Names By Request

Names By Request

Are you thinking of using Melbourne It’s service called Names by Request? Melbourne It has a unique service called Names by Request where they say that they will notify you when a domain name becomes available. They have you enter your name, country, phone and email and click submit. In theory they will notify when the following happens (as copied directly from their site):

• if and when any of the above Domain Names become available; and/or
• to update me regarding the status of the above Domain Names; and/or
• regarding other products and services of Melbourne IT.

Around  a month ago I filled out the form for 45 domain names that were set to expire all on the same day since they were all purchased and not renewed by the same person on the same day. I received the initial 45 emails saying:

Thank you for using Melbourne IT’s no obligation Names By Request service.

We have received confirmation of your acceptance of the Terms and Conditions of
Melbourne IT’s Names By Request Service located at
http://www.melbourneit.com.au/policies/domainmonitoringtandcs.php, and your
expression of interest regarding the following Domain Name:

Once I noticed that all 45 domains were in the pending delete status I continued to check the domain names for availability on my own just as a precautionary to using Names By Request. Today I checked the availability of the domains using a bulk domain checker through godaddy and noticed that 3 of the domains were available and the other 42 were not. I immediately registered the domain names and went back to my email to see if I missed Melbourne It’s email about the notification. Nothing was in my email box or spam email.

What is the real purpose for Melbourne It’s so called “Names By Request” feature? Is it just a glorified lead generator with no purpose of actually notifying the user when the domain becomes available? So far it’s clear to see that out of 45 domains I was never notified on if it was available or if the status changes. In my opinion it’s a complete spam email form.

If you have a domain that’s currently registered that you’d like to register, check out my other post for how to buy a registered domain name.