Obtaining a domain name that is taken , but not being used.

[Lakewood90712]

How difficult is this.

I have heard of "cyber squatting" but as I understand, that is usually in an attempt to squeeze $ out of a deep pocket co.

Second ques: for a dot org domain, do you have to prove being a non profit or gov. organization ?

I want to set up a family internet domain, and never have to change address when changing host. With Frontier taking over the verizon internet in my area, I'm now stuck with frontier as an isp, with the verizon.net mail now at aol , and I want ad free e-mail , even if it costs for webhosting. In any case, it will require at least one change to a new email address. I want it to be the last.

 

[scrinch]

I don't know about obtaining an owned but unused domain name, but a .org domain can certainly be used as a personal or family domain. The intent is for .org to be for non-commercial uses, but that isn't really enforced, and I assume your family is not a commercial venture anyway. My family domain name uses .net.

 

[Jack_Pine]

Our family domain is a .com but could have bought all the variations when we got the .com. We use IPOWER for the hosting and registered domain through GODaddy.

We had to play with the name because the base name was taken. I would do that before trying to pay someone for the name. At works we own a ton of names and get requests all of the time and deny them. Once gone, gone forever is the theory.

 

[growing_older]

There is a marketplace for domain names that are "taken" but not being used. Or even ones that are being used if the price is right. With WhoIS you can find the current owner and make an offer.

Anyone can request a .org domain. There is no policing of the non-profit status and some well known for profit enterprises do have .org domains. Most really big organizations will buy the .org to go with their .com, but some use the .org as primary even though they are commercial enterprises.

 

[braumeister]

I used to own a .org domain that was a common 4-letter word and a cute reference for one of my hobbies, but I hardly used it. Got several requests to sell it, but they wanted me to essentially give it away.

Then one day I got a request from someone who headed up a non-profit with a name that worked perfectly with the domain as an acronym. I did some research and found it to be a perfectly legitimate organization, so I agreed and sold it for very little money. I just wanted it to be useful to someone, and that proved to be the case.

I know several extended families who collectively own domains they use for updating each other on their activities. Some are .com, others are .org, and some are .net. Anything goes, I guess.

 

[ERD50]

I'd also try for variations first, and avoid having to try to buy the current name (or make one offer, maybe it would be easy and cheap enough?). Maybe buy up the variation you like - once you offer to buy the old, they may sense $$$ and start buying up added variations!

Instead of username@JonesFamily.org/com/net whatever.

safe
$ | - | _ | @ | . | &

so @Jones-Family ; @The-Jones-Family ; @Jones.Family ; @The.Jones.Family and so on.

To those who have done this - I know purchasing and maintaining a domain name is pretty easy and cheap ($35/year? less?), but what ups/extras are needed to get email service? Or do you just set it up on your own server in the basement?

-ERD50

 

[niven]

To those who have done this - I know purchasing and maintaining a domain name is pretty easy and cheap ($35/year? less?), but what ups/extras are needed to get email service? Or do you just set it up on your own server in the basement?

-ERD50

I've done it for many years and had a provider who only charged $15 per year and I could forward emails addressed to any name@mydomain to anyone else's email accounts I wanted without paying for any hosting. In recent years, they stopped the free hosting and I had to start paying more. So, I just this year moved my domain to Google Domains. $12 per year (for .com) including whois privacy and I can forward emails just like before.

 

[Lakewood90712]

Offsite webhost seems very low cost , and no need for static ip and server in the bathroom or closet.

 

[marko]

Years ago, I got into a bidding war with a cybersquatter who had taken our company's name. After several weeks of back and forth, I offered the guy my final offer of $150,000.

He refused.

I never went back. He called me after a while and offered to "be reasonable"; I hung up on him as we had figured out an alternative set of names.

He never got a dime or another bid from anyone. The site when dark a year or two later and we got the domain for a few bucks. Moron!

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

I've done it for many years and had a provider who only charged $15 per year and I could forward emails addressed to any name@mydomain to anyone else's email accounts I wanted without paying for any hosting. In recent years, they stopped the free hosting and I had to start paying more. So, I just this year moved my domain to Google Domains. $12 per year (for .com) including whois privacy and I can forward emails just like before.

+1 for the Google management of domains. $12 a year and privacy included. Managing emails through their domain page is beyond easy. There are TONS of choices besides just .com .net .org. There is .cc .co .us .community .fyi well, you get the point. Another thing I like about having your own domain is being able to have an infinite number of email addresses. You can even create rules to accept different spellings or even ANY email addressed to your domain (as an example, if I go to Google Domains and create *@whateverdomain.com then ANY thing that is addressed to @whateverdomain.com, I will get.

 

[LOL!]

I've had e-mail since the early 1980s (can you say BITNET?), so when it came time to get a domain for future use, I signed up the family name right then. That pissed off my brother who was late to the idea, but so what?

We used register.com and pay for professional e-mail through them. They have always done a great job with filtering out spam, so there is almost zero spam and what is spam ends up in a spam folder.

And it is pretty cool having an e-mail firstname@lastname.com that hasn't been hacked going on more than 20 years.

So while register.com is not the cheapest, I just renew for the longest possible time period and pay, so I don't have to worry about it.

I expect my kids to keep this going to pass down to their kids, too.

In addition to this e-mail account which is sacrosanct, we each have other e-mail accounts like gmail.com and work e-mail.

 

[rodi]

We used google for domain name registration. They have free email forwarding.