Imagine that you want to register a domain name, you already have the idea in your mind, you want your domain name to be exactly as your brand name but this domain is already taken. What will you do? How do you proceed?

This is a very common issue that people encounter and it is very likely in 99% of cases the domain you want has already been taken by somebody else. This is because everybody has the right and the freedom to register any domain name they want and with that they don’t violate any laws or rules.
If the domain name is already taken, there are two options: you can either buy it(or rent it) from the owner or simply find another domain name that you like. You can also just change something in the name such as a hyphen or add a number, do some variations see what fits.

There is a case that a parallel and completely legal domain name has been created and given to companies that specialize in domain name brokerage and sale. If you want a premium domain name that is already taken the rules are you buy it at an auction or directly from the owner. There are companies that a dealing with this kind of transactions so that the buyer of the domain and the seller seal the deal without any troubles.
Well-known names like hotel.com and diamonds.com are sold for millions or euros, so there is no fixed or official prices.
Some famous website that deals with this kind of domain brokerage that buys and sells domains on your behalf are Sedo.com (it is one of the most famous), Afternic.com, Domaindirect.it (for domains .it) and many others. Also many domain registrars have their own marketplace such as Namecheap, Godaddy etc.. where you can book domains and even try to contact the owners directly and buy the domain from them.

How do you find who owns the domain?
You can find the information and contacts of the owner with Whois lookup. There should be an email address available and if the domain name is owned by a company that is trying to sell domain names this information should be easily accessible.
When you make a contact you need to be careful and you need to know that the owner of this domain is under no obligation to sell it to you and this person may not be willing to negotiate a price and might want a lot more money for it. If you can’t come to agreeable terms you can just walk away and in that case you need to have other options available to you.

There is a practice of renting domain names and it is becoming very popular. If the purchase price of a domain name that you like is very high but the domain name is very valuable to you, renting it is an option.

Backordering is also a popular service and if you want to have maximum chance of getting the domain when it expires you can use all of the backorder service you can find. Some of them are NameJet, Snapnames, Pool.com, BackorderZone etc.

There are many new TLD`s that have been created, in the recent years, a new extensions that are not the usual .com domains so you have the freedom to chose one like that would be very expensive in the traditional TLD’s. You have also the opportunity to try new word combinations that have never been used but make sure they are readable and not too long.