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Finding Expired Domains

by rusty1027
10 replies
I wrote this very cool app that allows me to filter and find expired domains that contain specific keywords very fast. I've been thinking about opening it up for other people to use, but my concern is that I rely on some other site to get my daily list - then I import it to populate my database.

Does anyone know how or where I could go about getting this list for myself without the need to rely on other people? There's tons of sites out there offering expired domain lists, so they all must be getting it from somewhere.

Any help or insight would be appreciated.
#domains #expired #finding
  • Profile picture of the author LooseChange
    I think everybody doing expired domain search apps are using the same GoDaddy list that you get daily through ftp access. I know that's what I use for my personal monitoring service written in Perl/Python/Php.

    It would be nearly impossible to build your own because you would have to somehow make a database entry for each registered domain, have a service that checks whois on their expiration date to see if they've been renewed and then check whois again daily after they've expired to see if they've been renewed.

    GoDaddy has the distinct advantage in that they are the registrar and have the registration/expiration information at their fingertips without requiring whois.

    Don't get me wrong, it can be done but it would require an enormous database and tons of processing power. I was actually thinking of finding 4 or 5 people to build a distributed system much like DNS or file sharing networks to offest the load.
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    • Profile picture of the author rusty1027
      Thanks for your reply Loosechange - does the goDaddy daily list contain ALL expired domains or just domains that have expired through GoDaddy? I presently get a daily list that averages 60-80 thousand names that expired that day - I'm using SQL right now to manage a list of about 12 million dropped names. I don't care about keeping the list current with regard to their registration status, because once I find one I like, I just click a button and my app goes out to check the registration status. I just want to get my hands on that daily raw data feed - currently I am tracking com, org, net, us, info and biz.
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      • Profile picture of the author LooseChange
        The GoDaddy list is the same size you mentioned. Anywhere between 60-100K domains per day.

        I know of only two other registrars that provide dropped info and that's Name and eNom but you have to have a decent portfolio with them before they will give you the data via email so you need a script setup to parse the emails. Obviously, it's not in a registrar's best interest to provide this info when 99% are just going to register through GoDaddy anyway. Name learned that with their Deleted Domain list, which they have significantly cut back on because people were banging their servers and then going to GoDaddy to register.

        As far as your programming method of checking the info "on request" ~ that is a great way to handle it for a personal app but when you're talking about letting others use the app, it's not going to seem very reliable when half the names they check are already taken. Dropped lists are usually only good for about 24-48 hours.

        Monetizing something like this is nearly impossible. Years ago, I ran a blog featuring a list of 100 hand picked dropped domains each day that were real winners. The blog had tons of traffic, it had an automated script to show if the domains were still available, etc. Most of the domains were registered by end of day. I had affiliate banners for GoDaddy, etc on the site and guess what I earned almost every day? $0 - nothing - nada - zilch. I couldn't even get people to sign up for a mailing list or my RSS feed. It was a huge waste of time and resources but in the end, I did learn how to make my work profitable by using my lists to buy domains myself and sell them for a small profit.
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        • Profile picture of the author Meharis
          Originally Posted by LooseChange View Post

          The GoDaddy list is the same size you mentioned. Anywhere between 60-100K domains per day.

          I know of only two other registrars that provide dropped info and that's Name and eNom but you have to have a decent portfolio with them before they will give you the data via email so you need a script setup to parse the emails. Obviously, it's not in a registrar's best interest to provide this info when 99% are just going to register through GoDaddy anyway. Name learned that with their Deleted Domain list, which they have significantly cut back on because people were banging their servers and then going to GoDaddy to register.
          As far as your programming method of checking the info "on request" ~ that is a great way to handle it for a personal app but when you're talking about letting others use the app, it's not going to seem very reliable when half the names they check are already taken. Dropped lists are usually only good for about 24-48 hours.

          Monetizing something like this is nearly impossible. Years ago, I ran a blog featuring a list of 100 hand picked dropped domains each day that were real winners. The blog had tons of traffic, it had an automated script to show if the domains were still available, etc. Most of the domains were registered by end of day. I had affiliate banners for GoDaddy, etc on the site and guess what I earned almost every day? $0 - nothing - nada - zilch. I couldn't even get people to sign up for a mailing list or my RSS feed. It was a huge waste of time and resources but in the end, I did learn how to make my work profitable by using my lists to buy domains myself and sell them for a small profit.

          Thank you for the "Stop Sign" I found here. I learned a good lesson.
          Meharis
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          • Profile picture of the author LooseChange
            Originally Posted by Meharis View Post

            Thank you for the "Stop Sign" I found here. I learned a good lesson.
            Meharis
            Truth is, if you want to make money on the internet, you need to step up from affiliate marketing, etc to actually having products and services of your own that you charge for. I'm not talking about e-books and "get rich quick" schemes. Those never work.

            I spent nearly 5 years spinning my wheels in affiliate marketing. Building hundreds of websites, building backlinks, doing SEO, posting to forums, twitter, Facebook, etc ~ in the end I made nothing. People were using my sites but I wasn't getting paid. I did learn a lot about the business which has been enormously helpful in my current endeavors.

            Two years ago I started selling on eBay. It was my first experience with actually selling my own products and services directly to buyers. I managed to sell most of my sites that were living on Adsense fumes, take that money and buy real inventory and now I have a thriving business that I've just implemented an affiliate program to let others do all the promoting work.

            Thing is, you're going to fail a few times but if you can take esperience from each failure and build on it, you'll eventually hit paydirt.

            The OP seems to have a fantastic app he built for himself. So if he could easily buy domains for $7 and flip them on eBay for $15-$50 each, that's an amazing business model. Nothing in retail gets 200-500% profit margin without having to actually store/hold inventory.
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            • Profile picture of the author blackjack
              Hi LooseChange

              Can you share your strategies about selling domain names on eBay?

              Thanks
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    • Profile picture of the author ypadilla
      Originally Posted by LooseChange View Post

      I think everybody doing expired domain search apps are using the same GoDaddy list that you get daily through ftp access. I know that's what I use for my personal monitoring service written in Perl/Python/Php.
      What is the FTP address for the GoDaddy list of expired domains?

      I've been looking for it and can't find it. I did find what appears to be only auctions, not expired domains. It's at ftp.godaddy.com

      Thanks.
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    • Profile picture of the author rusty1027
      Originally Posted by LooseChange View Post

      I think everybody doing expired domain search apps are using the same GoDaddy list that you get daily through ftp access. I know that's what I use for my personal monitoring service written in Perl/Python/Php.
      If anyone has more info on this, please forward it because I've looked all over GoDaddy and I can't find it either.
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  • Profile picture of the author pompano
    Do you find many good domains with traffic in the lists?
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    • Profile picture of the author jameswarrior
      Originally Posted by pompano View Post

      Do you find many good domains with traffic in the lists?
      You can search through that list, or if you can't, simply go to some website on the web that offer lists of domains with traffic, for example, this is the list of dropped domains but are still in top 1M sites by Alexa rank: http://stuffgate.com/stuff/website/deleted-domains
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