Yesterday I managed to score a domain name that I was watching.
thebeaningoflife.com
It was already registered, for some time, it expired in January this year, and only yesterday became available to re-register after passing through the redemptionPERIOD and pendingDELETE period. What does this mean?
If you have a domain name, and you do not renew it, it expires. However, before someone else can snap it up and take it for themselves, it goes through several "phases". It takes around 75-days after expiry before it's available for someone else to register. During the
redemptionPERIOD the original registrant has the ability to recover the domain (I think for a fee). This phase is no doubt the longest, and goes on for months. After this it becomes
pendingDELETE and during this period (about 5 days), nothing can be done to recover the domain.
If you really want a domain name, and it's going through these phases, it's probably a good idea to 'back order' the domain name through your favourite registrar. This means you have a higher chance of acquiring the domain name should it become available again.
I decided not to back order (the domain isn't THAT important to me), but just watch it like a hawk for it to become available again for registration. Boy was I surprised when I attempted to register it (again) yesterday, and the registration process worked.
Anyway, enough techno babble. What are my plans for this domain name?
To be honest, I'm not sure. I have a few ideas! One could be a new blog, coffee related. It could be the future site of my future espresso bar? (hah), somewhere to aggregate popular coffee news from around the world. Start an online coffee shop by re-selling roasted beans from a local roaster? Who knows. I'll think of something.
For the time being, the domain is parked. It's set up with some ads. This means if you go to the site, all you get is a pile of ads that you can click on (feel free, it helps pay for coffee, heh).
Google offer a service as part of their 'adsense' package to do domain advertising. So any dormant domains you have that aren't doing much can be put to use and possibly generate some income. Especially useful if the domain already has some incoming traffic or link in's.
thebeaningoflife.com has three sites linking to it, looks like they are all forums.
Want to know who/what is hitting your site? Try:
alexa.com
analytics.google.com
