Tracing Domain Tracks

DotWeekly does a lot of deep digging and discovers a lot of different stuff related to domain names, so I thought I would share a recent tracking. Sometimes it leads to something really interesting, sometimes not so much. Here is a general, but real life example of how some of the domain tracing diggings take place and how its started.

Trigger!

There is always something that triggers me to LOOK into a specific domain. Today, I happened to notice the domain name Rivers.com, which is a nice generic domain name, went from only having a few domain names on its domain name servers to several thousand. This is a trigger to get me looking into who owns the domain, why the large increase in domains being moved on the domain name servers and who owns these domains. Is it a new service? Did the domain sell?

Making Connections

Where did all the domains come from that went on to Rivers.com? One location and that was the domain name servers JCT.com . Not knowing it at the time, but doing a whois search on JCT.com revealed a Dennis Coldwell of Junction Investments Inc. as the owner of the domain and after doing some Googling with his name and the company name, lead me to the movie investment firm, but nothing much else though.

This was a connection but not the final to the connection. JCT.com threw me off but there must be a reason behind the domains moving off JCT and to Rivers. Did Dennis own all these domains and didn’t want them connected to Junction? All the domains moving out have whois privacy so it was hard to tell at this point.

Domains like AWL.net, BabyBathToy.com, 6750.com were some of the domains moved to Rivers.com and I needed to get back onto those and find another connection away from the current known JCT.com owner “Dennis Coldwell”.

Whois

Domain name whois and whois history make or break connections. With whois privacy, it makes it harder but not impossible.

Since the domain name AWL.net was one of the domain movers from JCT.com TO Rivers.com I did a whois search on it. Whois privacy but DomainTools.com:

A: Showed the domain listed for sale via Source 13. That is Afternic, so I went to Afternic and searched for the domain. The domain lister was DMNAgroup and has over 280K domains listed

B: Whois History. This can throw you off because you do not always know when the current owner (whois under privacy) became the owner. MDNH Inc is shown as the last public whois record dating all the way back to 2010. Was it purchased from them, is MDNH Inc DMNAgroup? I know from experience that MDNH Inc is Marchex / Archeo.

Moving onto another known domain mover. BabyBathToy.com . Same whois process above. Domain listed for sale via Afternic, DMNAgroup listed. Whois history… No strong connection

Another known domain, 6750.com . Follow the same process as above but this time whois history makes a much better and stronger connection. A whois record from 1/29/2012 displays:

Administrative Contact:
Domains, Inc., Lease [email protected]
LeaseDomains.com
9654 w. 131st St.
Suite 411
Palos Park, Illinois 60464
United States
+1.7082546429 Fax —

Bingo! The DMNAgroup connection I was looking for and it provided me more information as well. LeaseDomains.com is connected to DNMAgroup.

Further Connecting

Using Google and a series of other searches, I then try and find out who owns LeaseDomains.com . This leads me to another solid connection with the DNMAgroup, so that is solid proof and a solid connection to what was listed on 6750.com .

A DnJournal.com article leads me to a “name”, who owns the LeaseDomains.com domain and the owner of Lease Domains Inc. Anthos Chrysanthou .

Further searching now with a “name” and Anthos linkedin page reveals Emerge Media, which displays some more great domain names and brands under the Emerge Media name.. like Bands.com, Translate.com, Information.com, Directions.com and more.

Findings

This time, not a ton, other than the fact is that LeaseDomains.com / Anthos Chrysanthou sold the domain name JTC.com to Junction Investments Inc. for an undisclosed sum on or about 1/11/2014.  Anthos happened to be using JTC.com in some way and now that the domain has been sold. Rivers.com was the domain picked to house the several thousand domains moved to it (likely sending traffic to Rivers.com).

Clearly I can dig more from this point. What is on the domains, are they leads sites, how are the domains being put to use that were moved to Rivers.com etc. Did we know that Rivers.com was owned by LeaseDomains? (which appears they purchased the domain in May/2013) etc.

One finding, can and often does lead into more, depending on how much you want to dig and find out. Time is the biggest factor and what is the benefit of the findings?

So the next time you see: The domain name JTC.com very likely sold for an undisclosed amount to Junction Investments Inc…… you know what was involved in finding that!