Domain Tasting is the practice of registering a domain with the intention of making the most of ICANN’s “Creation Grace Period” (CGP), keeping those domains for up to five days, analyzing traffic and revenue statistics for over the course of that 5 day period and discarding them for a full refund if they have poor gloss performance. Domains that have the potential to earn the minimum of the registration fee are saved and parked or filled with a smorgasbord of ppc ads.

Now this term has been around for some time, but there has never been any solid evidence for this practice that I am aware of.

The following is an excerpt from Bob Parsons’ (CEO and Founder, Godaddy.com) Online Blog.

“DirectNIC registered more than 8.4 million domain names in April 2006, but only permanently registered – or paid for – 51.4 thousand of them. The trend was the same in March, when DirectNIC registered 7.6 million names and only permanently signed up – or paid – 52.5 thousand. What could DirectNIC be doing? “

Sadly this is as close to actual proof as we can get, not definitive by any means, but very interesting nonetheless.

We, as webmasters, must take the proper precautions to avoid such a damaging setback for a new project. Losing an incredible keyword domain, or worse, the best possible brand domain, could mean your project is “chewed up.”

The following are some tips to help you avoid domain tasting and register the domain you want without any hassle.

1. Don’t search for your new domain without having the funds to purchase it readily available, you want to avoid anyone noticing an unregistered name you are targeting, so be sure to have your credit card handy if you wish. search, if you find a domain you want or even 10 domains, register them right then and there, this way you are not giving anyone a chance to test them, and use the CGP to your advantage, cancel the 9 that don’t seem to fit and keep the gem.

2. If you choose to search without taking the necessary payment precautions and your domain is registered while you’re looking through the washing machine to see which pair of khaki pants you left your wallet on, don’t blame us, but take the right steps to get it back.

If you think it was a taster because the odds of someone else registering it are almost incalculable, drop it, that’s right, drop it. If you think about it, testing domains is seeing the traffic that the domain receives, if you see it again and again you will never get it back because the taster will think they have a guardian. So abandon all searches for 1 week, after 1 week go to a different logger, find it, if it’s there, congratulations, log it, and keep going, if you don’t regret your luck, you did your best.

So for everyone reading this, remember, if you think you have found “the” domain, make sure 100% you have the funds to register it and do it without thinking, it may be your last chance.