YJL

1   Gathering method

At the beginning, I used my ISP’s DNS, Google Public DNS, and OpenDNS to check NS record. The first result showed there is NS record on blogspot.xxx, which was returned by OpenDNS. After looked into it, I believe OpenDNS was returned incorrect NS record, using blogspot.co.nl for instance (.xxx doesn’t have whois server, not sure if that domain is already operational or not):

$ dig @208.67.222.220 NS blogger.co.nl

; <<>> DiG 9.8.1 <<>> @208.67.222.220 NS blogger.co.nl
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 18728
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 4, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;blogger.co.nl.                 IN      NS

;; ANSWER SECTION:
blogger.co.nl.          84338   IN      NS      ns3.google.com.
blogger.co.nl.          84338   IN      NS      ns1.google.com.
blogger.co.nl.          84338   IN      NS      ns2.google.com.
blogger.co.nl.          84338   IN      NS      ns4.google.com.

;; Query time: 70 msec
;; SERVER: 208.67.222.220#53(208.67.222.220)
;; WHEN: Wed Apr 25 06:21:46 2012
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 113

$ whois !$
whois blogger.co.nl
Error: invalid .nl domain name

The whois query returned no such domain name, but OpenDNS’ DNS somehow returned NS records, which certainly is incorrect. However, if you use host to get the IP:

$ host !$ 208.67.222.220
host blogger.co.nl 208.67.222.220
Using domain server:
Name: 208.67.222.220
Address: 208.67.222.220#53
Aliases:

blogger.co.nl has address 67.215.66.132
Host blogger.co.nl not found: 2(SERVFAIL)

It gives you a OpenDNS’ IP and tells your that domain name is not found. That actually is OpenDNS’ manipulation, so it can serve you their own webpage with thr error message in webpage with search function. I know some people very dislike this method.

Since OpenDNS’ results are very confusing even unreliable, therefore I re-ran without OpenDNS servers and combined with results from whois command. It seemed to produce more accurate results.

2   List of results

3   Thoughts

I did not gather the created time (some whois servers are terrible, they don’t provide such information), so no idea when the domain name is registered. You can see Blogger does not own both blogger and blogspot with some TLD. For those, they probably have been registered, or can’t be confirmed with whois server when there is no whois server available on the TLD, or really hasn’t been registered. But I can say the last case is rare.

I wanted to check Blogger owned domains, because I was curious how serious the domain names have been taken because of the name “Blogger” or “Blogspot.” There are a lot of domain cockroaches around, I believe many have been taken by them. I name people who register domain for re-selling to make such unethical money as “domain cockroach” or re-take when a domain expires.

Years ago, I owned a domain which contained my username. Less than two years, I didn’t want to use it anymore, so I terminated it with registrar. Till today, that domain is still registered. But the worst part is it shows up at top of result in search engine, the first result. I should have kept my old domain name for that reason, I didn’t know better.

It is not much a big deal when currently it only gives you almost empty WordPress site, which is still fine to me. But what if it stuffs with some strange contents? Like ads or worse porn? My username is in that domain name. I have no control of it, can’t even defend my reputation. I can only pray that day would never come and soon the cockroach will give up, then I will take it back just in case another roach steps in.

Since it tops all other pages, I suspect keyword matched domain name has very high weighted value in Google Search’s black box. Maybe livibetter.yjl.im could top that old domain name, so I can write a description which will alert people not to click on that old domain name. I do know occasionally my username is searched by people, no doubt that everyone will click on first result.

Anyway, the results for Blogger look not too bad, consider there are 314 TLDs currently, Blogger owns 80 domains with its name in.