[DarkCoder]

I think it is 90 days altogether?

EDIT: It is 60 days:

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Contrary to popular belief, domains do not expire when they say they do. If the owner of a domain does not renew by the expiration date of the domain, the domain goes into “expired” status. For 40 days, the domain is in a grace period where all services are shut off, but the domain owner may still renew the domain for a standard renewal fee. If a domain enters this period, it is a good first indicator that it may not be renewed, but since the owner can re-register without penalty, it can also just be a sign of laziness or procrastination.

After 40 days are up, the domain’s status changes to “redemption period”. During this phase, all WhoIs information begins disappearing, and more importantly, it now costs the owner an additional fee to re-activate and re-register the domain. The fee is currently around $100, depending on your registrar. When a domain enters its redemption period, it’s a good bet the owner has decided not to renew.

Finally, after the redemption period, the domain’s status will change to “locked” as it enters the deletion phase. The deletion phase is 5 days long, and on the last day between 11am and 2pm Pacific time, the name will officially drop from the ICANN database and will be available for registration by anybody.

The entire process ends exactly 75 days after the listed expiration date. For an even more detailed explanation, read the article Inside a Drop Catcher’s War Room.

http://www.mikeindus...expiring-domain

This post has been edited by olie122333: 05 January 2012 - 12:23 PM

[Kyek]

When you want to jump on a domain like this, it's definitely worth using a poaching service -- I think I saw either name.com or namecheap.com with their own that looked pretty good. But it'll monitor the domain through those steps, and autopurchase it for you as soon as ICANN drops it.

Another method, and one that's pretty effective, is just E-mailing the domain owner (from the whois data) and mentioning you've seen their site is offline and wondering if they'd be interested in selling. Offer double what it would have cost them to register it, and chances are you can get the domain right now with no risk of losing it to a poacher. Of course, there's the off chance that this will cause the owner to re-register it and try to sell it for more, but that's probably more of a fringe case.

[gushort]

Kyek, on 05 January 2012 - 12:57 PM, said:

Another method, and one that's pretty effective, is just E-mailing the domain owner (from the whois data) and mentioning you've seen their site is offline and wondering if they'd be interested in selling. Offer double what it would have cost them to register it, and chances are you can get the domain right now with no risk of losing it to a poacher. Of course, there's the off chance that this will cause the owner to re-register it and try to sell it for more, but that's probably more of a fringe case.

How does one go about transferring ownership, properly?

[NeilHanlon]

EEP Code and transfer it to yourself. Just like you transfer from host to host. ICANN doesn't really care who has the domain, as long as they know who has it.

[Daniel15]

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How does one go about transferring ownership, properly?

Some registrars let you push a domain into someone else's account. Name.com do, for instance. They'd simply push the domain into your account with that registrar.