has a domain name been previously registered?

[esllou]

...what's the best way to find out if a domain name has been registered before and allowed to expire?

[sandor]

i;m sure there are whois services that you can subscribe to that offer that .. that aside you could also try the wayback archive - [web.archive.org...] - which is also a good way to see if possibly the domain was being used for anything 'shady' which could possibly have lead to it being banned