Frequently Asked Questions

Last updated on Dec. 4, 2012.

How do you choose a good domain name?

The name I found shows as available on your site but it really isn’t. Why?

Why are all the good names gone?

Somebody stole a domain I found on your site. How can I resolve this?

What is your privacy policy concerning my search results?

What are other people saying about Instant Domain Search?

How do you choose a good domain name?

Check out Tips on Choosing a Good Domain Name, by Christopher Heng

The name I found shows as available on your site but it really isn’t. Why?

From time to time, we will list names as available when they’ve already been taken. This can happen when:

The name's ownership is being disputed
It's about to expire
It’s in the “Redemption Period” i.e., it recently expired.
The name has no nameservers.

On the other hand, we should never report a name as taken when it’s actually available. We only show names as taken when they are in good standing and have nameservers associated with them.

Why are all the good names gone?

A lot of names are held up in the 5-day trial period for domain names. More info:

Somebody stole a domain I found on your site. How can I resolve this?

This is probably a coincidence. Millions of domains are registered and expire every day. Please take note of the date and time of your search. Then compare it to the actual date and time the domain was registered. We care about your privacy.

You can get the date from the WHOIS record for the domain. This record will also show you which ICANN Registrar was used to register the name. To find out the exact time the domain was registered, find the registrar’s contact information, and phone or email them. Remember to ask them the time zone of the registration time they give you.

If the registration time follows closely the time you searched the domain name, please email us at help@instantdomainsearch.com with the name of the domain, and the time you searched for it on our site. We take these problems very seriously.

If the domain was recently registered, it might be available within 5 days. This is due to abuses of ICANN’s ADD Grace Period, aka domain kiting

What is your privacy policy concerning my search results?

It is in our interest to keep your search results private. We make money when someone buys a name they found on our site through one of our listed vendors. We’re not in the domain resale business. That’s why we abide by the following rules:

Your searches are not shared or distributed, ever. We do not contact any third party to verify domain availability.
Our service does not preform WHOIS queries on the names you search for.

We try to select the best vendors in the industry, but we cannot be held responsible for their use or misuse of your domain searches once you click on their link from our site.

We’ve also made available an encrypted connection to Instant Domain Search over HTTPS.

What are other people saying about Instant Domain Search?

Performancing: “This is easily my favorite tool for branding. It’s great to find catchy domain names that are short. I recently used it to pull a 5 letter domain out of the hat and a few months later I have a growing strong brand.”

Advertising Age: “A nifty, real-time platform for brand-name brainstorming.”

Henry Wang: “Instant Domain Search helped us find the domain dealupdater.com for $9 and saved us from paying hundreds for a premium name. Thanks a lot!”

Zach Baker: “We used Instant Domain Search to find out lalife.com was expiring and pick it up for only $18!”

Richie Hecker, BootStrapper.com: “I’ve bought over 200 domain names using your service. All great and amazing names. It makes name finding easy and actually fun.”