How can I find out about a website not being used?

A website has a similar domain name as my own however whenever I used to go to the other site it was always two pages big and thats it but for about the past year I have not been able to find the site at all it's like it never existed but when I try to do a domain search for the name I't always says the name is taken and cannot be purchased can anybody help me?

The website in question is www.phototran.com

Admin Name........... Thanh Tran
Admin Address........ 311 Senate Court
Admin Address........
Admin Address........ Herndon
Admin Address........ 20170
Admin Address........ VA
Admin Address........ UNITED STATES
Admin Email.......... tqtus@yahoo.com
Admin Phone.......... +1.7037963562

www.phototran.com is currently unavailable..

but .org and .net are

Phototran.com will expire on 2009-02-19

A domain can be registered but not be active in the global dns directory of for example internic.

Thats why you see a "domain unavailable" message.

A domain does not have to be active in order for it to stay registered.

Hope this helps.

At your service,


Erol Alici (The Homebiz Tycoon)

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go to www.godaddy.com. Type in the name. It will tell you that the name is taken, but you can click on "click here for infor". It will tell you who owns it, address, phone numbers, etc.