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NameCheap and .cloud Domain

3 points by willart4food ↗ HN
I was looking at domain names for a new project, and I was using NameCheap.com to search for available domains, when I came across something very interesting and SHORT let's call it

domain.cloud

yes, the .cloud TLD. I continued to scroll through the list of domains available with other TLD but I didn't find anything, so I decided to go back to the

domain.cloud

only to be told by the system that it was no longer available, but - of course - I could make an offer

uhmm.... sounds fishy to me.

And I can't find a whois server that will give me the name of the registrant or at least the date of registration.

Can anyone cast some insights into this?

8 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 29.0 ms ] thread
chmielewski
.cloud has been a TLD since 2015, there's nothing special about them and they're not expensive compared to other TLDs. I would retry or attempt using a different registrar's search whom also supports the .cloud domain.
fucking_tragedy
Interesting. Have you tried searching for the availability of the domain under another registrar?
willart4food
I have tried again today at namecheap and at GoDaddy, same results it's not available.

I will try again in 10 day or so, if I remember correctly from the "domaingate" scandal of a few years back that someone esle mentioned, the loophole is that a registrar can "return" a domain within 7 days for a full refund.

Now that I've got a taste, I want that .cloud domain!

thedangler
I remember a while ago network solutions was buying up domains names people were searching. I reported this, I forget to who, but they were doing it. I had multiple people try random domain names and sure enough they were bought within minutes of leaving their site. Maybe name cheap does it for certain domains.
iDemonix
That was some time ago now, but I remember it. Specifically because I wrote some scripts to just continuously ask for garbage domains, thousands per day.
willart4food
I remember that. GoDaddy used to do the same.
kugelblitz
At Namecheap I've also had some weird stuff happen a couple of times with some more exotic TLDs. It would show up as available, when I tried to buy it, it would not be available anymore. Some repeated search will then correctly mark it as unavailable. Though the whois will show an older registration date. So I'm not sure what went wrong. Perhaps the specific whois gave some false information or there was some API error or so.

I still use Namecheap as domain registrar, though I also use a local one (country in EU), and a EU one (gandi). A not-all-eggs-in-one-basket sort of thing, especially since domain names are often crucial to web sites / apps and their branding.