FAQ
Domain Names
What is a domain name?
What is the difference between a domain name that's available, one
that's registered, one that's expiring, one that's deleted, and one that's for
sale?
What is the Life Cycle of a Domain Name?
What is the redemption grace period?
How much does a domain name cost?
Why are valuable domains ever allowed to expire?
What is a back-order?
How does a back-order work and how much does it cost?
What's a Registrar? Registry? Registrant?
DomainsBot System
How does the DomainsBot system work?
Why is one name ranked higher than another? How does the ranking work?
What do the terms rank, relevance, name popularity, TLD factor, and
keys popularity mean? How are they measured?
I don't like the synonyms, can I change them?
If I change a synonym, will the system remember?
How do I block/unblock questionable results (i.e. profanity)?
Are these results in real time?
My search results said a domain was available to register, but it is
shown as unavailable by my chosen vendor. What gives?
Can I reorder the search results by availability, action, rank, or
specific rank results (i.e. name popularity)?
Why should I become a member? How much does it cost?
Do I have to become a member to search for domains names? To
register them? To use the My DomainsBot portfolio? To review
vendors?
How long after I register a name can I add it to my portfolio?
Can I add previously registered names to my portfolio?
Will you have other TLDs available soon?
Can I use DomainsBot to transfer names from one Registrar to another?
Can I use DomainsBot to renew my names?
What is a domain name?
A domain name is the essential part of your address on the web. It
functions in different ways and has different aspects and characteristics
depending on how you look at it. Here are a couple:
-
It is your Internet identity and your online brand. Customers will
remember and use this address to find your Web site, your products or your
services
-
It is the technical method that the Internet uses to guide a customer from his
computer to your site. A domain name is part of the Domain Name
System, which is the navigation system for the Web.
-
It is advertising. If your domain name is something that people think of
when they think of the goods or services you offer, they will type it in.
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What is the difference between a domain name that's
available, one that's registered, one that's expiring, one that's deleted, and
one that's for sale?
A name is:
-
AVAILABLE
when it has no registration status of any kind. Although it may
have been registered at one time, an available domain name can be registered by
anyone at any time at the price a registrar charges to register a new
name. Once you register a domain name, its status changes to
REGISTERED.
-
REGISTERED
when someone has paid to register the name through a Registrar, and it isn't
ready for renewal yet.
-
EXPIRING
when it has passed the expiration date. Once a name passes the expiration
date, it will start through the deletion process, which consists of the passage
through the On-Hold, Redemption Period and Deleting status.
-
DELETED
when it completed the deletion process, has been released by the registrar and
is now available again for registration.
-
FOR SALE when someone who registered it wants to sell it to
someone else. There is a discussion (outside the bounds of this FAQ)
about whether a domain name is property or not, and can be sold, but in
practical terms it acts like property, and names are bought and sold every
day.
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What is the Life Cycle of a Domain Name?
When a domain name passes the expiration date, it enters a "grace" period,
during which the current registrant can still renew. This grace period varies
by registrar, but usually lasts from 30 to 45 days. It can be more or less
depending on circumstances. The record usually reflects the status ON-HOLD
during the grace period.
If the current registrant hasn't renewed the name when that period is over, the
domain enters another 30 day period called REDEMPTION PERIOD. Again, if the
current registrant does not have the domain name restored and renewed by the
end of this period, the registry places the registration in DELETING status,
and approximately five days later the domain name will become available.
Please note that the status labels are different for .org names. REDEMPTION
PERIOD and DELETING statuses are combined but total approximately 35 to 36
days.
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What is the redemption grace period?
It is a period of 30 days, controlled by the Registry, during which the original
registrant (who forgot to to renew the name) gets a last chance to renew.
Please note this 30-day period happens after any registrar "on-hold"
period. You can tell a name is in the grace period by the status field when you
check the Registry Whois. For example:
Domain Name: DOMAIN.COM
Status: REDEMPTIONPERIOD
Updated Date: 11-mar-2004-2005
Creation Date: 13-feb-1999
Expiration Date: 13-feb-2004-2005
Just add 30 days to the "Updated Date" to find out the last date the name can be
renewed. If it isn't renewed by then, the name will be dropped back into the
pool of available names after a further 5 to 6 days.
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How much does a domain name cost?
For .com and .net, the price to the Registrar is $6, slightly less for .org,
.biz, and .info. How much they charge you (the consumer) varies
widely. Some registrars have rock-bottom prices, and (surprise!)
they often have rock-bottom service. Other registrars charge more, and
(in principle) offer better service. But there are very good cheap
registrars and very bad expensive registrars. Our
Rate-A-Registrar page provides reviews and ratings for Registrars to
help you choose.
Some Registrars also cater to specialized markets and provide services
specifically for their customers - for instance, Registrars who work with large
corporate customers with many brands and trademarks.
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Why are valuable domains ever allowed to expire?
Many reasons, including but not limited to:
-
Not enough funds to renew them
-
Invalid contact e-mail address
-
Loss of interest in online world
-
Lack of knowledge about value of domain names
-
Being away at time of domain renewal
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What is a back-order?
A back-order is a request to acquire a currently registered domain when that
domain becomes available again. You can backorder a domain through different
vendors. These companies will try to register the name on your behalf the
second it is released by the registrar. You can research these companies
and see what other people think about them in our Rate-A-Registrar
area.
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How does a back-order work and how much does it cost?
It costs nothing to place a back-order. In most cases, you will pay only the
minimum bid price if the domain name is successfully acquired. If the domain
name has also been back-ordered by others, it will go to auction and be awarded
to the high bidder.
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What's a Registrar? Registry? Registrant?
It's a system thought up by some people who were convinced that it would spur
competition, lower prices, and benefit the public. It applies only to
gTLDs (generic top-level domains), which are .COM, .NET, .ORG, .INFO, and
.BIZ. There are other gTLDs, but they are quite specialized.
Each ccTLD (country-code top-level domains, such as .FR (France) or .CN (China)
- there are over 200 of them), has implemented its own system, many of which
work quite differently. It has yet to be proven that the
registry-registrar-registrant system works better than the other ones.
A Registry controls a TLD (top-level domain), for instance .COM. The
Registry doesn't deal with the public, they just keep a record of all the
domain names, the expiration dates, and who the Registrar of that name
is. The Registry also has an important technical function, to ensure that
Internet traffic gets to where it's supposed to go - in other words, it's in
charge of the part of the domain name that routes one computer to another.
A Registrar is a company that buys names from the Registry, usually for a price
between $5.50 and $6.00 per year, and then sells them again to the public.
To buy a gTLD domain name, you have to go through a Registrar, unless
you're buying it at auction, in which case you have to renew it through a
Registrar. The Registrar provides a variety of other stuff you can buy,
including email services, web site hosting, and so on. In principle, they
also provide customer service to the public. A Registrar is responsible
for keeping certain information up to date, but has no important technical
function. Some Registrars are better than others - check our
Rate-A-Registrar section to see what other people think.
A Registrant is you, the buyer. The Registrant pays the Registrar, who in
turn pays the Registry. Once you've purchased a domain name, it's up to
you to do things like set up email service, a web site, or ftp server, or
whatever you want, or you can pay someone to do it for you. You can
register any name you want, but in certain cases you might have to give it up
(for instance, if you register someone's brand). It's up to you to make
sure that your domain name isn't used for illegal stuff, like spam. Your
only other responsibility is to renew the name, if you want to keep it.
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How does the DomainsBot system work?
For complete instructions on how to use the system, please refer to the
DomainsBot Guide. Many questions are also answered here on
the FAQ, and our help system provides handy tips on-screen when you are working
in a particular area.
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Why is one name ranked higher than another? How does the
ranking work?
Our system uses a variety of factors to determine the ranking. The first
thing to remember is that the ranking is relative; it compares each result to
of the other results in the search to determine the ranking. A few of the
criteria used to determine the ranking of the results are (not necessarily in
this order):
-
Strength of the synonyms in the results (how many stars).
-
Length (shorter is better)
-
Whether the form of the word changed, for example if your original search term
was pluralized
-
Whether it has hyphens
-
Whether a prefix or suffix was added
-
The popularity of the top-level domain (a .com will rank higher than a .org)
-
The number of times the result appears in different TLDs (among those we
handle)
-
The popularity of the keywords in the zone file
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What do the terms rank, relevance, name popularity, TLD
factor, and keys popularity mean? How are they measured?
All of these are ways to measure the worth of a domain name.
-
The rank
is the overall value of the domain name relative to the other search
results. In other words, the top-ranked result is best match to
your original search term, among all the results returned. It doesn't
mean that there isn't a better domain name out there somewhere (for instance,
the best one might already be registered), but it does show you which is best
one out of all the available names. The ranking is determined by
our algorithm, which takes into account a number of factors, which we show to
you, including:
-
Relevance means how closely the result is related to
the search term you originally put it. This is mostly measured by the
strength of the synonyms that are used in the result.
-
Name popularity means how often the same domain name
is registered in other TLDs. For instance, if one of your results
is domainsbotrocks.com, and it's already registered
in .net, .org, .biz, and .info, then it would have a very high name popularity
score.
-
TLD factor ranks the top-level domain of the returned
result. We score a domain name in .com higher than one in .org, so domainsbotrocks.com
is worth more than domainsbotrocks.org.
We looked at how much domain names were selling for to determine the relative
worth of the TLDs. Remember, however, that only you can determine
which domain name is right for you; there are plenty of cases where a .info or
.org name is preferable to a .com name - it just depends what you're using it
for.
-
Keys popularity is a score that looks at how often
the keywords in the result occur in other registered domain names. For
instance, "free" is a popular keyword, and so if the domain name suggestion
contains "free", that would tend to give it a higher score.
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I don't like the synonyms, can I change them?
YES! And we encourage you to do so. We think our synonyms are
pretty good, but there are surely mistakes and there are surely better
synonyms. Every time you change one, or change the rating of the
synonym, the system takes note and over time the synonyms and their rankings
will change.
To change a synonym, just click it. A box will appear where you can edit
the synonym, or change it completely, or just delete it (just erase the whole
word). To change the strength of a synonym, just click the stars to
add or subtract the stars. When you're done, click the check mark to save
your changes, or click the "x" mark to cancel your changes.
You can have up to a maximum of eight synonyms, and a minimum of zero. Try
changing them, then clicking "Update" to see the new search results.
You'll be amazed.
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If I change a synonym, will the system remember?
The system remembers the changes you make, and over time the changes you make
will be reflected in the results everyone sees. The changes you make will
remain in place for you until you log out.
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How do I block/unblock questionable results (i.e.
profanity)?
Results that contain offensive words are blocked by default. These words are
replaced with the * symbol. You can easy unblock this filter using the advanced
search options.
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Are these results in real time?
YES - mostly. We depend on various databases for our results, and
obviously they're not all recompiled whenever someone does a search. For
instance, when we check whether the results of your search contain keywords
that are popular, we don't do that in real time. But we do check on the
availability of the results that are shown to you, which means that they will
be mostly correct - 95% correct or higher.
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My search results said a domain was available to register,
but it is shown as unavailable by my chosen vendor. What gives?
It's frustrating when that happens. Very occasionally our availability
check is wrong. It doesn't happen very often, but it can happen.
This is usually the result of someone registering the domain name you wanted
between the time you decided you wanted it and the time you took to register
it. If you're someone who buys lots of domain names, you will have
noticed this unfortunate behavior on registrar sites as well. There's
just a lot of activity in the domain name market.
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Can I reorder the search results by availability, action,
rank, or specific rank results (i.e. name popularity)?
Not at this time, that's a feature we'll add in a later version.
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Why should I become a member? How much does it cost?
It's completely free. All we ask when you register is your name and a
working email address. If you register to become a DomainsBot
member, you can keep track of all your names in My DomainsBot and we'll be able
to remember your synonyms and account preferences.
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Do I have to become a member to search for domains
names? To register them? To use the My DomainsBot portfolio?
To review vendors?
Anyone can search for domain names, there is no need to become a member.
You can even add names to your cart and choose a vendor to register them with,
all without becoming a member. However, to use the My DomainsBot
portfolio, we do need you to sign in (how else can we know who you are and what
names you have saved?). Becoming a member is quick, easy, and not
intrusive. We just ask for your name and a working email
address.
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How long after I register a name can I add it to my
portfolio
If you choose to become a member, your names get added automatically to your
portfolio whenever you take the names in your cart and either "save for later"
or register them. You can also add them by hand if you want. Please note
that information on this page might be as much as 12 hours out of date. We're
working to get it real time, but for now we are limited by the registries as to
how much information they will supply us in real time.
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Can I add previously registered names to my portfolio?
Absolutely. You can add them many at a time as well, and when you
do, we'll check the results and tell you when they're due for renewal, and
which registrar they're with.
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Will you have other TLDs available soon?
Yes, but we don't know when exactly. A lot of TLDs don't make their zone
files (lists of registered domains) available, and in that case it's very
difficult to determine popularity, availability, and a host of other popular
DomainsBot features. But we have a few targeted, and we'll be adding
them.
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Can I use DomainsBot to transfer names from one Registrar to
another?
Not at this time, that's a feature we'll add in a later version.
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Can I use DomainsBot to renew my names?
Not directly. But you can use My DomainsBot to see which names are due for
renewal, and then head over to the appropriate Registrar and renew them
there. (Hint: when you transfer a name to a different Registrar, a year
is automatically added to your registration. Many Registrars have special
deals on transfers, so it pays to shop around a little before renewing,
especially if you're renewing several names at once.)
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