I have my eyes on a particular .co.uk for a client - no big deal if we can't get it, but it would be nice. It is currently detagged. Don't really want to go direct to the current registrant as it would probably (?) push the price up. Like I say, it would be nice to have at some time in the future but there is no rush.
So the question is whether anyone has experience of those 'back order this domain' services for .uk domains? And if so, any recommendations on which one to use? Or is there another way?
As for finding detagged domain names, that is the 64,000 dollar question! Many people have different methods. There are several different software packages that will let you run dictionary word lists against Nominet's whois server. Be warned though that Nominet impose a very strict limit of 1 enquiry per second otherwise they will block your IP address or even netblock in some cases. Use the config settings to slow down the queries to < 1 per second anf then everyone is kept happy.