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How to get this domain name?

  • I'm looking for advice on procuring a specific domain name. (I know this is a popular topic in Ask, so apologies if it's been covered and I've missed it. I've searched through previous questions and can't find what I'm looking for.) I want the .com corresponding to my name; let's call it myname.com. This domain name has been used from 1999 until a couple of years ago for a small website pertaining to the descendants of someone else with my name -- family reunion and history type stuff. The domain name currently goes nowhere. Both www.myname.com and myname.com result in a "Oops! Google Chrome could not connect to..." message. I've been trying unsuccessfully to contact whoever owns this name to try to purchase it. Emails sent to [email protected] don't bounce back but get no response. I found an email address on an older version of the site (through archive.org) that didn't bounce back but also got no response. The whois record doesn't list a registrant contact. The email address given for the administrative and technical contacts bounces back. The domain is registered through namecheap.com, but that's really all I know. My questions are as follows: 1. How can I find the owner to make an offer on this domain name? Am I overlooking some obvious means of contact? I can't offer more than a couple hundred dollars for it, but I feel like that might be enough, if only I could get in touch with the owner. Even if the owner told me they'll never sell or would only sell for $10,000, then at least my mind would be at ease. 2. Without contacting the owner, how else could I get this domain name? I've been following it for a couple of years, and it gets renewed every January. Does knowing that it's registered with namecheap.com help at all? Obviously, I'm not trying to snatch it from someone. I just want to maximize my potential for getting it if the owner ever let it expire. Thanks for your help.

  • Answer:

    Have you done a whois look up? If they don't have a privacy service, that will give you the contact info of the person who registered the domain. Even if they do have a privacy service, it will tell you how long the name is registered for. I was successful getting a domain name by spending a few bucks on a domain service that basically automatically tried to register the domain on my behalf when it expired. There are a lot of them out there and you can throw money at multiple ones if you really, really want the domain. I just used one of them and got lucky.

Pork-Chop Express at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

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"how long the name domain is registered for"

Kimberly

Submit a http://wdprs.internic.net/. The registrar has a responsibility to update the data. When they do, you will be able to contact the registrant and make them an offer.

IanMorr

It's not clear that you've already secured this information in another way, so try this link: http://internic.net/whois.html. The resulting page will give you everything the internet "knows" about who owns that domain name. It may consist solely of registrar information, but that is at least a start. If the record is actually completed, there will be a contact name and details. If not, follow IanMorr's link above to report the missing info and proceed from there.

OneMonkeysUncle

Thanks for the responses so far, everyone. I should have been clearer in my original question: I have done a whois lookup, through domaintools.com. The whois record gives namecheap.com as the registration service. The administrative and technical contacts are the same, and the email address given bounces back. I wasn't aware of internic.net. Curiously, it gives ENOM, INC. as the registrar. IanMorr, thanks for that link. That seems like my best bet so far. Any other ideas?

Pork-Chop Express

namecheap was a reseller for eNom. In 2007, namecheap got their own ICANN accreditation and domains that were registered with namecheap before that were given the option to transferring to new & improved namecheap or staying with eNom. Looks like the registrant of the domain you're interested in didn't take the transfer option. FWIW, I get unsolicited queries on a regular basis about purchasing domain names that I'm using. I ignore most of these emails because past experience has taught me that it's largely a waste of my time to enter a back and forth with an individual who invariably has more desire than $. I do pay attention when a domain broker such as sedo contacts me as someone who has made the effort to retain a broker tends to be a serious buyer + it gives me the protection that comes with using an escrow service.

jamaro

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