March 31, 200818 yr So I was going to buy a .co.uk domain with a hyphen in the middle, but I just went onto 123-reg.co.uk and it looks like someone else bought it today . After being angry for a bit I looked into other options, such as the .co.uk without a hyphen in the middle, and it appears that the person who owns this hasn't updated it in over a year (the page itself is a placeholder put there by the hosting company), and its renewal date is in June. The registrar is http://www.vibus.net/. My question is- how could I try to buy this domain? On that date in June, would the site become available? Or could it be set to automatically renew? edit: Just realised I put this in the wrong forum- sorry
March 31, 200818 yr They could have auto-renewal, or just manually renewing it - you would never know until the expiry date. Even then it could take months before the domain gets released back into the public. My advice is to email the owner and ask how much he wants for the domain. If it's too much, or he doesn't reply, then you might as well find a different domain.
March 31, 200818 yr Author My advice is to email the owner and ask how much he wants for the domain. If it's too much, or he doesn't reply, then you might as well find a different domain. Is there any way to get the owner's email address other than looking at the WHOIS info? All I can get is a postal address, which I suppose is worth a shot.
March 31, 200818 yr The only information will be on the WHOIS, or on the web site itself. There isn't any other way to get the contact details.
April 1, 200818 yr I thought WHOIS had to have an email address (and phone number) listed? Oh well. Everything Rob said is great advice. I'd like to add that, at least from what I've heard, gone are the days when you could sit by a computer and wait for the clock to strike midnight and a valuable domain to expire. In almost all cases they are now protected in some way - auto-renewals, locking, registrar protecting it, etc. I don't know how it all works but it's extremely unlikely that you could go the old-fashioned "sniper" route. The good news is, if you get in touch and they give you an exorbitant price, you kinda know ahead of time that they're going to renew. Not that it's much consolation.
Create an account or sign in to comment