Thread: GoDaddy grabbing names after availability lookup?

Nice catch by one of our members, Bill Hartzer. Definitely worth following this... and exercising caution as to where you do searches on domain names.

Godaddy, the domain name registrar, has apparently been caught registering domain names after someone has looked up the availability of a domain name. This guy claims that he looked up a domain name to see if that domain name was available. The domain name was available, but apparently he did not register the domain name that day. He came back a few days later to find that the domain name had been registered by, low and behold: Godaddy themselves.

As you might recall, Network Solutions was caught a while back registering domain names within seconds of a domain availability lookup–causing you to have to go register the domain name through them....

For full report see Source: Godaddy Caught Registering Domains Names After Availability Lookup | Bill Hartzer

So, do you exercise caution when seeking out names? If so, where do YOU check that you consider safe?

Big discussion about this on another forum (namepros).
Hard to get real proof though.
Come on Bill, get some proof! I am pulling for you....

Must be true though, I once was looking at availability of a domain.
Mispelled the domain.
The right spelling of the domain I registered.
The other?
Odd, it was unavailable.

Something similar happened to be though I was looking up namecheap. I decided to wait a little while to make a bulk order, and a couple of days later one of the domains (the best) in a really niche market has been registered. This recently happened to me twice. It could be coincidence, but my gut feeling tells me that some people and/or domain registrars are not playing fair. To overcome the foul play I now register fast if I come across a good domain name.

This is old news. It happened to me a few times in the past, as well. If you search for a good domain on GoDaddy and find it is available and you do not register it at that moment, the chances are good that GoDaddy will be auctioning it the next day. For a while they were ending up at Melbourne IT, a registrar in Australia, which made me think that they had some kind of deal with GoDaddy.

GoDaddy was caught doing this a few years ago about the same time that Network Solutions was caught doing the same. I remember that Networks Solutions claimed that they were holding the domains to protect them for their customers. Ri-i-i-i-i-ght!

I no longer check for the availability of a domain at a registrar. I have never had a problem using the Domain Tools Bulk Check.

Bulk Check | Bulk Domain Availability Checker | DomainTools

There is nothing illegal or unethical about a registrar grabbing good domains. But the way that they do it is suspicious and does not build trust.

Bob Parsons wrote a damning blog post about domain kiting a year or so ago. But it must be tempting for staff with access to the domain search logs to resist registering the good names if they are not taken up quickly.