Tells you why a domain isn’t available — Uniregistry Whois

Whois explains if domain is on name collision list.

One of the most frustrating challenges of pre-registering fresh top level domain names is having the registrar return a search “not available”.

You end up asking yourself “why isn’t it available?” The first instinct is to blame the registry for holding back what appears to be a good domain name.

Odds are that’s not the case. Instead, the domain name is temporarily blocked due to name collisions. These domains ought to be available later, but not at launch.

Finding out why a name is blocked is a bit of a chore. Most of the time if you look up the domain in Whois you’ll get a message that it’s reserved by the registry. That doesn’t tell you if it was reserved since it’s a premium name or if it’s on the name collision list.

For most TLDs, the only way to find out if it’s on the name collision list is to view the name collision file for the domain. Find the registry agreement, click on “List of SLDs to Block”, then do a search for the name.

I was pleasantly surprised when looking up .link domains this stretch to see that Uniregistry has made it easier to find out why a domain is blocked. This is what you see when you do a Whois on a name collision domain:

This is a smart move. Lots of people unfamiliar with the fine print of the fresh TLD program assume registries are holding back tens of thousands of the best names. They’re actually being forced to do this. The name collision message in Whois is good for PR.