In addition to a variety of domain news sources, there are a number of domain tools that I use daily when buying and selling domain names, and I wanted to share some of them with you. If you use other tools, I would be interested to know what you use, and what they do for you. Below are my favorites – although this list will probably grow as I think of other tools I use:
Whois Lookup (Whois.sc) – I think everyone has a favorite Whois look-up, and I use Whois.sc/domain.com in order to see who owns what. On my Blackberry, I prefer iWhois.com because it loads faster for me.
Domain History Tool (Domain Tools) – This is imperative when buying an older domain name in order to make sure everything looks legit. The last thing you want to do is buy a stolen domain name, so this tool can help you see if something looks fishy.
Website History Check (Archive.org) – This allows you to see various websites that previously existed on a domain name.
Keyword Popularity (Google Adwords) – See how many searches are done monthly and on average via Google to see how people are searching and the exact terms they use. This tool is also great for development to see what long tail keywords people are looking to find.
Domain Sales Data (DNSalePrice.com) – Although recorded domain sales don’t always mean that similar domain names will sell for the same prices, it’s a good sanity check. DNJournal’s sales data is also great, but this tool has many more sales, as DNJ records the biggest sales.
Bulk Domain Search (Moniker) – Easy to use and register – and I don’t have to go through 10 pages of upsell junk that I don’t need.
Escrow (Escrow.com) – If I am 100% certain about the domain name’s provenance and not concerned about the seller, I like to use Escrow.com. It’s simple to set up, I don’t have to wait to sign forms and fax paperwork, they’re very quick, and they clearly know a thing or two about great domain names. Escrow.com is also trusted by non-domainers, making transactions even easier.
Reverse IP (Domain Tools) I secretly love using this tool when buying domain names. Frequently, people have multiple domain names on one IP address, and if I can see several great domain names owned by one company, I can make a larger bulk offer.
What other tools am I missing?
