Thankful for Helpful Domain Industry Tools

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the US. This week, I have been giving thanks to people, companies, and businesses in the domain name industry that I am grateful for and that I appreciate. Today, I want to thank the companies that operate great domain industry tools that I find helpful as a publisher and as an investor.

The cost of services from the companies below varies (some are expensive and some are free/complementary). All of these services are appreciated and I use many of them regularly:

  • DomainTools
  • DomainIQ
  • Dropping.com
  • Estibot
  • NameBio
  • Whoisology

These tools are super helpful in contacting domain registrants, learning about domain industry sales, performing due diligence, tracking stolen domain names, evaluating domain names that are expiring or coming up for sale, and finding prospective buyers for domain owners.

Without access to these great tools, I would find my job as a publisher and investor much more difficult. Thanks to the companies that operate these great domain industry tools. They make the domain name business better for us all.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

16 COMMENTS

  1. Estibot is a harmful industry abomination re the so-called “appraisals” (don’t know a thing about anything else they do and don’t care to), just as Mann’s new “accurate appraisals” project is a money-grabbing declaration of war on the entire industry at the expense of others.

  2. (P.S. I understand why Elliot uses Estibot which he has said before, however, and his reason makes a little sense for his particular purpose, notwithstanding it being no less an “abomination.”)

    • That would require me to out myself, which I don’t want to do. However, I did allude to something a while ago. For instance, as a real human being with a real human mind and brain, I and plenty of others knew the two domains I sold for over $20k not long ago were worth that and more, but the Estibot abomination quite predictably was saying only $xxx. I sold another one not long before that for $4k and the buyer first brought up the Estibot figure which was much less.

      There is another one I could mention that is a much bigger example I don’t think anyone would hesitate to agree is far beyond ridiculous, but that would require TMI.

      I’m in good company too:

      “Marchex’s Sales Prove It: Estibot Appraisals Are Worthless” (Michael Berkens)

      https://www.thedomains.com/2012/11/02/marchexs-sales-prove-it-estibot-appraisals-are-worthless/

      First comment there by Rick Schwartz (asterisks added because of filter here):

      “Mike,
      As I have stated for years….ALL domain appraisals are worthless. Period.
      They are based on bulls**t which in my opinion makes them for AMUSEMENT ONLY and should be labeled as such.
      I am trying really hard not to use the word SCAM. But it always seems to be the first word that comes to mind whenever I hear somebody say “Domain Appraisal”. The others include “Rookies”, and “Desperate”. I won’t even answer an email that MENTIONS an appraisal. The minute ANYONE touts an appraisal, in the garbage it goes. These services do DAMAGE to domineers. they don’t help them. These are based on NONSENSE with info fed into them by folks with limited knowledge of what makes domain names valuable to begin with.”

      —————————–

      Here’s the bottom line:

      Computers will never have consciousness or a real mind. The best an algorithm can do is an occasional ballpark figure for *some* domains based on available data. They have no ability to assess individual domains as they should be. And as far as human “appraisers” go, they can be even worse, more clueless and biases, and less trustworthy. Mann better hope he doesn’t get sued the day his little project tells someone a domain isn’t worth much when it really is and the domain owner suffers because of it. Zillow may have already been sued for that, as well they should be.

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