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Thankful for These Domain Tools

There is not one perfect domain industry tool that does everything I need. In fact, there are quite a few tools I use regularly, often in conjunction with each other. I use many of these tools to better my domain portfolio, and I use some of these tools for blog-related industry research. I am thankful for all of these tools I use nearly every day:

GoDaddy Registry: GoDaddyRegistry.com was Registered in March

One of the tools I use on a regular basis is the Brand Monitor tool at DomainTools. This tool allows people to track domain name registrations (and deletions) using keywords such as brand names. This allows brands to track third parties who are registering domain names with their brands in them, and the tool also allows third parties, such as journalists, to track brand-related domain name registrations.

Yesterday evening, GoDaddy announced it was acquiring Neustar Registry. Once the acquisition is complete, the Neustar team would be called GoDaddy Registry. Had I, or others, been tracking GoDaddy related domain name registrations, we may have been alerted that something was up almost a month ago.

Tip for Using DomainTools’ Domain Search Tool

I use quite a few tools from DomainTools. One of the tools I like best for prospecting is the Domain Search tool. This tool allows me to see all of the domain registrations in a specific keyword, making it easier to target prospective buyers who own domain names with a keyword similar to mine.

To give you an example, I own KitchenConsultant.com. I think other businesses with longer tail domain names might want to upgrade to KitchenConsultant.com. For instance, if someone owned BestKitchenConsultant.com or KitchenConsultantNYC.com, they might want to purchase the domain name my company owns. Searching “kitchenconsultant” will yield all of the registered domain names with that particular search term.

One thing I like to do when using this tool is to alter my keyword a bit to broaden the number of prospects. Instead of searching

Using the DomainTools Brand Monitor Tool

One of the tools at DomainTools I have underutilized over the years is their Brand Monitor tool. This tool allows users to see what domain names are registered in various keywords they select. I recently started using this tool, and I want to share how I am using it.

I selected the keyword for one of my favorite domain names. Each morning, I receive an email from DomainTools that has a list of the newly created domain names that contain the selected keyword. I could also choose to have the deleted domain names sent to me as well, but that isn’t really necessary for my purposes.

The daily Brand Monitor email I receive is helpful for two reasons. First, it shows me the domain names that are registered that contain the keyword I am monitoring. This can help me stay aware of what new brands might be launching that use my keyword who may want to upgrade in the future. Second, I can do a Whois search on the registrations to see what companies are buying domain names with the keyword. This is helpful on names that get many inquiries because I can do more due diligence before replying. If monitoring a long keyword or multiple keyword term, it might produce a good list of

ABC Announces Freeform; Acquires Freeform.com

In an article published on October 6, ABC announced a name change for ABC Family. According to the article, “ABC Family changes its name to Freeform in January 2016! The network’s new name reflects our ongoing priority to super-serve Becomers, fans on that epic adventure of becoming an adult—from first kiss to first kid!

When I read about the rebranding, I visited Freeform.com to see if ABC was using the exact match .com domain name. Yes, Freeform.com currently forwards to ABCFamily.Go.com, the ABC Family website. A current Whois lookup confirms that Freeform.com is registered to ABC, Inc.

Interestingly, ABC.com Inc. was not listed as the

Monitor Your Own Domain Names

With domain theft becoming a major issue these days, it is imperative that we are vigilant with respect to the status of our domain names. Obviously the easiest way is to monitor account alerts from our domain registrars, but if someone is able to access our accounts, I presume they could change the notifications or circumvent the process without us knowing that something was altered. If that happens, domain names could be transferred out or pushed to other accounts without us knowing about it.

One potential solution is to monitor your domain names via third party monitoring service like DomainTools or DomainIQ. Any time a change is detected, the third party service will send an email notification with the change that was made. If you know of other domain monitor services, be sure to let share it in the comment section.

I think the best way to  monitor my domain names  is to set up an alert for either the registrant name (business or personal name) and the email address used for domain name registrations. When the service detects a change for one of those fields, they will send an email  noting  the change. Once the monitor is created, you should receive an email every time something changes on one of your domain names, such as a transfer or change of ownership.

There are four  things to keep in mind with domain monitoring:

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