whoise" to it. Then create a file /root/whoise and insert the following line into it whois $1 | grep -i exp.*: Now whenever you want to check for a domain's availability, just execute "whoise domain.com". If you receive a blank response, it is available otherwise it returns the current expiration for the domain.

gojomo 14y ago
A 'whois' lookup won't help the deeply paranoid: • what about the operator of the whois service you contact? My impression from some quick Googling is that whois.networksolutions.com is the default in Ubuntu. If you fear NetworkSolution's web interface, why would you trust their whois interface? • AFAIK, the 'whois' protocol isn't encrypted. An enterprising domainer could be sniffing for promising lookups.