Don't use networksolutions.com for you domain name searches...

I frequently get “great” ideas and reserve some domain names. Call me silly, but this makes the ideas more tangible even if I never work on them. I book my domain names through 1and1.com, for about $7 a year, but I do usually the search on netsol.com . So I searched for some names this morning, then decided to abandon, my idea didn’t need a separate domain for now, and to my surprise I got the following dialog when leaving the site:

20080424_netsol.jpg

So what does that mean? Well, it seems if I click OK they will hide the names I searched for from others users who are doing searches for 4 days. So my recommendation: don’t use networksolutions.com for your search.

Posted by Daniel Wanja Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:38:44 GMT

Read full article 8 comments


Comments

  1. ash about 1 hour later:

    Its better to not use any domain registration service to check availability at all. Some of them register the name even if you dont buy it.

    Use a whois service instead :)

  2. Wade about 4 hours later:

    I’ve been using instantdomainsearch.com for brainstorming domains with great success. Plus they explicitly state that they do not record your entries.

  3. Alex MacCaw about 8 hours later:

    Try www.bustaname.com – that’s the one I use.

  4. Ken about 13 hours later:

    Network Solutions has been the frigtard of domain registration since the very beginning. They have a long, sordid history of doing stupid things and then, thanks to government immunity, walking away from the mess scott-free. I’m always stunned and dismayed when I see that they are still in business.

  5. David about 16 hours later:

    My personal favorite site to check domain name availability is PCNames.com. I’ve used that site for well over a year now and have never had any problems. It’s possibly the best I’ve seen.

  6. gordon 23 days later:

    i had the same problem and to the best of my knowledge i didn’t even get that warning. i searched for a domain through network solutions, then when i went to register it at godaddy it was unavailable. however – if i went back to register it through network solutions – it was available. i had to wait it out until the name was released…. very frustrating, potentially confusing and surprising that this is legal. prior to that i had incredible problems with their indian support center. extremely rude, arrogant and not helpful. terrible terrible company.

  7. jason 29 days later:

    sounds very familiar. I have nearly 8 domains for ideas which I don’t think I’ll ever have time to complete.

    Plug: I created http://nameish.com as a tool to help me find and secure the domains that fit my new ideas.

  8. Adult Ühler about 1 month later:

    I heard about this. I also heard that people had used this to get NS to register domains like

    networksolutionsarecun*s.com

    :P