Sins of The Internet: Domain Sniper

The internet sure makes it possible to do things quickly,
sometimes so quickly it will make your head spin. One day your
site is selling lots of product or is very popular, and the next
no one is visiting. Perhaps your site got kicked out of a major
search engine or some competitor hijacked your page and your
listing. Or perhaps someone just brought a new site online which
is simply gaining all of your traffic.

Or perhaps you just forgot to renew your domain name. Maybe you
changed your email address and forgot to update your domains
contact information. Or your spam filters automatically deleted
that renewal message that you got. Maybe you deleted it yourself,
thinking it was just another piece of junk email. It could simply
be that your domain registrar had a glitch in their reminder
software, meaning you didn't get the reminder email.

Whatever happened, your domain name expired. You have to
understand that domains are only leased or rented for a certain
period of time. You do not own them forever, and you must renew
them in advance of their expiration - or you risk losing them
forever.

You mentally kick yourself, load your browser and enter the URL
for your registrar's site. After you log in, you enter the
information to renew. If you are lucky, they take your money and
your name is reactivated within a few days. All is well, just
remember to renew beforehand next time.

Quite often, however, you will not be able to renew your domain
because in the meantime someone else purchased it out from under
your nose. This most often happens if your name is very desirable
(likely to be typed by someone) or has very high traffic, but it
can occur with any domain name.

Why did this happen? Oftentimes, someone just happened to buy it
for honest reasons. More often, however, there are shady
motivations behind the purchase.

Someone may have sniped your domain.

This simply means they've been watching your domain name,
waiting for it to expire. They waited through the hold period
until the name became available, then quickly purchased the domain
the second it was deleted from the internet databases.

These people generally have no intention of creating a web site,
selling a product or doing anything you'd normally expected with a
domain name. What they want to do is sell the name back to you, or
to anyone else who is interested.

They will not be charging standard registrar rates either. They
might want a few hundred dollars or a few thousand or even more,
depending upon their estimate of the value of the name.

In the meantime, in order to attempt to force you to become very
desperate, they will often set up a page of pornographic banners
(which also makes them a few dollars). This has the effect of
tarnishing your image and making you want to get the domain back
at any price.

What can you do about this? Unless you happen to have a trademark
on the domain name (in which case you might be able to sue for
cybersquatting), there is nothing that you can do. You see,
nothing illegal has been done. Someone is simply taking advantage
of your mistake.

The only thing you can do is (a) negotiate with the domain sniper,
or (b) get a different domain name. You can be sure he will make
it easy to contact him (the email address or phone number will be
either in the WHOIS record or on a page at the domain name.

You don't, however, need to take his first offer. Unless your
domain is extremely desirable it's very likely that you are the
only customer for the name. In which case, the sniper as the
choice of making a few dollars a year from his pornographic
banners or selling it back to you. He may also put the domain
name up for sale on eBay or domain name auction sites.

He wants to get your money as fast as he can, and he wants to get
as much as he can. He's also going to ask you for as much as
possible to begin with, so don't take his first offer.

Be careful when handing the money over to the sniper. He's
already proven himself unethical, so be sure to use some method
of payment, such as a credit card, which can be revoked if
necessary.

Once you've got your domain name back, remember to renew it on
time next year. Set up a reminder so you don't forget, and don't
depend upon your registrar to send you an email. It's your
responsibility to remember to renew.

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