What does "Domain Reserved" mean?

[Marcia]

I just looked up one of my domains, and it appears it's been "reserved." Does that means someone's put in dibs to catch it in case it expires?

[jmccormac]

I've seen this on a particular lookup service that offers dropcatching services. Perhaps it means tha tthe domain has been reserved via the dropcatcher service - otherwise it would have a link to reserve the domain.

Regards...jmcc

[Marcia]

>>domain has been reserved via the dropcatcher service

OK, so then someone reserved it to get it in case I don't renew. If that's the case, maybe I'd better renew for a few years at once when it comes up, just to be on the safe side.

It's a .com (a clean one) and several years old (either 1999 or 2000) that I don't really do anything with besides paying for hosting and making a bit of lunch money. Now and then I've thought about getting rid of it, but now I'm leery of whose hands it'll fall into and thinking maybe it's worth selling.

I've kept it for certain sentimental reasons - but hmmm..if someone out there thinks it's worth reserving, maybe I should try to modify the site completely and try to monetize it.

Thanks!

[jmccormac]

Some of the bottom feeders in the domain industry target domains that have been registered for a few years and are just about to drop. They then point the domain to a PPC landing page in the hope it will pay for itself and if it doesn't, they cancel the registration. Some registrars are specifically set up to do this. The other aspect is PR associated with the website. Domain renewals are cheap so it is best not to hand the domain to these bottom feeders. :)

Regards...jmcc