5 day domain registration, cancellation and fee refund

Which registrars allow this without a charge of any kind?

[timothyb]

I've seen articles about temporary domain registrations, sometimes called domain tasting, where a person registers a domain name and sets up domain traffic tracking or PPC.

After 1 day you delete domains that have no traffic; after 3 days you delete names that have some traffic; after 5 days you delete pages with marginal traffic; and keep the 1% of pages that have enough traffic to be worth keeping the domain.

My question is which Registar companies would allow you to delete the domain and refund the purchase price within the five day period from when you purchased the domain?

[edited by: Webwork at 8:01 pm (utc) on Feb. 13, 2006]

[LifeinAsia]

Sounds like a perfect setup for SPAMMERS!

Register a domain, SPAM several million people, get a few sales before having the domain blocked in SPAM filters, then get a refund when you "return" the used domain. And now the domain is beyond worthless to anyone, because it's in the major SPAM filters.

[Webwork]

This is a game for the big boys/girls, who register 100s of 1000s of domains at a time, presumably through their own registry. I've seen millions of domains run through this system in a week.

This game is getting old and I don't see the smaller players gaining ground.

One problem with the game is that a domain that shows 0 hits today just might start getting traffic tomorrow, due to a news event, etc. So where do you stop? Do you keep coming back to check? That is likely to lead to a system wide change.

Next up: I see countermeasures. For example, this practice just might annoy some creative type who decides to unleash a botnet on new domain registrations, hitting the domains registered by known "tasters" (not clicking ads) through proxies, just in an effort to corrupt the data. What if the taster gets 15-50 hits on a variety of domains (not click on ads, mind you) and pays for the registrations only to discover that the domains have no real traffic? What if some person did this to an array of "tasting" domains, suckering someone in to registering 1000s of domains at a time? Would tend to eat into the profits, I'm sure.

Be a little more creative. Spend some time predicting trends, unearthing new technologies and go for the generic terms. The time spent might also be used to write up some articles, post them on the domain, age the domain and lead to the domain being an authority by the time the subject of the domain becomes more widely known.

Or you could aim for the easy money. Just be prepared to spend a lot of it because you are up against some pretty stiff competition.

[gpmgroup]

Just to give an indication of the scale of these traffic testing sessions.

Figures for today only (13/02/06)

All............. New........... Deleted 
47,793,058.... 633,452..... 817,053 .COM 
7,102,059...... 149,728........ 5,125 .NET 
4,429,234......... 3,836..... 160,731 .ORG 
2,433,796......... 6,815........ 3,464 .INFO 

[timothyb]

Thanks for the responses so far, I was more interested in knowing how it is that domain registars are letting people have their money back if they drop a domain.

[stu2]

Most domain sales at most registrars are final and non-refundable. However, Directi (now rebranded) allow you to register domains and cancel them within 5 days of registration. They will charge you a $1 admin fee for each domain. I have no experience on how fast they refund the difference :) It doesn't sound like a good cashflow operation to me. You could go bust really quick :(

[John Carpenter]

You could go bust really quick

Which is what spammers, typo squatters, etc. deserve.