If you're on the lookout for a new domain name, here's a trap to look out for. When checking domain availability via a registrar, ensure you're using a site you trust. Most domain registrars have a tool on their website which lets you search for available domain names (for example, Network Solutions WHOIS Search).

 But you may want to careful when you use WHOIS services - and here's why. Some domain registrars have been known to immediately register a site (for a period of a few days) when you query a .com domain for availability through their website - thus preventing you from registering it via any other registrar.

While operators doing this may claim they are doing it to stop someone else grabbing the domain while you're completing the shopping cart process, it's effectively a lockin, and it looks like it's against ICANN's registrar agreement too.

ICANN's registrar agreement says:

    3.7.4 Registrar shall not activate any Registered Name unless and
    until it is satisfied that it has received a reasonable assurance
    of payment of its registration fee. For this purpose, a charge to
    a credit card, general commercial terms extended to creditworthy
    customers, or other mechanism providing a similar level of assurance
    of payment shall be sufficient, provided that the obligation to pay
    becomes final and non-revocable by the Registered Name Holder upon
    activation of the registration.

Collis Taed at the North x East blog has posted a list of suggestions about what to do when the domain name you want is gone.

Increasingly, people who are really wedded to the word or idea they have for their domain name are starting to use alternative extensions like .net. While .com has been the net standard for a while, obviously we have .com.au - but the rules are much more strictly enforced in Australia and the domain name must reflect your business name very closely. While there can be challenges with non-typical extensions, Collis suggests overcoming the tendency for people to assume your site has a.com assumption by continually marketing your site with the extension, for example writing Flashden.net rather than Flashden.

Playing with spelling is another one to be careful of. I've had trouble locating Australian social news aggregator Kwoff on a few occasions because I default to the correct spelling, Quaff, which is actually a wine website. I thought it was just me having the memory of a leaky seize but I noticed a couple of weeks ago on the Kwoff blog that after a mention on Radio National (where people only heard the name, rather than seeing it spelled out) a lot of people tried to visit the site by typing www.quaff.com.au. Kwoff responded by buying a Google Adword so that if people googled looking for it, they'd see a sponsored link saying "Looking for Kwoff?" with a link to their site.

The Kwoff story is a good reminder that you need to pick your domain name carefully, and consider the kinds of spelling or navigational mistakes people may make when looking for your site.

What to do when the domain name you want is gone [North x East]

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Wired's How To Wiki offers some powerful ammunition for dealing with the spam-pushing, typo-leeching domain name squatters that capitalise on slight variations of your personal or business website address. The basic path is to register as many misspellings, abbreviations and variations of your domains as possible and take the miscreants that do pop up to domain name court. There are, of course, ways to reclaim your online name even if the bad guys won't give up, and you can avoid squatter spam yourself by using OpenDNS. But it never hurts to arm yourself with knowledge of the laws and authorities you can turn to when johnsmith.co starts leeching your traffic.