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Unused Domains, can I apply for one?


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Wondering if some one could help.

There is a co.uk and a .com domain name that I would like to take on, I have had my eye on both of them for a couple of years but the owners have nothing on the pages.

going to one of the URLs returns a page not found and the other takes you to a "welcome to your home page, start your website now" but that has been in that state for a long time.

Is there a way of applying for these domains through nominet or similar to say I want to make use of them?

One expires in 2017 the other in September 2011 but it renewed September 2010 - I assume it was auto renewal.

Can any one shed any light?!

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You can try contacting the owners of those domains to see if they're willing to give 'em up. Depending on the circumstances, they may be willing to sell. Just be ready to offer some decent money for them and you'll stand a chance.

That, or you may just be ignored. I can speak from experience on that. >.<

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the governing bodies of the web should really stop domain hogging.

It may sound silly to some, but the internet had advanced so much that "generally" decent names to factionally name your business is almost impossible down to the fact that people sit there and keep them with no use.

Just frustrating, I will try and contact the owners hopefully there decent enough to help some one else succeed!

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^ the company that owns it runs multiple domains already, others are for email.

I called them today anyway and they have owned it for 5 years but never used it.

could be interested in selling if the offers were around the ?6k mark.

Now I am going to have to name my website some obscure or change the business name which isn't cool - real shame people just hog things.

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Meh, as much as it annoys me as well that's just how it works. Some people register it to squat it while others register it with the hopes of turning it into something. Eventually they never do and they just keep ownership of the domain name. I have over 80 domains registered and I use maybe >15 of them for various active projects (this includes domains I own almost all versions of it on major TLDs.)

If you weren't the first to come up with the domain and it's registered, take your loss and either start up a new brand or use another TLD for it.

Awhile back I had contacted the person who owns riane.com to buy it from him but the guy wants $10,000 for a domain that has a.) no traffic, b.) no pagerank. W/e dude, so I registered the .org version. He can enjoy his unused domain, lol.

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yea I've been registering all the major TLDs of mine too. each one is cheap but holding all of them does get pretty expensive. Some that charge 20-50 a year are just too expensive to be worth holding and redirecting to my main address.

the thing is, it's entirely possible to create a system that releases squatted domains after a while without stepping on people's toes, and this would be especially useful for the .com due to its saturation.

another alternative i'd be up for is just to get rid of global TLDs and just restrict everything to country TLDs. A nice side effect would be forcing everyone to actually look at the end of the URL, rather than simply matching the second level domain and assuming anything with that must always be legitimate.

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I feel your pain, i recently wanted a .me domain, contacted the owner as it was unused, he wanted $6000 or investment into my business. It shouldn't be allowed but its actually encouraged, ive read through lots of business startup guides, most tell you to register your domain names to protect your interests even if you don't plan on using it right away.

There are of course, people who will just buy every good looking domain/popular keywords available and have no intention of using it. Value should be based on hits and pagerank, not how much the owner can fleece out of you.

If you want an awesome domain check out www.domai.nr - type in keywords like company name or whatever and it searches all TLDs to get find you something awe.sm

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