I thought about this for a few days, and want to share my top ten domain tools and websites that are beneficial to my business. While this does include a few news websites, I consider them tools because the information provided is used to bolster my business.
These are in alphabetical order.
- DNJournal.com (Weekly sales reports)
- DNSalePrice.com
- DomainBoardroom.com
- Domaining.com (News Feeds)
- DomainTools.com (Whois Lookups, Whois History, Reverse IP, Domain Monitor)
- Escrow.com
- Estibot
- FreshDrop.net
- GoDaddy (Bulk Domain Checker)
- Google (Adwords Keyword Tool)
What are your favorite tools/websites?
Namebio.com is also good for checking past sale price.
Domainnamesoup.com for finding available domains.
Noone mentions Domainwhiz.net! It is SO much fun! If you want ideas for a certain keyword. Enter a keyword, and it spits results that “combine the power of machine learning techniques, large natural language databases, and manually crafted linguistic rules to search the vast space of Semantic Network.”
@ Louise
Never heard of it or used it. I’ve used NameTumbler.com to search for keyword names before.
I think these are everyone’s favorite. Love the Google keyword tool.
nameboy.com will make up names from keywords and show you what is available. Fun and useful.
FreshDrop.net looks great – that’ll probably be the next tool I purchase. Good stuff all around!
Thanks!
Clay
I did this for Thanksgiving and came up with almost the same list. 🙂
http://www.dotsauce.com/2010/11/25/10-free-domain-tools/
@ Mark
As they say, great minds think alike 🙂
Happy new year!
I think Elliotsblog.com should be one the list. A great resource about domaining business news and tips.
Thanks and Happy New Year.
I like expireddomains.net, because you get a good overview of expiring domains and its free 😀
I like DomainWhiz.net too, such a time saver.
@ Justin
Never heard of it.
I haven’t heard of many of these. I like DomainHole because it is sleek. I feel cool when I’m looking for domains there… ; )
@ Domain Hole Ben
Here’s a free tip from me. Change the name. I think the name “Domain Hole” is terrible branding.
@Elliot Silver
Unfortunately I can’t change their name for them! I actually don’t mind the name, it provokes a reaction, good or bad. Maybe a sense or irony perhaps…But the name is what draws you in. And I’ve already be drawn in, so I don’t really care what they call themselves…
@ Ben
I see… so you aren’t affiliated with the company?
No, why do you ask?
@ Ben
Found it strange that someone would dig up an old post like this to post about a website if they had no association with said website.
Ah, I see. I was looking for some tools earlier this week, found a bunch and tried a few out. Then I found another post somewhere else about DomainHole. And It’s the one I like the best so far. Then I found this post and hadn’t heard about some of the ones you listed…so I posted.
I suppose if this were newer domainhole would probably be on the list…
@ Ben
I am pretty confident I wouldn’t use a site called “Domain Hole” unless it offered things that I couldn’t get elsewhere. What unique tools does Domain Hole offer?
Well I’m not sure what you would consider unique. But from what I’ve used they have a pretty much everything you would need in one place. Their expired search is good, they have a bulk checker(more trustworthy than goDaddy), a domain alert system(I’ve seen some tools with this), namspinner, name generator, instant check. Everything is free as well..
I’m just taking this from their site, so I’m sure it would be more beneficial to you to go their yourself. Oh right, I forgot, your not allowed to use sights with provocative names.. 😉
http://domainhole.com
Sounds like a whole bunch of tools I use elsewhere. Why would I want to do this research on a new site I don’t know/trust? I’d rather have a company like Godaddy seeing my searches than another domain person I don’t know who can then use my searches to build his business.
Well, If you consider GoDaddy Trustworthy than go to town. I personally would rather support smaller business who have good products and are continually developing them. What’s the point in always supporting the ‘big guy’ in an industry. Competition is healthy, and good for us in the end.
From what research I have done, domainhole said they don’t store domains you enter in the bulk check…they seem trustworthy to me. They are Canadian too.
@ Ben
I’d rather my private searches get jumbled in the massive amount of other searches that are done on the site than on the much fewer searches where my information can be looked it individually. I support the “big guy” because they spend a lot of money marketing domain names and that helps all of us. Competition may be good, but I like using the tools I mentioned and don’t see a personal need for domain hole.
What research have you done about domainhole? How would you know if what they say and what they do are different? How can you vouch for them? What does being Canadian have to do with anything?
I imagine you’re Canadian?
So GoDaddy spending millions of dollars on SuperBowl Adds and Celebrity Sponsorships is helping you out? I have had some personal domains I was looking for parked on GoDaddy so I choose not to support them.
In terms of what I’ve found for research, I was quoting this:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2594770
Here is there eula:
http://www.domainhole.com/eula/
I only vouch for them because the domains I searched for weren’t bought and sold to the highest bidder.
No, I’m American, it was a joke.
@ Ben
Weird that you seem to be using a Canadian IP (eastlink.ca).
Just because I live in Canada doesn’t mean I’m not an American 😉
@ Ben
I will ask nicely one more time. Do you work for Domain Hole, are you associated with Domain Hole, are you being paid to post comments, have you ever been associated with Domain Hole or anyone from the company?
Quote: “Sounds like a whole bunch of tools I use elsewhere. Why would I want to do this research on a new site I don’t know/trust?”
What ensures you that “elsewhere” or big companies are trustworthy? I don’t think that the publicity or the size of a company bear a relation to their trustability. Specially in Domain biz which is sometimes a really dirty Biz.
So Snapnames (and Mr. Halvarez!) were small one man companies with no history and “trust bonus” from Canada?
I don’t know this DomainHole site.
But i don’t know what happens with my search queries and other data in domainnamesoup, freshdrop, estibot, or any other service (even godaddy) either.
I think if you want to be 100% sure, you have to have your own company/service in domain biz. just my 2 cents
Firstly, I’m still waiting for Ben D. to let me know if he works for Domain Hole. He was very quick to reply to my questions but seems to have skipped out on the important one.
Anyway, since I don’t operate a company with domain tools, I’d rather use a company that has thousands of queries a day than one where the would be significantly fewer and my queries could be analyzed. This is especially true when I don’t know the principals of Domain hole but I do know the people that run most of the other companies.