Ok, the rumor is true and I'm angry

[tristanperry]

Yep, GoDaddy definitely do this. I've searched for two (pretty crappy) domains a few times through them, and both were registered for traffic testing with a week.

One dropped within the 5 days, the other didn't.

 

[NURCA]

Yep, the taster dropped the name and I am wiser for the experience

Thanks fellas

I knew it would drop, that's why I asked. Be ready to purchase at all times.

 

[bdmunee]

I had this happen to me last year.
I reg'd about 20 domains with good overture counts at Ipower and actually paid for the domains. The next day, they send me an email and tell me that the names aren't available. I checked the whois and they were ALL owned by the same guy. I called them up and raised hell, but to no avail - they offered to give me the same domain names for free in a different tld but I told them to shove it.

 

[MDSandB]

I had this happen to me last year.
I reg'd about 20 domains with good overture counts at Ipower and actually paid for the domains. The next day, they send me an email and tell me that the names aren't available. I checked the whois and they were ALL owned by the same guy. I called them up and raised hell, but to no avail - they offered to give me the same domain names for free in a different tld but I told them to shove it.

Thatz Sad. What ever happened.

 

[Wot]

Just had it happen with a dd24 name search- checked Saturday, Sunday regged by an other - whois protection of course!

 

[Dave Zan]

Yep, GoDaddy definitely do this. I've searched for two (pretty crappy) domains a few times through them, and both were registered for traffic testing with a week.

Could you post some details to possibly "validate" those claims? Were they
registered directly to Go Daddy or any of their peeps, or just registered with
them to but someone else?

Maybe I'm blind or plain stupid, but I've yet to see anyone post one ounce
of even remotely relevant data to support the seeming conclusion that Go
Daddy is registering domain names for themselves or even selling the search
data to someone else. Look online hard enough and you'll find some of their
peeps have consistently said they don't do either one.

Or do people find it conveniently easier to believe such anyway, then just
spreading it out as some kind of gospel truth?

 

[HomerJ]

i received the following in my inbox last week from D.D.

Dear Domainer,

It's getting more and more difficult to do any kind of domain research without running the risk of losing your domain ideas to unscrupulous domain tasters. For a quick overview of the problem, read the following article back from February: http://www.dailydomainer.com/200775-domain-tasting-monitoring-searches.html

Back then, it took domain tasters "a few days" to intercept,analyze and register the domains that you came up with. Now, it takes them less than 2 minutes. Last week an associate of mine was bulk-checking 200+ generic typo domains through a software that shall remain unnamed for now. All of the domains were available. Less than 2 minutes later, more than 50 of the domains had been registered by a number of different shell companies from the Bahamas.

There is no way this could be a coincidence. And if you read the more recent comments below the above mentioned article, it's clearer than ever before that there are severe leaks somewhere that allow domain tasters to compromise your domain searches and steal your domain ideas. Do you have more information about this issue or would like to share any related experiences? I'm all ears. Post your comments at http://www.dailydomainer.com/2007173-who-is-monitoring-your-domain-searches-update.html

Sincerely,

Rene Connor
Daily Domainer

also, the very first comment left under the first article above also has a link to a very interesting discussion on the topic. i believe it is 'mike the domain guy' or 'mike the investigator' or some such name.

 

[GAMEFINEST]

i just reg them at the time i search them

 

[dotcomocity]

i can verify that they do this also...

 

[lordbyroniv]

Its happening !!!!!!!!

All you doubting Thomas's are fools

There is no doubt !!!!!

Good names are very hard to come by, and disappear quickly after your investigation begins to domain tasters

Happens to me all the time nowadays

 

[dotcomocity]

i was thinking about branding a name that no one in the world would have ever reg'd so i searched it .... 3 days later it was mysteriously taken and it is a godaddy parked page

 

[intellect]

It definitely happens and is especially bad at godaddy as mentioned before. The funny part is when you call them and ask about the practice they say "Of course sir we never do that." Been more than a year since i used godaddy to check names.

 

[dotcomocity]

considering i am now going to quit using them.... who do you use now?

 

[Domagon]

This practice has been going on for many years, long before tasting was around.

Anytime one does a search (whois, SEs, etc) it's best to assume the results are being leaked, shared, sold to others with competing interests...

Moral of the story is search softly (some query methods leave less of a trail than others) and be ready to register quickly - I often will have another window open where I can do 1-click bulk regs immediately.

On a related topic, for folks with lots of spare time, do some bogus searches at various places with different domains at each ... and keep track of which domains get grabbed, and by whom - be interesting to see where leaks are happening and who exactly are benefitting.

Ron

 

[katherine]

Without ruling out the possibility, a lot of people use gd and their availability check is not real-time. Domains show up as available while they are not. Don't be surprised to find out that the name has been registered long ago. Check the actual creation date to verify whether it's a fresh reg or not... if it's an old reg than clearly your search was not leaked.
Also certain registrars display the recent searches of other users on their site, which is an invitation to reg somebody else's ideas.
Lastly there is a lot of tasting and kiting going on, so domains may be available then taken, again and again.

I would like to see compelling evidence ie. domains that you were searching and that were registered the same day, assuming it's not a domain that has dropped recently. Dropped domains are typically tasted several times and by different registrars.

 

[BidNo]

The trusted source for checking domain availability is iWhois.com. The CEO stated categorically they do not store nor sell the data and all evidence from multiple domainers supports this. The tool is also in final round voting for "Best Domainer Tool". I do not trust any of the others.

Recommended ==> iWhois.com

 

[DN BROKER]

can you share with us which domain?

i like to protect my searches, and like to investigate your case, provide us with the date you did the search and which domain it is?

 

[sundaybluez]

Yes, there's definately something fishy about GoDaddy.com

I booked JobsonMobile.com, JokesonMobile.com & JokesonMobile.com while i also check for some other ?????onMobile.com's although i booked the above mentione 3 domains next few hours but from other registrar. It was shocking to find the other major ?????onMobile.com's i had checked were also booked in a matter of somedays.

Guys just avoid GoDaddy.com to check domains availability!
Or might landup loosing some good domains........

 

[steveto]

guys?

this is not rocket science? What are you doing? Why are you going to websites at all to do whois'???


do whois from UNIX/Linux command line:
(where "$" is the prompt)
$whois domain.com
$whois dumbass.to

that's all you have to type...any tld

if you have a hosting account, make sure they offer ssh. download a program called putty.exe and use that..if you need help I will try. you can also do this from MAC command line because MAC is BSD backend which is BSDI...a derivative of UNIX.

none of the domains I search for are ever registered the next day..

 

[denny007]

I do not understand why people do not use REAL WHOIS directly with Verisign ? Which is I think whois.crsnic.net
Unless Verisign is selling queries, then there would be no help (and all whois pleces would be blamed for nothing) . Most people does also another huge mistake: they type the domain into browser to check if there is something there. Most ISPs is now selling NXD data to tasters. You can make a test - create some believable list of unregistered typos and keep making requests (i.e. with Domainpunch). You will se how quickly it gets registered (tasted) to be spit out 1-4 days later...