Verisign Tool Can Help Identify an Inquiry
Verisign has a tool called DomainView which can be used to see what types of .com and .net domain names are being registered. You can use the tool to search daily registrations as well as registrations for a set period of time of your choosing. In addition to the novelty of seeing domain registration trends, the tool can also be used to help identify an inbound inquiry.
Oftentimes, people who are interested in buying a domain name in the aftermarket will hand register other, similar domain names that are unregistered. They do this because they want to protect the brand they are planning to create. If you are able to see other domain names they recently registered, you may gain valuable intelligence that can help you respond to their inquiry. This is especially the case if you don’t know the identity of who is inquiring (ie a Sedo inquiry or broker inquiry).
Let’s say someone inquires about Lilac.com, a domain name my company has owned for quite some time. I can search the DomainView tool to see all the .com registrations that have lilac in them. If I see other lilac registrations that are tied to the person who inquired (or even if not), I may be able to learn who is behind the inquiry and why. If I saw that domain names like LilacVC.com, LilacVentureCapital.com, LilacCapital.com…etc. were hand registered, I am able to learn that a company might want to buy Lilac.com for their venture capital firm. I presume a VC company might be willing to pay more than a flower nursery or something along those lines.
A few months ago, someone inquired about one of my domain names. They offered $500, which was far less than I paid, so I passed. They balked at my 5 figure price and told me they hand registered something else. I was able to spot the domain name they hand registered because it had my keyword domain name within it and was registered in the name of the person who inquired. I can now follow along with his company’s progress. Should it look like they are picking up steam, I might email him back and see if he wants to upgrade his domain name.
The DomainView tool is neat for trend following and trend spotting, but it can also provide good intelligence to help with a negotiation. Tomorrow, I will share another usage of the DomainView tool that I thought about while writing this article!
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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 sold seven figures worth of domain names in the last five years. 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 | Google + | Facebook | Email
Jamie Zoch
ZfBot.com is another excellent option to mention that has a bit broader range than DomainView.
Dayne
Thanks Elliot, Jamie!
DNSal.es
They used to have a tool called VERISIGN DomainScore. Any idea what has happened to it?
Jamie Zoch
I spoke to Verisign and they said they merged several things they had into DomainView.. but that doesn’t mean it’s in place.
One thing to make clear and I have addressed this with Versisign.
The “Registered Domains” does NOT mean the domain names displayed are related to being registered “Today”. It always comes across that way IMO, but they are simply registered domain names that relate to the keywords.
Verisign did offer domain registrations at near real time and displayed “registered domains” like that, but not any more for some reason. I have been working with them to get that feature back! They said it’s a UI problem I guess.
Duane
The Verisign DomainScore tool (providing NXD names) along with DomainCountdown (for Pending Delete names) and Domain Finder (name suggestions) were all combined into a single new tool, DomainScope.com. Significant enhancements to all of these capabilities have been made over the last couple of years which are certainly worth checking out. I am a Product Manager at Verisign, hence the obligatory promotional pitch.
Branimir
Thank you for this great post! I will definitely try out that service, sounds very useful!
Nick
I tested the site and chose the timeline for the last 3 months. However the results still show domains registered 5 years ago. Any idea why?
Duane
Nick, this could be because the domain name was renewed in the 3 month period that you had selected. Renewals are treated the same as first time registrations by this system.
Douglas
The domain name search tool is great for finding names sometimes, but be aware that the names available are generally showing trends in type in search. I have seen some funny ones come up that make no sense at all.