A domain shows as available and then refuses to sell for one of eight reasons: the tool never asked the registry, the answer was stale, the name is premium, it’s reserved, it’s in a post-expiry hold, the extension has eligibility rules, it’s listed for resale, or someone beat you to it. The first reason is by far the most common.
Many checkers don’t ask whether a name is registered. They ask whether it resolves. If no nameservers answer, they print “available”.
A registered domain with no DNS records looks exactly like a free one to that test. Investors hold thousands of names that way. So do companies protecting a brand they haven’t launched.
How to tell: results arrive instantly, across hundreds of extensions, with no delay between them.
What to do: check the name with a tool that queries the registry, or run an RDAP lookup for that extension yourself.
Registry lookups take time and are rate-limited, so some tools store answers and reuse them for days. Others send the query, get no reply within the limit, and treat silence as “free”.
How to tell: the same name shows different answers in two tools, or flips when you search again an hour later.
What to do: treat any “available” as a snapshot, and confirm at checkout before you get attached.
Registries hold names back. Some strings are reserved under ICANN rules. Some are blocked because they appeared on name-collision lists when newer extensions launched. Some are kept by the registry to sell later. All of them show as unregistered in a lookup and can’t be bought.
How to tell: the registrar returns “not available for registration” with no price and no owner.
What to do: move on. Reserved names occasionally get released, but there’s no way to request one.
When a domain expires it doesn’t become free the same day. It passes through a grace period where the owner can renew, then a redemption period, then a few days of pending delete. That can run past 70 days. DNS often stops working early in that window, so DNS-based checkers call it free.
How to tell: the RDAP record shows a status like redemptionPeriod or pendingDelete.
What to do: place a backorder with a drop-catching service, and understand that others may be waiting for the same name. The full expiry timeline explains where in the window you are.
.ca requires a Canadian presence. .au requires an Australian one. .bank and .law verify that you are what the extension says. A generic checker doesn’t know whether you qualify, so it says “available” and lets the registrar say no.
How to tell: the registrar asks for documents, a local address, or a licence number.
What to do: check the extension’s rules before you search it, or search only extensions that are open to anyone. Restricted extensions are a category worth knowing.
Some registrars blend the aftermarket into search results. The name shows as “available”, then the price is $3,500 because the owner listed it on a marketplace. It isn’t free. It’s for sale.
How to tell: the price is far above the extension’s standard rate, and the listing mentions a broker, a marketplace, or a “buy now” price.
What to do: if you want it, negotiate. Owners rarely expect the list price.
Availability is true at the moment the registry was asked. Ten minutes later it may not be. This is almost always a coincidence, not a conspiracy: good names get searched by many people, and one of them buys first.
How to tell: it was free this morning and taken this afternoon.
What to do: when you find a name you want, register it now. Not after the meeting. The evidence on domain front-running is worth reading before you assume the worst.
A domain shows as available but can’t be bought when the tool that said “available” didn’t ask the registry, or when the registry’s answer is “unregistered but not for sale”. Only a live registry lookup, read carefully, tells you which.
Webault queries the registry for every name it shows. Names the registry can’t confirm are marked unverified and hidden. Registrable names appear with the price, including premium prices, and Webault only searches the 532 extensions that are open to anyone.
There is one documented case, in January 2008, and ICANN’s security committee found insufficient evidence that the practice was widespread. When a name vanishes after a search it is almost always someone else who wanted it too.
Run an RDAP lookup for the extension. It returns the registration status straight from the registry.
No. It’s a snapshot. The only guarantee is a completed registration.
By YBM Labs. Last reviewed . Terms used here are defined in the glossary.