I've been trying to register for a website but all of the ones I鈥檓 interested in are taken by 鈥渦nder construction鈥?or 鈥渃oming soon鈥?pages. I鈥檝e tried using variations of what I wanted but they are taken by place holder type websites that aren鈥檛 really being used. How would I go about asking the availability of a domain name? Would I try to contact the company that鈥檚 hosting the site? Or is that going to make buying the name impossible if it looks like there鈥檚 interest?

Also, if a domain name is about to expire what would be the best way to register for it before it gets taken again? I wanted to use dreamhost to host the site, but it looks like I might have to register the domain name from someplace else. Any advice on this topic would be great. Thanks.

You usually have to pay for a domain name

You can make a website for FREE at http://www.freewebs.com and then you can register a domain name if you chose. http://www.securepaynet.net/gdshop/rhp/d...

To find the owner of a website do a who is search at http://whois.sc this will give you the owners contact information and the expiration date of the domain name.

As for registering expired domain names the names go through an expiration process after the actual expiration before they are made available to the pubic again.

For information on buying expired names look at: http://SnapNames.com