What’s Up With TargetedTrafficForum.com?

Screen Shot 2013-08-31 at 5.20.18 PMSeveral years ago, Rick Schwartz ran a popular private domain forum called  Targeted Traffic Forum. For years, it was one of the “go to” spots for good discussions with professionals who were successful in the business of domain investing. In 2008, for a variety of reasons, Rick shut down the forum.

For some reason,  TargetedTrafficForum.com looks like it’s a Japanese website that doesn’t appear to be related to domain names at all.

According to the Whois record, the domain name was created in January of this year. It is currently registered under privacy at Japanese domain registrar, Onamae. Ordinarily, I would have assumed the domain name expired and was picked up by someone else, although I don’t think that’s the case.

According to the Whois archive at DomainTools on October 27, 2012, the domain name had an expiration date of October 2013. With that being the case, I don’t see how the domain name would have expired prematurely to be picked up by someone else. Unless it was deleted prior to its expiration, I don’t see how it could have a new expiration date like this.

I am surprised that it now appears to be owned by someone other than Rick Schwartz. If Rick deleted the domain name, I find that strange since there were backlinks and history, and it could have been forwarded to the TRAFFIC website.

What’s up with this domain name?

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

20 COMMENTS

  1. Elliot: During the “Auto Renew Grace Period” a year is automatically added. See, for example:

    http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/advisory-06jun02-en.htm

    Then, if the registrar deletes the name within the 45 days, they get back the registry renewal fee (and the domain proceeds now to Redemption Grace Period, and then to Pending Delete).

    This can cause some confusion for registrants, as they might think that the name was renewed, when it in fact was not renewed. All my best domains are renewed for 7 to 10 years in advance, to be cautious.

  2. @George Kirikos

    “In effect, the losing registrar is not receiving a refund of paid registration fees, it is just in a position to avoid incurring a permanent charge for the one-year registration term going forward”. -ICAAN

    I believe that this practice is wrong, and should be looked into by congress.

    When a domain name expires, any one assuming the possession of it from day one should pay a permanent renewal fee for it, or let it drop; anything done with the name, including auctioning it should inure to the benefit of the Registrant who owned it the previous one year, less the renewal fee, unless some other entity paid a permanent renewal fee for it, and waited 45 days prior to auctioning it off. The $6 should not be refundable to the Registrar at all! This is the cause of all our problems. ICAAN in essence is participating in retail/auctioning of a vast number of domains. And in many cases, ICAAN can also be called a “squatter”. Along with the Registrars. Congress should make it so that ICAAN, and their Registrars should never be able to sell a domain name above the current Registry price, at anytime, for any domain. Else it’s a form of insider trading.

    • Fabulous.com is the only ethical registrar, I believe, that offers “Expiring Domains Service” http://goo.gl/mestpX
      it’s an an opt in service and it allows you to receive 60% on the sale of your expired domain names. all domains are sold through namejet.

    • @elimam,

      The problem is systemic, and it is deliberately setup that. This one falls squarely on ICAAN, and all Registrars, including the one you mentioned.

      The participating Registrars about expiring domain names, should only have two options:

      1. Pay a non refundable $6 renewal fee for each, and ALL expired domain names from your register (Registrar), you can’t cherry pick them, you pay for all expired names, and then have the ability to auction them. You can’t keep the corn and drop the chaff.

      2. Or let all of them drop, if not renewed by the original registrant.

      Meanwhile, all auctioned, or sold expired names by Registrars should go to the Registrant with the expiring name, deducting the renewal fee and costs.

      I believe a good class action lawsuit could look at tort regarding this practice; those who have lost their domains via this practice could recover if a tortious breach is found by the courts, going all the way, as far as statute of limitation would allow; I would stop this thing now if I were ICAAN.

  3. This has been gone over for years, until a hammer truly comes down they will continue to disregard the rules and continue in unethical behaviour.

    That day will come, unlikely soon though, no one has been hurt enough to sue, many small pokes, no big punch, no lawsuit.

  4. Programmer with alittle know how could probably reassemble a god chuck of the old website that has been indexed via archive.org

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