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Losing my domain and then getting it back
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May 9th, 2008 by 
Jay Westerdal
I almost lost my domain permanently because I was unaware it was expiring. I got an alert from our new Registrant Alert system on DomainTools and it saved my ass. I am extremely thankful we invented this system. It is nice to have an example I can point to so soon after launching the service. The alert told me that “Registercom” now owned my domain. That was a huge tip off that the registrar was about to delete my domain. I had won the domain in a Snapnames auction in 2007 and it was sitting at Register.com account that Snapnames opened for me because they Register.com was the old registrar. I normally keep at one registrar that has an auto-renew feature and nothing in my account deletes. However I didn’t remember to transfer this domain over to my normal registrar after I won the domain in the auction.
With this Registrant alert I was able to see I had lost the domain, so therefore and was able to quickly act and get the domain back by renewing it. It would have sucked if I had needed to go to auction to get my domain back. When buying domains at multiple registrar I would highly recommend setting an alert on yourself.
Registrant Alert
The system spots strings that are Newly place on a whois record which were not on the previous historical record.? The system now supports the exact opposite too; It will alert you if your strings get removed from a current whois record. I have set a few alerts on public domainers and I see when they buy or sell domains.
Posted in Domain Tools Updates, Registrant Alert |
May 10th, 2008 at 3:03 am
a tool to protect yourself from your own incompetance
May 10th, 2008 at 6:46 am
I lost my domain and it wasnt even expiring. From Register.com… Not sure what any monitoring tool could do to help:
Its my first/last name domain and Register.com began sending warnings to me to renew my registration in August 2001. It wasnt supposed to expire until Dec-2001. I have screen prints of such as well. I ignore these emails because I thought it was similar to magazines that want you to renew because “your subscription will be expiring in 10 months” (!) you’ve all seen these I am sure. Well, in Sep-2001 they gave the domain to another person with the same name as myself and I lost the domain. Not only that, their incompetents at customer noservice refused to acknowledge any wrong-doing. I dropped the issue, but if I knew then what I know now I would have raised a major stink about that.
Yea, I know its 7 years ago but it still burns me up AND I dont think any monitoring tool would have helped. It would have just notified me of what I eventually found out and was able to do nothing to remedy it.
May 10th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Jay,
I had the identical experience a few months ago with Name Server Spy which I use to monitor the Name Servers of some of our divisions which are not under central control. In this case the registrar was Network Solutions and Name Server Spy reported that the DNS entry had changed to PENDINGRENEWALDELETION.COM. The WhoIs record did not have a valid Email account so the expiration notification was never received. Tools like Registrant Alert or Name Server Spy can cover Domains which slip through the cracks. Until I received the Name Server Spy alert I had not realized that it could detect Domains which were pending deletion. These tools are you Omega Defense which come trough when all else fails.
Once Domain Tools can support prepaid corporate accounts I am planning to use Registrant Alert and Name Server Spy aggressively monitor all corporate resources including those I believe to be 100% safe because two weeks ago I discovered another small exception, like you, the hard way. In large corporations the most dangerous situations occur in areas where you are convinced that you have complete control.
You should put together a document which addresses risk scenarios and how Domain Tools products can address them. Unless you have been through the learning experience, the connections are not always that obvious.
Mike
May 10th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
michael91806 Said:
“You should put together a document which addresses risk scenarios and how Domain Tools products can address them. Unless you have been through the learning experience, the connections are not always that obvious.”
Maybe a FAQ with some war stories.
May 11th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
That is the reason I am with godaddy they have automatic reminders and it is locked and if someone else wants that domain they send you a e-mail with a link in it to comfirm it
May 11th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
jrg12345 Said:
“That is the reason I am with godaddy they have automatic reminders and it is locked and if someone else wants that domain they send you a e-mail with a link in it to comfirm it”
That’s good up until the domain expires like Jay’s did. Once it expires your account no longer controls the domain so you won’t get notices and email is fickle, too.
Your spam software and the email host’s spam software might start blocking certain emails or your mail host might just lose or corrupt your account. Or the host starts blocking a domain, IP, or forwarding might quit. Then you don’t get the emails.
This tool Jay (Domain Tools) has is just another level of protection and a perfect “last bastion of domain protection” when needed.
May 12th, 2008 at 10:06 am
This is why consolidating domains from multiple registrars within a tool like DNZoom can be a lifesaver. Forget having to check half a dozen registrar accounts, all your domains are listed in one place along with a countdown for names expiring soon.
Most registrars are good at sending renewal reminders, but if you have a lot of names, or names that are registered with an old email address, it’s easy to let names expire by accident.
May 12th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
You’re lucky! I know many whose domain-expiring alerts were forwarded to their Spam/Junk folders.
I would prefer SMS type alerts, if possible. Email alerts are not enough.
In any case, making a note of it in your calendar is the best way to avoid all this. I do it all the time and its never failed.
Arul
http://aruljohn.com
May 13th, 2008 at 8:15 am
can someone book more than 100 domains ?
Is it not cyber squatting ?
is it not a crime ?