Acro.net – Technology Rants & Raves by Acroplex®

Who would have thought, back in the 80′s, that an online network of interconnected computers would be used one day to relay information, almost unrestricted around the globe?

Surely, the oldest domain registered, Symbolics.com, is a landmark in the history of “manual” domain registrations and that of the commercial Internet. Despite its 25 year old existence as a domain, Symbolics.com was not used as a web site until well after the introduction of the world wide web in the early 90′s.

Still, those that knew back in the day that they had the opportunity to register domains, went after some short ones. Without exception, all of these LL.com domains registered during the early ‘gold rush’ were for corporations: Hewlett Packard, Texas Instruments, General Electric etc.

Here’s a list of the LL.com domains registered in the 1980′s – the pioneers, if you must, of short domain registrations.

It’s interesting to note that the 3rd oldest LL.com, ub.com, was sold recently to Ultimate Bet and it’s being used as a shortcut forward to their primary web site.

Would you have thought LL.com’s were still available to register in the 2000′s? That can’t be possible!

Well, you’d be partially correct; they were not available to register but they became available after a handful of LL.com domains dropped, as late as in 2003!

Nowadays it seems crazy not to lock your domains.

All registrars offer this feature as a default option; others offer extended locking mechanisms or even hardware locks via the use of a ‘fob device’.

Although a transfer out cannot be completed automatically without the use of an authentication code, there are unscrupulous individuals that would attempt to hijack valuable domains. Keeping them unlocked is like an open invitation.

It sounds insane but currently there are 32 LL.com domains that return an “OK” status which indicates they are unlocked. I thought it’d be interesting to list the registrars they belong to.

For security purposes, I won’t list the domains themselves; I’m also listing how many unlocked LL.com domains belong to each registrar.

Surprisingly, there are 13 LL.com domains that are about to expire. How soon? Well, in less than 40 days.

Generally speaking, it’s good to renew your valuable domains for several years in advance; the benefits are multiple:

• Registration security until a future expiration
• Taking advantage of the current prices
• Google likes domains with long life-spans
• You show disregard to the 2012 doom and gloom!

Without further ado, here are the 13 LL.com’s that expire in 40 days or less; let’s hope their owners take notice.