Validity of Domain Name Registration Checks
by Colleen Wilkinson
Validity of Domain Name Registration Checks
The nature of our business allows us the freedom of global trade. When it came to our domain name registration, we had to start where all people wishing to carry out domain name registration do - at the very beginning.
Two Steps in Domain Name Registration
The first step in any domain name registration is to find out whether your chosen domain name is available or not by carrying out a domain name search on the internet.
The second step in domain name registration is the actual registration. Here one submits all the required information for domain name registration to the domain name registration authorities, otherwise known as registrars. Registration fees are also required at this point.
Domain name registration is carried out on a first-come-first-served basis and the registrars don't check for any trademark or copyright infringements. So, we were to discover, if you REALLY want that name - you have to be first at going through the domain name registration process!
Domain Name Registration - Dot What?
When going through the process of domain name registration, aside from the actual name, we also had to decide on the extension we wanted to have for our domain. As I mentioned earlier, we could trade globally, so the most obvious choice for us was a dot com, the most popular and sought-after extension to any domain name.
Getting back to the two-step process. Through our internet service provider (ISP) we carried out a search to ascertain whether our chosen name was available for domain name registration. YAY. The results looked great - the name.com was available for domain name registration!
To be sure, we decided to visit another domain name registration site (there are so many to choose from! ) and do a check there. To our amazement, we discovered that the chosen domain name was NOT available for domain name registration, as the name had already been taken.
Check Where to Check for Domain Name Registration
We then contacted our ISP and explained that we were wishing to carry out our domain name registration, but had this problem of a contradiction in search results. The technical assistant couldn't give us an explanation as to why it had happened, and actually carried out the same exercise. Same contradiction.
She then did her own search - to help us with our domain name registration - and came back with the sad news that actually, that particular domain dot com had been through domain name registration a couple of years ago.
When asked how she had managed to get a different result to our domain name registration search, she explained that she had used register.com, a top organization authorized by ICANN to carry out domain name registration. (She still couldn't explain why their own site didn't use this facility for their clients who wanted to carry out their own domain name registrations.)
This exercise taught us that when doing your domain name registration, use a top level registrar to search for availability of top level domains, and use specific country registrars to search for availability of local/country-specific domain names.
