I'd heard the phrase "Domain Tasting" but had never had any personal experience with the concept. This week I learned a valuable lesson...if you want something, buy it right away. Well I guess this doesn't apply to everything but it does apply to domain names.

Domain tasting as defined by Wikipedia is: the practice of a domain name registrant using the five-day "grace period" at the beginning of the registration of an ICANN-regulated second level domain to test the marketability of the domain. During this period, when a registration must be fully refunded by the domain registry, a cost-benefit analysis is conducted by the registrant on the viability of deriving income from advertisements being placed on the domain's web site.

So what's the story? Now I have personally been building web sites and purchasing domains for over 10 years through the same registrar. I always check the availability of a domain at my registrar, report back to the client what is available, and a few days later will return to purchase the select domain(s). Well this past week I did just that and got a wake up call.

We recently launched a new web site for Bulldawg Illustrated (www.bulldawgillustrated.com). We thought it would be a good idea for the client to purchase www.bulldogillustrated.com because of the possibility that someone might not know it is "dawg" instead of "dog". So like always I performed the search and it was available. I let the client know to let me know if they wanted us to register it.

Later that night, when the client decided to purchase it, it was no longer available. It had been registered it that very day.

Now let me go ahead and say we do not use Network Solutions, Godaddy, Register.com or any of the other major registrars - many of who are being investigated for the very practice of registering domains that have been searched on their sites for a variety of reasons they feel are ethical. The registar we use have never used any of those practices - again we have a 10 year history with them.

I immediately contacted the registrar to find out if there had been changes to their system that would have allowed for a breach of their search data. They assured me that is not the case and that they have never had a report of a domain being sniped during a search query.

Well since it was obvious that this domain was indeed sniped for the purpose of "tasting" the best thing we could do was NOT to go to the site, and certainly not to click on any of the ads that immediately showed up on the site as soon as the domain was sniped.

About 5 days later I searched to see if the domain was available again, and it was. I was able to register it, which I did for 5 years. Luckily this domain wasn't one that would get alot of accidental traffic and ad click throughs. Had it generated enough traffic and click through revenue it would have been lost forever.

Our registrar still isn't quite sure how a breach like this occured through their system but they have assured me that they are conducting a thorough investigation. But the simple and affordable lesson is, if you want a domain name, and it is available, buy it right away. At $15 or less per year, its a gamble you can afford to take!