The domain name business, sometimes referred to as the confusing cousin of the web hosting business, has some odd slang tied to it.  One phrase you may or may not of heard of is domain sniping.

So what does a domain sniper do?  This is when somebody registering a domain name as soon as the domain name expires.  For an example, let us say I really wanted the domain name webhostingradio.com.  After doing a WhoIs search on the domain name, I find out it expires on February 19, 2009.  So I wait until that date, and then pick it up myself as soon as the registration runs out.

The fact is though, that this can pretty much be considered extinct, for now.

Thanks to ICANN’s Redemption Grace Period (RGP) registrants are allowed 30 days to reclaim their domain name.  Before the RGP went into effect, the money made in domain name sniping was done when the sniper would try to extort money from the original registrant to get their domain name back.