All the Good URLs Have Been Taken

It’s hardly secret knowledge, though perhaps only Dennis Forbes has seen it in all its glory.

There are roughly 47 million domain names that end with ".com," making that space the biggest and most prestigious piece of real estate on the Internet. Getting a URL listed as a dot-com involves, ultimately, checking in with a database at Verisign, the Mountain View, Calif., company that keeps tabs on the dot-com world, the way your state’s DMV knows about which cars have which license plates.

If you know who at Verisign to ask, you can get the complete dot-com list. Mr. Forbes, an analyst at Vastardis Capital Services, a New York mutual-fund service company, got it and has since made a hobby of studying the list, something he does in his spare time. He has, in the process, become the world’s pre-eminent domainologist.

By LEE GOMES
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal.

Full Story: http://www.startupjournal.com/ecommerce/ecommerce/20060720-gomes.html?sjcontent=mail

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