What are the odds?

[Wreckless Randy]

Hello all, and greetings, as this is my first post.
I am not here for the domain business, but simply
because I need to learn something, as I am attempting
to acquire a domain for my band.

I see that the domain I want expired 15 days ago and
is pending renewal or deletion. I can place a backorder
on this domain for $69, but good grief... I'd much rather
wait until the registry is deleted and register it at Godaddy
for under $10. Nobody else seems to want it. What are
the odds I will be able to wait and do this? Does the
domain become publicly available through any vendor
when the registry deletes? Or am I misunderstanding
how this works?

[Fishnagles]

Hello Wreckless Randy,

First of all, backorders can be found much cheaper at
http://domains.searchen.com (18.95)

If the name is nothing special you may have a decent chance at registering it after it drops from the expiration... But it very well may get automatically picked up by software which attempts to "catch" expiring domains... So backordering it could be helpful to you as these services try to watch the name and grab it as soon as it expires... There really no telling who gets it first.... But it is possible that it will just drop completely.... Even if it does get picked up by an automated catching program, they are sometimes just held for a few days to test for traffic and if there is none, they are released again under a 5 day grace period that acts like a return policy.