What's a domain grabber

[ellescuba27]

I've heard of them but what is it?

 

[essellar]

It's essentially an automated program that keeps trying to register tasty domain names so that if the owner ever lets the name expire (either accidentally by being late to renew, or just lets it go altogether) you become the new owner. As often as not, it's about money -- if the current holder of a domain is deemed to be a "natural owner" (that is, the domain is either their personal name or a trademark they own), then they will probably get it back after filing a UDN Dispute Resolution request, but that takes time, so the hope is that the owner will pay you to let go of the domain. If not, then people's old bookmarks will take them to your ads and/or drive-by malware downloads.

Like all of the black hat stuff, it's despicable -- and I hope you are at a level above that sort of crap.

 

[ellescuba27]

No, I would never use a software like that, but how can I avoid them?

 

[essellar]

Just make sure that you're with a reliable registrar (good ones will hold a domain for a short grace period after the actual expiry — their own "registrar's renewal expiry" may be a week or two ahead of the root TLD's expiry date — although they may display an ad page instead of the actual site after a week or so). Renew your own domain(s) ahead of the expiry date; you will usually be notified that renewal is required at whatever address you have as the whois entry (and if your registrar is hiding the whois from the public, THEY still know what it is). It's imperative, then, that you keep the whois data up to date if you change you business name, addresss or notification address. That will make sure that there is no window of opportunity for a grabber to register your domain unless you are letting it expire deliberately.

 

[ellescuba27]

Hi,
Ok, sounds easy enough. I already know where the Renew button is and the expiry date. Although I doubt that anyone would want my domain name (who would seriously want to grab a free dot.tk domain name) but at least I know for the future.

And thanks for your help!