buying a new domain? it might not be "new"

a bit of research before you buy, could save some big headaches

[Craig_F]

Thought this was worth posting since I bet most people don't think of it when buying a new domain -- Don't forget that "new" doesn't mean "never used", it really just means "not in use right now".

What happened to me was, I bought a decent domain the other day for a new site I'm working on and was surprised to find the domain listed on about 10 other sites already. I was just checking to see if any engines had picked up my site yet, they hadn't, but I did find all the old references of the URL.

In my case it's totally fine, but could be a much bigger surprise for someone that is setting up a site for thier kids, or school, or something like that and then find their URL on other unrelated or worse inappropriate sites.

[uncle_bob]

I find the giveaway that the domain has existed before, is when you start getting spam for nonexistant names as soon as you set up the mailserver. It seems spammers never let old addresses just die :-(

[folkbloke]

For example I bought a harmless sounding one word gerneric .co.uk

It gets 1000+ unique visitors, linked from soft drug pushers. I don't think I'll be setting up a mail server.

[moltar]

folkbloke - lucky you ;)