Tell HN: Namecheap pre-purchasing searched domain names?

25 points by iamtoomas 1 year ago | 33 comments

Yesterday afternoon, I was playing around with domain name ideas and landed on getfitgpt.com Checked it out on namecheap.com nice, it's available. Mind you, it was the first time I had ever typed or even imagined this domain name before.

Today I decided that it has a ring to it and I'll go ahead and just buy it.

What do you know, it's already bought...

Checked whois getfitgpt.com:

Registry Domain ID: 2987595751_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.namecheap.com Registrar URL: http://www.namecheap.com Updated Date: 0001-01-01T00:00:00.00Z Creation Date: 2025-05-29T23:29:02.00Z Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2026-05-29T23:29:02.00Z Registrar: NAMECHEAP INC

The timing is also suspicious: 23:29:02, as if it was a script that was scheduled to buy searched domain names at midnight?

Namecheap was the only domain lookup I used, I don't trust godaddy. Apparently I can't trust namecheap also anymore?

I mean there's just too many coincidences.

tkiolp4 1 year ago |

I thought that was known. I never check if a domain is available in any registrar. If I come up with a fancy name, I usually check the following: check if handles are available in common places (it could be twitter, linkedin, whatever matters for you) and when I’m sure i want the domain, i buy it. No checking beforehand.

worldsavior 1 year ago | |

Can't you just check whois?

lazide 1 year ago | | |

Whois is ‘going away’, also it wouldn’t surprise me if the Whois data gets scraped by folks looking to do this too.

thiht 1 year ago |

Having worked at a registrar, these claims always seem suspicious and highly unlikely to me for one good reason: big registrars get thousands (lowballing it) of domain checks every day. There is no way they would buy all the searched domains just to annoy you, it just would not be profitable. I’m also pretty sure front running is an explicit breach of the registry-registrar/ICANN agreements for all TLDs (maybe not for some exotic ccTLDs?) which could cost them their accreditation, sooo… not worth it.

What COULD happen is an insider getting access to the list of looked up domains and selling it or squatting some domains themselves. That would obviously be a reason for termination + legal charges. If I remember well, Namecheap claims they don’t keep a log of the searched domains, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible for an engineer to intercept it via a backdoor or via internal blind spots (the searched domains could be logged somewhere for some reason).

HenryBemis 1 year ago | |

> big registrars get thousands (lowballing it) of domain checks every day.

It doesn't take much. 3-4 bad employees getting a dump of searches, and looking for the cool ones, telling their cousin to buy them for $10 and wait. Those folks will skip the "butts-are-bad.com" from a Pakistani IP, but they will go for the "fitness.ai" from a Californian IP.

EDIT: and filtering for 'cool' words/acronyms such as AI, GTP, sex, profit, gold, crypto, coin, etc... to focus on the good stuff.

cellis 1 year ago | | |

Domain underwriting / frontrunning isn’t likely to be profitable / worth the reputational risk.

throwaway843 1 year ago | |

Is tasting still a thing? That would be free, right?

chistev 1 year ago |

Apparently it's a problem others have. I saw a complaint earlier this week -

https://old.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/1kvlcp2/i_looked_up...

iamtoomas 1 year ago | |

Thanks for clarifying.

If true, that's a HUGE scumbag move.

lazide 1 year ago | | |

It used to be godaddy was notorious for it. It’s called Frontrunning. I personally stopped using them because they were so obnoxious about it. [https://capitalandgrowth.org/answers/3972963/Does-GoDaddy-bu...]

Seems like it’s getting popular again, and I’m very disappointed that Namecheap seems to be doing it too.

iamtoomas 1 year ago |

It has happened to me previously also using BOTH namecheap/godaddy, back then I just shrugged it off, but this time it really pissed me off...

So I guess the best bet is to check for domains on the ACTUAL ENTITY PROVIDER who provides domain names to resellers, such as:

https://www.verisign.com/en_US/domain-names/domain-name-sear...

Plus their brainstorming feature is one of the best out there IMO.

elevation 1 year ago | |

Godaddy burned me in 2012. They registered a very low value domain (has bunch of digits in it) days after I searched it. They added it to their “Premium domain” service and wanted $250 for it. When I declined, they sold it to a HugeDomains who has held it for a $2500 ransom for a decade.

I eventually moved everything from godaddy to namecheap — I trusted them. But I’ve now had a similar experience there as well: a never-registered domain gets picked up by some Chinese entity within 24 hours of me using namecheap to check if it’s available. It took me years and hundreds of dollars to finally get that domain back.

My needs are stable for now but next domain purchase will likely be elsewhere.

csomar 1 year ago |

I can confirm. Either that or they are selling the search history. In my case it ended up in some broker that tried to sell it for $2.000 but after a couple years it become available at some Chinese broker for only $10.

muzani 1 year ago |

I use Namecheap to search too and have searched hundreds of domains, and this has never happened to me. So I think it's not a script.

TheCapeGreek 1 year ago |

Yes, you can find stories of this happening here or there.

Install `whois` on your system and use it to query for domain existence instead.

farseer 1 year ago | |

How do you go about doing that?

pcdoodle 1 year ago |

I've been moving over to porkbun. I do not trust namecheap since they cut off a whole country...

lurn_mor 1 year ago | |

Upvote for Porkbun, who clearly doesn't do this type of 'selling searches', as I have 2 or 3 domains in my 'register someday' list at PorkBun, and they remain unregistered years later...

constrictpastel 1 year ago |

I always thought this was the work of domain squatters who run software to see what names are being queried, then they purchase and sit on them. I first heard about this back in 05' , then never heard about it again.

DaSHacka 1 year ago | |

Unless you work at the domain registrar in question, or sit between the user and the TLD's authoritative nameservers, how would you possibly see what domains are being queried?

DaSHacka 1 year ago |

Did NameCheap merely register the domain and are holding onto it, or are they now selling it at a higher price than typical registration (usually ~$12/year for a .com) through their platform?

Suppafly 1 year ago |

Yeah, never use a registrar to check if a domain is available, they'll snipe it and try to sell it back to you.

speedgoose 1 year ago |

By the way, you could have received a letter from OpenAI using this domain, as they don’t like people using their GPT brand without authorisation.

ksherlock 1 year ago | |

The USPTO has rejected a trademark for GPT 3 or 4 times now, most recently on May 12th.

That said, OpenAI has tried to block other people from registering GPT trademarks.

surds 1 year ago |

I know that Godaddy does this. It sucks that NameCheap is doing similarly crappy stuff..

jrowley 1 year ago |

Namecheap CEO denies they are responsible, offering $50k to anyone who can prove they are behind it:

> This is false, we do not monitor customer searches nor do we register domains that have been searched on our site. I've said this before and I'll say it again here, if anyone cares to prove that this actually exists and someone within our company is registering searched domain names I will give them a 50k reward on the spot.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35344122#:~:text=Namech...

Suppafly 1 year ago | |

Namecheap has all the information they need to get to the bottom of it (ie they can see the actual person that registered it, instead of seeing that it's hidden), the fact that they haven't proves it's either them or someone they are working with.

gardenhedge 1 year ago |

Damn that's disappointing. Name cheap was my go to!

None of the domains I check have been registered... I wonder if that tells me anything about my domain ideas.

meowzarella 1 year ago |

yes they do it

happened to me many times

runjake 1 year ago |

What are some non-scummy registrars these days?

Caveat: I have no idea whether the claims in OP are true.

_mlbt 1 year ago | |

I hear good things about Porkbun.