Domain Kiting

Domain Kiting is a practice in which a registrant returns a name just before the five-day period expires and re-registers it again as soon as it becomes available. This has also been referred to as Domain Tasting.

Short overview

There are many definitions related to domain kiting but the core idea is the same one: a practice which takes advantage of the add grace period when someone decides to register, cancel and then re-register the same domain name. That person can be an entity or even a domainer. The term "domain kiting" was first expressed and referred to as by Bob Parsons, CEO and founder of GoDaddy.com. "kiting" comes from the illegal practice of check kiting, and was specially chosen by Bob Parson since illegalities can also occur within the industry of domain names. The same principle as in the case of check kiting applies for domain kiting which is : taking advantage of the period before and after cancellation.

How does it work?

Domain kiting involves the following three actions:

1. Registering the domain name
2. Canceling the domain name within the add grace period
3. Re-registering the domain name

In the case of domain kiting, all these processes are done by the same person - the domainer or the entity who owns it.

Basically, in order to perform domain kiting it is necessary to purchase a well-indexed but expired domain. As long as this activity is performed regularly, then it is the case of domain kiting. The whole process allows a 5 day grace period until the domain is once again registered. During all this time, a temporary website is being created and paid advertisements can be placed as well as search engine links for optimization - mostly for marketing and advertising purposes. Income is being earned by the registrar during this short 5-day period without the normal registration cost incurred since it is a temporary website, but still completely functional.

Before the domains are re-registered, they are dropped by the registrar who will ask for a full refund and receive it. In some cases, if the domain name does not generate much income during the 5 day period, it is not registered.

Reasons to perform domain kiting

The main reason for domain kiting is earning extra money from advertisements and marketing methods while not paying any fees for the domain. If this is maintained all the time, it is possible that the registration fee for the domain is never paid, since the registrar keeps canceling it before the grace period ends. During all this time, by means of advertisements and other marketing tools the registrar can earn profit without any costs incurred.

Another reason is simply to see which names generate income with the idea of doing a legitimate registration for those names. I.e. "taste test" the name.

Consequences of domain kiting

During this process, the following consequences appear:

• The domain names are not available anymore, being blocked all the time in the process of registering-grace period-canceling and re-registering. These domain names remain unavailable to the general public, while registrars earn high profits.
• Prevents the legitimate registration of domains
• Leads to losses since statistics show that the percentage of kited domains is still high.