So it turns midnight and what am I thinking of? Registering another domain name!

This time it’s a pair of cute little dot sc domains that stuck in my brain (.sc is the ccTLD for the country of Seychelles).

Here was the thought process:

I was getting ready to send a newsletter for one of my websites and I didn’t want to include long URLs in the email. I thought it would be neat if I had my own little tinyURL service in the emails to shorten the URLs I used. I found a tinyURL type script at hotscripts (no disrespect to Gilby :)

Furthermore, I thought it would be supercool if I could use a domain that was just my keyword and the TLD (keyword.tld) as the base for the short URLs. I first thought of .in, but then I remembered how NameIntelligence tried to spin the .sc extension to mean the “source” (ie: whois.sc is the whois source).

So first I searched for how I could even register a .sc domain name. I even tried emailing the domaintools people since they recently announced that they became an accredited registrar for the .sc extension. I googled a few keywords like .sc registrar, register a .sc domain (mostly coming up with South Carolina results). I finally found what I was looking for by searching for .sc domain registration: a list a places where I could register a .sc domain.

I wanted to skip the smaller resellers because I wanted to go straight to the source (no pun intended). After reading about possible whois monitoring recently, I wanted to register my “best-idea-ever” domains right away once I found out they were available.

After I was able to verify (through domaintools) that the domains I wanted were available, I tried to register the domains through dotster.com/mydomains.com 3 times with no luck. All 3 times I got the error “we are currently processing your order. domain registration failed. Please contact help with Session ID: —– to expedite processing of your order”.

At first I thought it was because I was trying to save a buck by googling for some dotster/mydomains coupons (I found a $5 coupon that worked). So then I tried paying full price and still no go.

Now I was certain there was a conspiracy against me getting these domains, so I just had to have them tonight :)

I remembered reading in Dave Zan’s blog about his glowing recommendation for Moniker, so I figured I’d give them a try. In addition to being one of the original Google search results I found, I actually got a chance to meet a couple of the Moniker employees at the PubCon in Las Vegas in 2005. I had a $10 credit with them, the stars were aligned, so it was definitely time to try them out.

Moniker to the rescue!

I was able to use the Moniker site to register my two keyword .sc domain names successfully. Since I used the shopping cart instead of the “Quick Domain Registration” feature I had to wade through the godaddyesque upsell filled checkout process, but it was pretty painless overall.

Although the registration process was completely real time, it did seem automated and I got confirmations of my successful registrations within a few minutes.

I didn’t get to use my $10 credit in my Moniker account for some reason, but thanks to Moniker, at least I can go to sleep tonight knowing that I am the proud new owner of a couple of .sc Seychellian beauties :)