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Domain Availability Toolkit for Domainers By WhoisXML API

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The domain name investing process generally starts with brainstorming and researching the type of domain names worth buying. You would then have to check the availability of the domain names. If available, most domainers proceed to buy the domains. But if unavailable, you may want to dig to know who their current owners are and make deals. Or you may be interested in passively monitoring unavailable domains that you believe are lucrative should they become available at a later date.

Throughout this process, some data sources and tools can make each step easier. This thread lists a few of them created by WhoisXML API.

Check Availability of Domain Names
First thing first, you can learn whether a specific domain name is available for registration or not by typing it in to a domain availability checker. These checkers may come in the form of a web-based lookup, an API, or as part of a more comprehensive GUI platform such as Domain Research Suite (DRS). Any of these domain availability checkers allow you to perform private queries without giving any domain registrar hints about your interests.

Get Newly Expired Domain Data Feeds
To see more domain investing opportunities, you may need to look at the bigger picture and start from what has recently become available. The Newly Registered & Just Expired Domains Database can help in this case. On 7 March 2021, for instance, thousands of just expired domains appeared on the database for the .com TLD. Some of these domains are captured in the screenshot below.

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Look into WHOIS Records
Another important part of a domain name investors’ toolkits is a WHOIS lookup tool, which enables them to see current ownership details. With this information, they would know who to contact or if the domain can even be put under negotiation.

A WHOIS Search can be done within the Domain Research Suite, right after learning if a domain is unavailable. It would also provide a screenshot of the website and pertinent ownership information, such as the registrant name, organization, email address, and phone number. Of course, these details are available, provided that they are not masked.

If you have a long list of domain names of which you would like to see the WHOIS details, you can do a bulk WHOIS lookup.

Monitor Domain Name Changes
You can also track domain availability on Domain Monitor and set up email alerts when changes to domains’ WHOIS records are made. As such, you can be alerted when registrations expire or domain statuses change.

To provide an illustration, we monitored the WHOIS record changes of payoneeryn[.]com last year. As you can see in the screenshot below, the domain expired on 16 February 2020. The domain’s status also changed from Client Transfer Prohibited to Client Transfer Prohibited | Redemption Period.

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Such a status means that it has been more than 30 days after the domain expired, and the grace period is over. Knowing this change in status enables you to dive right in when the redemption period is over.

Monitoring domains you’re interested in would help you take immediate action and get ahead of other domainers that could also be keeping an eye on the same domain name.

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Checking the availability of domain names is one of the most important steps in the domain name investing process. Only by confirming domain availability would you be able to know what’s the next thing to do. If domains are available, you can buy them directly and add those to your domain portfolio.

But if the domains are unavailable, that is not necessarily the end of the road. You can set up domain availability monitoring so you can get alerted when current owners drop the domains.

This was a promoted post.
 
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