When domains change hands or expire, “for sale” listings remain.

[Update: I received a message from GoDaddy saying a solution is in the works and should be complete within a couple weeks.] In October I wrote about how domain name marketplaces still struggle with “orphan listings”. These are domains listed for sale that have either expired or were listed by their previous owner.

A couple people have recently relayed to me issues related to orphan listings and how this has become a bigger issue with listings being syndicated to GoDaddy.

In one case exactly like the one I described in October, a customer tried to hand register a domain on GoDaddy.com that had already expired. The domain was still listed on GoDaddy Auctions, though. GoDaddy.com said the domain wasn’t available for registration but could be purchased on GoDaddy Auctions. The user ended up having to use the GoDaddy app to register the domain. (GoDaddy doesn’t show auction listings in the registration path to mobile users.)

I discovered another person on NamePros who won an expired domain backorder and promptly listed the domain for sale on GoDaddy Premium Listings. He was surprised what he saw when he searched for the domain on GoDaddy. Instead of showing his Premium listing, the site showed an old Sedo “buy now” listing from the previous owner.

I know there are domains I own that still show up for sale on Sedo that were listed by previous owners. This can cause a whole slew of problems. I keep waiting for the day that someone files a UDRP on one and claims I listed it for sale on Sedo…when it was really someone else.

There are solutions, at least when it comes to fixed priced domains. Both Afternic and Sedo have mechanisms in place to monitor domains listed with instant transfer capabilities. But that doesn’t cover all domains, as was the case here.

Goldberger featured in TV news story about MiamiPolice.com.

Domain name attorney Ari Goldberger of ESQwire.com was featured in an NBC Miami story last week about MiamiPolice.com.

The Miami Police let the domain name expire a couple years ago and it was picked up by someone who now parks the domain with DomainSponsor. While I’m not sure why NBC Miami just did this story now (slow news week for the holidays?), it’s good to see Goldberger was interviewed for the story.

It turns out the Miami Police only owned the domain for a short time and never really used it, favoring their official web site Miami-Police.org. So they decided it wasn’t worth the $35 to renew the domain name.

The story reads:

Police spokesman Delrish Moss underscored that not having miamipolice.com does not affect police services at all, and that a small purchase here and a small purchase there adds up in times of severe budget crunches.

That’s the government at work.

The video is embedded below.

(As a side note, does anyone think the reporter in this story resembles ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom?)

.Com and .net registry released more data on expiring domain names.

VeriSign has just released a beta of DomainCountdown, a source of data on expiring domain names.

DomainCountdown provides a wealth of information about domain names in pending delete status, and some of them are quite fascinating.

The baseline data for each domain has to do with NXD data — basically queries to non-existent/non-resolving domain names. VeriSign is in a unique position to capture this data.

But beyond that DomainCountdown also has some spectacular data about how the domain name was used previously.

Here are some data points I find particularly compelling:

What kind of web site was on the domain? Think e-commerce site, blog, parked, redirect, etc.

Did the web site have a shopping cart enabled?

Did the site have some sort of login?

Were there ads on the web site?

How often profanity found on the domain during the previous 3 month? VeriSign calls this “Brand Safety”, and it’s certainly something a brand should think about when buying an expiring domain.

VeriSign monitors Domain Name Wire so feel free to post feedback on the tool in the comments below, or send feedback to domaincountdown (at) verisign.com.

Expired domain catching starts at $15.

In October I wrote about Protrada, which is like a dashboard for domain name buyers to find and purchase domain names. It works with a lot of major expired domain services including NameJet, SnapNames, and GoDaddy, and isn’t limited to expired domains.

Now the service has its own integrated backordering system for domains that go through the complete deletion process and are dropped by the registry.

The service is effectively an auction system exclusive to Protrada customers. Bids start at $15, so if Protrada manages to snag a domain you’ve backordered and you’re the only one to have it on your list you’ll pay just $15. Bidding increments are $5.

As with any true drop catching solution, its success rate will be determined by Protrada’s technology and its number of registry connections.

Bad things happen to former government owned domain names.

I just finished reading a story form The Ottawa Citizen about how Canada’s 100th anniversary of flight web site expired and (at least briefly) showed ads for escorts.

For the Canadian government it got the worst possible outcome. The domain name wasn’t just a parked domain; someone actively tried to take advantage of its prior use. The new owner apparently left a notice on the page:

“To previous domain owner: We bought this domain after expiration so it’s not our fault that you lost it. We put old content for this domain only to avoid losing good quality of it from SEO point of view. If it’s a problem for you contact us ASAP!”

The page now resolves to a simple parked page. But either way it’s embarrassing for the government with all of those links from respectable sites linking to the expired domain.

I came across a similar situation a couple months ago. The City of Austin let a domain name expire but still had time to redeem it. It had promoted this domain in print and web communications. When I notified the city’s tech department about the situation, the response was “oh yeah, we’re rebranding to a new domain name.”

That’s great, but for $10 a year you may as well renew and forward the old one.