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When does a domain name expire?

I am at the moment on the lookout for a certain domain name. It is going to expire in less then a month and I want to get it. So I was wondering how this whole expiring domain procedure goes and here is what I found out.

It doesn't expire when it says it does

Say you want a domain name that expires on October 23rd. If the owner of this domain doesn't renew the contract before this date all services are shut off. But he still has some time to renew his domain name for a standard fee. So things may not be working anymore, but you still have to wait. This phase may last 40 days, less then 40 day or months.

After it expires twice

So after it has expired for the first time, and the second renew-by-date has expired as well, it goes into a third phase. In this phase the owner of the domain is STILL able to renew his domain name, if he pays an extra fee. Also all WhoIs information begins to dissapear. (WhoIs.net is where you can go to get information about who owns the domain.) I am not sure but I think that this phase lasts about 30 days.

After that

After it has expired three times, the owner is no longer able to register it again. It then goes into a deletion phase that lasts for 5 days. On the fifth day, the domain name will finally drop from ICANN's database between 11am and 2pm Pacific time. This is called the drop period. After this, anyone is able to register the domain name.

How to register it

So once it's on it way to being expired, what can you do? You can either try your luck and try to register it manually. This will probably work if it's a domain name that absolutely no one else wants. But then again, how will you ever know that no one else in the whole world wants it? The next cheapest way of going about it is to use a service like ExpireFish.com or GoDaddy.com to get you your expired domain. They are not the best in what they do, however, it's my opinion that if no one else is using one of the main domain snatching companies you might have a chance in getting it. How big a chance? That I can't say because if I register with expirefish.com no one else can register that domain name with them, but someone else could use godaddy.com. Which is better, I don't know. But it does cost only about 20 dollars.

The best way

The best way to snatch an expiring domain is to use one of the main domain snatching companies. I am not entirely sure who is the best and if there are only 3 best, but the following are in the top: SnapNames.com, Enom.com, Pool.com. They use different methods and charge different prices, but basically they have the resources and connection(?) to contiously try to get the expired domain name for you. I got most of this information from this webpage, and he got his domain name registered through Pool.com. He had also used the other two companies plus godaddy.com. So godaddy.com wasn't able to get it for him. Thanks to Mike for this information.