The domain market is small enough that the same five myths circulate every year and cost founders money or weeks of decision paralysis.
Myth 1: A NXDOMAIN response means the domain has never been registered. False. NXDOMAIN means the .com zone does not currently have a record for that name. Registered domains that expire and complete the redemption period drop out of the zone and start returning NXDOMAIN. Buying one of these is a normal $11 transaction at any registrar, but you may inherit the domain's reputation history with email providers and search engines, so check archive.org and Spamhaus.
Myth 2: A parked page means the domain is for sale. Sometimes. A parked page can mean the registrar is parking it during transit, the owner is monetizing ads passively, or a domain investor is fishing for inbound offers. Look at the WHOIS contact email. If it is a privacy mask routed through a marketplace like Sedo, Dan, or Afternic, the domain is likely listed for sale at a stated price. If the email is a real human address, you are negotiating with a person and there is no posted price.
Myth 3: All registrars charge the same for .com. Roughly true at first registration but very false at renewal. Some registrars use a low first-year price as a hook and quietly mark up renewals 20 to 80 percent. Read the renewal price before transferring in. ICANN allows the first-year price to be lower than the renewal, and they often are.
Myth 4: A premium price tag is the floor. False. Premium prices on registrar landing pages are often the registry's reserve price, not a final number. Some are negotiable, especially three-letter and pattern-based premiums. Make a low offer through the marketplace's offer flow before paying sticker.
Myth 5: A clean DNS check is enough. Not quite. DNS tells you if the .com zone has a record. It does not tell you about registry-level reservations, ICANN-restricted strings, or trademarks that could cause UDRP issues later. After DNS, run trademark search and Google search before clicking buy.
The DoH-based check our generator uses solves the first 90 percent of the problem in real time. The remaining 10 percent is human work. registrar comparison, WHOIS reading, trademark search. None of those should stop you from registering, but all of them protect you from spending three months and $25,000 on a name you will have to release.
The cheap names are the names you check now. The expensive names are the names you delay because you are not sure yet.