How do I go about getting hold of a domain name that Whois shows as expired, but domain registration sites show as "taken"?

Question

There's a domain I'm interested in using, but it's never been worth paying the big bucks it would have taken to buy it off the squatters who bought it when the company it was originally used by folded quite a few years ago.

I've just spotted that WhoIs.net is showing contradictory information. When I do a lookup the results page shows:

[domain].com is already registered *

where the (*) points to their usual disclaimer. But at the "who is" information has the following at the bottom:

Created: 2007-07-19
Updated: 2011-07-20
Expires: 2012-07-19

i.e. the registration expired getting on for two years ago now.

However, when I go to a domain registration site it also states that the domain is taken.

What's the correct procedure here?

Can (or indeed should) I just backorder it from the domain registration site? Will their enquiry just trigger the release of the name, or will it backfire and the current (well previous) owner renew it and try to sell it for mega bucks now that they know for certain someone is interested?

I've seen this question, but I don't think the situation is the same in this case:

How would you convince a domain owner to sell his domain to you?

Answer 1

The answer is that the domain hasn't actually expired, but that "Whois.net" are showing out of date information.

If I check the Whois at Verisign I get more up-to-date information:

Updated Date: 20-jul-2013
Creation Date: 19-jul-2007
Expiration Date: 19-jul-2014

Which clearly shows that the domain hasn't expired and is still in the hands of the "squatter".

So the answer is to make sure that you do the "whois" check with someone who has the most up-to-date information or at the very least as a "second opinion".