I thought of a domain name I liked: digistrom.com, a couple of years back. I checked for availability using a domain name checking site though I wasn't serious about getting it then. The name was available. I had thought up the name myself and a Google search showed negligible hits for 'digistrom'... someone posting in a forum using the nick. I expected the name to be available when I was serious about getting a website. A few months down the line I checked again and... you guessed it: this time it was taken. The home page leads me to believe it's been taken up by squatters. There seems to be no legit presence behind the site even now.
I Googled a little and a comment on
this page confirms my suspicions.
# Steve Jones Says:
October 2nd, 2010 at 2:16 pm
The problem is even worse than stated…..domain name checking sites and searches are now being monitored by squatters. I searched and found two available domain names for my site, and within 15 minutes of finding each one, they magically became “taken”. This is BS and needs to be stopped!!!
Do we even need a web service to tell us if a name is available? Seems to me the best way to go about it is just try opening the name you like in your browser and if you hit a "server not found" the name's probably available.
I just wanted to put this up as a cautionary tale for anyone who might be thinking of getting a domain name in the future. I've learned my lesson the hard way and the name I like is probably worth a few hundred $, if not more. The ridiculous amounts some people are willing to pay squatters seems to make it worth their while to usurp thousands of domains. Even if a handful of domains are actually bought back the squatter comes out a winner.