Don’t try to lookup hotel information at RenaissanceHollywood.com — it’s expired.

[Update: the hotel has renewed the domain name and it is now resolving.] A few minutes ago I was looking up information about the hotel for this week’s DOMAINfest Conference in Hollywood. I googled “renaissance hollywood” and the first result was for www.renaissancehollywood.com. I clicked through the result and was surprised to see this:

Yes, that’s a Network Solutions “expired domain” page. According to the notice on the top of the page, RenaissanceHollywood.com expired on 1/19 and is pending renewal or deletion.

Especially since the hotel is about to host hundreds of domainers in a few days, I recommend the folks at DomainSponsor help the hotel renew its domain name.

Short .mobi domains are “free”, if you develop them.

As Domain Name Wire reported in November, dotMobi has the green light to allocate one and two character .mobi domain names. The company explained the process for acquiring these domain names on its blog over the weekend.

First, you’ll need to complete a very short form to express your interest. This form requires basic contact information and a short description of what you want to do with the domain name (and how you’ll promote it).

If dotMobi likes what it sees, you’ll have the opportunity to make a formal proposal. There’s a $500 processing fee when you submit the proposal.

There’s no definitive timeline for allocating one and two character .mobi domain names. dotMobi can allocate one as soon as it receives a proposal it deems adequate.

Keep in mind that dotMobi cannot release any two character domain names that are identical to a country code domain. That includes tv.mobi, bj.mobi, bs.mobi, in.mobi, my.mobi, no.mobi, to.mobi, us.mobi, and a couple hundred others.

Hopefully dotMobi is reaching out to companies such as American Airlines (NYSE: AMR) to convince them to use AA.mobi.

Feature makes listing domains for sale on SnapNames easy.

As first reported on Domain Name Wire earlier this week, Moniker has now released a new feature that allows you to list domain names directly on SnapNames within seconds.

To list domain names for sale on SnapNames, Moniker customers select the domains and then click a link “List now on SnapNames”. This adds the domain to a queue:

Once you click “submit” you are taken to your linked SnapNames account to login. (If you haven’t set up a link you can do it now.)

For each name you submit, you provide a reserve price or “buy it now” price and select the auction starting and ending dates. Then you click submit and your domains are pending. Usually within minutes they will be approved and listed on the site.

This is a welcome addition to both Moniker and SnapNames, and makes both services more valuable to users. It’s an example of adding positive “switching costs“; people will want to keep their domain names at Moniker because of the ability to easily sell domain names on SnapNames.

PeanutButterRecall.com sees surge in traffic from latest peanut butter recall.

In September I excerpted part of an article by Tim Morse of Penguin Search Engine Services about ConAgra and its registration of PeanutButterRecall.com. ConAgra registered the domain name during the last peanut butter recall but never used it.

When a new recall of peanut butter was announced recently, I immediately thought of this article. As it turns out, I started getting search engine referrals for the term “peanutbutterrecall.com”. I’m getting about 5-10 visitors a day from the search term.

If you think about what’s going on to deliver those visitors to Domain Name Wire, it’s clear that the domain PeanutButterRecall.com is getting a lot of type-in traffic. But it’s still unused. (I’m not sure if any of ConAgra’s products are involved in the current recall.)

Domain Name Wire is currently second on Google for “peanutbutterrecall.com”. Let’s assume that 10% of people that land on a search results page for the term click the link. So about 50-100 people a day are landing on the results page of Google (or a competing search engine). Then consider what percentage of people search for peanutbutterrecall.com versus typing it into their address bar. Normally I’d say 10%, although browsers may be sending people to a search results page because the domain doesn’t resolve. Any way you shake it, my best guess is 500-1,000 people are typing in the domain PeanutButterRecall.com every day.

It’s a shame that this domain can’t be put to better use.

Domain registrar feels bite of sinking economy.

Domain name registrar Name.com has laid off 10% of its staff, according to a post on its company blog.

After growing last year, the company started to cut back on costs in October. But the cuts were not enough. Name.com cites razor small margins on domain names and intense competition, along with the faltering economy, for its woes.

Name.com says customers need not worry; these cuts will enable the company to continue for the long haul:

We’re confident that we’ve done the right thing for the health of the company but we’re sad to see members of our family off on their own during this tough economic time. As we move into what is likely to be one of the hardest economic periods our company is likely to encounter we’re hopeful for the future while we keep a keen eye on the bottom line.

We’re not going anywhere. We’re in it for the long haul, but we’re all about letting you know what’s happening behind the orange facade of Name.com.

Name.com is the 27th largest ICANN-accredited registrar, according to RegistrarStats.com. It has about 575,000 domain names under management.

Another domain registrar that has recently cut staff is Tucows (AMEX: TCX)