Domain Questions~

1)How many years can you buy a .com domain for?
2)When or where can you find out when a domain REALLY expires if it was bought for more than one year?
3)Is it possible for a expiry date to point to next year but the domain was bought for 2 years and on the expiry date look like it's been renewed, meaning that it just looks like it's paid yearly?
4) I want a domain but the admin of the domain hasn't been on in years, is the domain lost?

Thanks.

 

1. as long as you want, 100 years if you wish
2. checking the whois Whois.net - Domain Names
3. uh, not sure.. the whois isn't updates right away
4. not if it's registered, you have to wait for it to expire.

 

1 - I think it depends on the registrar, but I'm not sure. Both GoDaddy and NameCheap allow you to purchase a domain for up to ten years in advance, although NameCheap offers more intervals.

2 - Any tool that can retrieve WHOIS information, such as: http://whois.domaintools.com/yourdomain.com

3 - Do you mean: make it look like it expires next year, when in reality, it's paid through for 5 years? If so, I do not think that is possible. WHOIS records should indicate the *actual* expiry date.

4 - As long as the domain is being paid for, it is not "lost" - they still own it, regardless of what they do with it.

 

Hmm, it says:

Creation date: 05 May 2007 06:04:31
Expiration date: 05 May 2010 06:04:31

yet I know for a fact the admin hasn't been on since 08. Is it possible that it can be paid automatically?

 

Perhaps he paid for three years in advance. When you purchase a domain through NameCheap, for example, you can purchase it for one year, two years, three years, etc. all the way up to ten years.

 

Well, this year it showed 'Expiration Date: 05 May 2009 6:04:31' but it just got renewed....

 

Ah, well then the owner must have renewed it. I know that some registrars, such as GoDaddy, allow you to set it to auto-renew. As long as the credit card attached to the account is still active/valid, then it will automatically be billed and the domain renewed. Perhaps that is the case here. :shrug:

 

Been there, done that many a time.

It sounds like the owner has renewed from what you've said. Yes, Godaddy does have the automatic renewal, but these days it could easily be someone who simply renews the name. I'm just curious, but is there any indication that the person might profit from this domain name? (IE: Still functioning ads on the site?)

As far as wanting the domain, you'd have to contact the owner. With the owner not responding, the only suggestion I could give is to verify the WHOIS data. If this person is really not around, it might be wrong and therefore you can dispute it. (I'm not 100% sure on what the penalties are, but it might be a way to get it unregistered quicker.)

 

Sadly, the main site it's still a bit popular and gets quite a bit of traffic... So I fear he gets money for the domain from the ads.

 

what is the problem?

it sounds like the site is running, and the domain is current.

 

I just want the domain, the site is running but the owner has abandoned, almost two years now since he's been online, but the domain keeps being renewed for x or y reason. The main site still gets visited no matter how dead and not updated it is, and I know for a fact the site once gave him a $100 a day revenue, but now it's $30 or $20 a day which is the reason why he still wanted the site or so, now I am hoping that over the course of these months he won't pay, the site will die soon enough, hopefully it will completely die and I can take over the whole site and revive it on my own and the right way.