Domains: Get a domain that is owned by somebody else

Modified on Tue, 4 Jun at 9:41 PM

Answer ID: 9081

Many times you want a domain that somebody else already has registered, or you want a domain that you used to have, but now somebody else has it. This article will detail some methods of ensuring you have a better chance of acquiring the domain that you want in this circumstance.

Note: If there is a dispute of domain ownership, or if you have a trademark for the company name / domain name, please see the HelpDesk article:Domain Disputes / changing ownership of domains

One way to try to acquire a domain that is already registered by somebody else, is to do a WHOIS search to find the owner's contact information. Finding contact information from a WHOIS search is harder to do now with the new GDPR privacy policy that is in place, but there is sometimes a proxy email address listed in the WHOIS information still. There are many places to do a whois search, some will come up with different amounts of information. A couple places to do a WHOIS search are whois.com and who.is. If you are able to find a contact email address or phone number for the domain from doing a WHOIS search, you can use this to inquire about the domain. In a domain WHOIS search it should show the domain registrar company being used for the domain registration. You can find a way to contact that domain registrar company and see if they will help you in passing along an inquiry to the domain owner. If you are able to contact the owner this way, it is possible that the current owner is willing to sell the domain, but you will have to negotiate with the owner for a price.

If contacting the owner via finding their information from a WHOIS search is not fruitful, another way to contact and negotiate the sale of a domain that is registered by someone else, is to use a domain broker service. A domain broker service will contact the owner of the domain, and negotiate a possible sale of the domain for you. Some domain broker services are Godaddy Broker Service, Sedo, and networksolutions.com (do a search for any domain name at network solutions, and it will come up with the services offered for it, including "backorder" and "certified offer").

If you are not able to purchase the domain directly from the current domain owner, you will need to wait until the domain expires, or is about to expire, to purchase it.

It can be cumbersome to remember to watch for when a domain may expire (the expiration information is usually found in a WHOIS search), so there are tools where you can monitor the expiration of a domain and have notifications sent to your email address shortly before a domain expires. There are multiple domain monitoring tools available, some paid and some free. One domain monitoring tool that includes domain expiration monitoring with notifications, and has a free plan, is domain-monitor.io.

After the domain expires, for some of the most popular domain extensions, there is a non-guaranteed 29 day grace period where the owner of the domain can still renew the domain (these domain extensions include .com, .net, .biz, .cc, .tv, .org, .me, .so, .tel, .mobi, .asia, .name, and .info). After the 29 day grace period, the domain may go straight to an auction or go into "redemption period". Different domain extensions will have different grace period rules and timelines, or may have no grace period. For more information about what happens after a domain expires, please see the HelpDesk article: What Happens When a Domain Expires.

You can try to get the domain after it has gone back into "general availability" (there is decreased likelihood of getting a domain this way, compared to backordering it). This would entail waiting for the domain to pass through the grace period (the time of the grace period depending on what domain extension it is), then possibly the redemption period also, then the domain will go into "pending delete" status for 5 days, after which the domain will go back into "general availability" for anybody to purchase in the regular manner again. The method of waiting for the domain to go back into "general availability" is not guaranteed. To increase chances of getting the domain, you can backorder the domain.

If a domain is about to expire, one of the best ways to grab the domain is to backorder it. Backordering an expiring domain will help your chances of acquiring the domain by basically letting you secure the domain before the domain is released back to the public. There are several ways to backorder a domain.

For domains that were previously registered through our affiliate, Enom, it will be best to backorder the domain through GoDaddy (https://www.godaddy.com/domains/domain-backorder), as Enom partners with GoDaddy for the purpose of sending expired domains through the GoDaddy backorder and auction system (source). When backordering a domain at GoDaddy, you pay upfront and that payment goes towards purchasing the domain directly via backorder or placing the first bid if the domain goes to auction (source). You can backorder a domain at GoDaddy at any time. GoDaddy supports the backordering of these domain extensions: .biz, .co, .com, .info, .me, .mobi, .net, .org, and .us.

Places to backorder a domain at any time and where you do not pay anything unless you successfully get the domain through that service include namejet.com and snapnames.com. Using multiple sites like namejet.com and snapnames.com to backorder the domain (where you only pay if you get the domain from that service) may help increase your chances of getting the domain, but getting a domain via backorder is still not guaranteed.

At networksolutions.com you can pay upfront for a one year term of a full-featured service that includes negotiating with the current owner of the domain, monitoring the domain for expiration, and backordering the domain if it expires.

In some instances a domain will go to an auction. You can search which domains are currently in an auction and purchase them at the sites auctions.godaddy.com and dropcatch.com.

Note: If a domain has previously been registered for a long time prior, and then expires, there will most likely be existing SEO rankings in search engines for that domain, which will make the domain desirable for companies that search through domain drop-listings for the best ones to pick up based on the SEO. This means it may be more difficult to successfully back-order / drop-catch these domains. An example of one such company that picks up dropped domains that have a history of search engine SEO rankings is Edoms.com (SEO.domains). Keep this in mind if trying to get back a domain that has previously been registered for a long time, as it may be more difficult to back-order / drop-catch, and if a company picks it up, they will then be selling the domain at a higher premium price. If possible, it will be good to try to contact the current domain owner to ask about selling the domain or transferring ownership before the domain expires, rather than letting a domain expire and trying to pick it up with a back-order / drop-catch service, or waiting for it go to back into general availability.

If there is a dispute of domain ownership, or if you have a trademark for the company name / domain name, please see the HelpDesk article: Domain Disputes / changing ownership of domains