But last night (111409 @ 8:30PDT) I had about 20 minutes to kill so for fun I ran my collection of previously unavailable domain names through the GoDaddy Bulk Checker. Whenever I check for a name I add it to my list of unavailables and then about once a month check them. Occasionally something will become available. Usually by that time I can’t even remember why I was checking the name to begin with, but last night I hit pay dirt and for about 40 minutes I was domaining like it was 1999! Fascinating how you can rationalize… I knew it was an anomaly to be finding these sorts of names available but I found  myself thinking, “Well you’ve certainly let a lot of stuff drop lately, maybe these weren’t measuring up and got dropped.” Or even… “Maybe some major domainer died and his domains just dropped! And I just happened to be on GoDaddy the day they fell.” Funny! I mean, they weren’t THAT great, and of the 5000 I checked, only about a dozen were available.

Here’s what I bought, the numbers are the number of Google search results, in quotes is for exact match:
NEGATIVESCANNER.COM 105,000 for “negative scanner”
NEGATIVESCANNERS.COM    234,000 for “negative scanners”
SKIRTSFORMEN.COM  438,000 for “skirts for men”
SOLARCAMPINGLIGHTS.COM 1,190,000 for “solar camping lights”
SOLARCLOTHES.COM    12,100 for “solar clothes” -dryer 16,500 for “solar clothing”
COMPUTERRECOVERY.COM 82,100,000 for computer recovery. 66,300 for “computer recovery”
TINKERER.COM
TABLETTE.COM 2,900,000 for “tablette”
TABLETTES.COM 2,430,000 for “tablettes”
ATTITUDETSHIRTS.COM 88,700 for “attitude shirt”
SHOETOSS.COM
CATSCANNERS.COM 80,100 for “cat scanners”

Here’s what the receipt looks like.

Sure enough, about an hour after I received the order confirmation email I got the bad news (x12).

Dear John Humphrey,

The following domain name has failed to be registered:

TINKERER.COM

Error: TINKERER.COM:  cannot register – already registered

We will evaluate this error and retry the registration if appropriate.

If we are unable to successfully register the domain name, your account will be credited accordingly. Please allow one business day for the refund to be processed.

It was a real rush to register those names. Not for the feint of heart though. All in all I probably spent a couple of hours crunching names in the GoDaddy bulk checker. It wasn’t a complete waste of time because there were actually a few on my list that WERE available. FOLDABLEELECTRICSCOOTER.COM & FOLDABLEELECTRICSCOOTERS.COM and I’m happy about that.

It would be nice if GoDaddy would acknowledge their responsibility for the error with at least a token gesture – a free domain name or two for example, but I won’t keep my fingers crossed.

If you want to know what it was actually like to be domaining in 1999, check out my Eric Borgos interview.

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