Domain Tasting
Domain Tasting represents the practice of registrants who use the free five-day “grace period” at the beginning of the registration process for ICANN to test the marketability of that specific domain name.
Short overview
Domain tasting supposes the exploitation of the five day "grace period" with the purpose of determining the profitability of a specific domain name. Whether this process/action is done for one domain name or for numerous available domain names - it is still domain tasting due to the main purpose of this action. Domain tasting is performed to make sure the domain name is profitable enough to allow registrants to earn profit by means of advertisements published on that specific websites. [1]
The purpose of domain tasting
Domain tasters use this practice because they want to sell the domain names at a later date and make profit based on such transactions. Thus, domain tasters are looking for domain names with a high ROI (return on investment).
By means of domain tasting the domainers carefully monitor the activity on each website and once the five days "grace period" is over are kept only the websites that generate the largest clickthrough profit respectively the largest clickthrough rate. The registrant conducts a cost-benefit analysis in order to assess the viability to earn profit from advertisements being placed on that specific website.
Domain Tasting vs. Domain Kiting
There are also cases when domainers repeatedly register, then cancel the domain and re-register the domain in order to avoid paying any fees while making profit from advertisements. This process is different from domain tasting, being known as Domain Kiting. In this way, domain tasting must not be confused with domain kiting, the process is different as well as the purpose.
Domain Tasting Conflicts
This practice of analyzing a domain's performance during the five days "grace period" may lead to various conflicts and problems for business and individuals. Since domain tasters use domain names to test their profitability, these domain names are unavailable for individuals and companies who are looking for legitimate business. [2]
ICANN and Domain Tasting
ICANN, being the organization that regulated the DNS (Domain Name System) announced their proposal to cancel the grace period for registration. Even if the cost per domain name is not significant for a legitimate registrant, this may affect the domain taster due to a high number of names being monitored, because domain taster rely on volume to earn profit.
According to the researches of ICANN at the beginning of 2007 the top ten domain tasters were responsible for 95% of all deleted domain names. [3]
According to the research of ICANN from 2009 the peak on a monthly basis for domain tasting reached thee leevel of 15 million domain names. Once the $0.20 fee was set for registration, the value aof domain tasting dropped a lot by reach 2 million per month.