Learn from those who are successful! Makes darn good sense to me and I'm sure makes sense to you. Well, here is a tip on spying on the big boys to see what they are doing.
Lets take a large domain name company like BuyDomains/Afternic aka NameMedia. I'm sure they have a lot of smart people working for them. Me, well, it's just me! I'm also sure they have a lot of data I do not have, which greatly helps them decide on pricing, what names to purchase, what to price these names at and much more.
Well, using the free service from DomainTools, DailyChanges.com type in the DNS buydomains.com (this is the DNS they always use when they purchase a new domain name) in the upper right hand corner and click Search. Displayed are domain names that are on the move. New Domains are likely "newly registered" domains. What can we learn from looking at these?
Mainly all .com domains
Mainly two word domains, but some 3 word domains
Phrases, commonly heard terms
Those are what they are buying and these are all real world examples. Granted, NM is using its own domain name registrars to grab these domain names during the daily drop… but many of these can be grabbed but you and I using economy type methods (GoDaddy, BackorderZone.com) because NM can't catch them all.
Aftermarket. Transferred In tab is holding a fair amount of domain names that NM likely purchased in auction domains from SnapNames, NameJet, GoDaddy etc. These prices are often public with a little searching on the free service NameBio.com , so you should be able to see what they paid for them.
What are they selling it for? Do a search on BuyDomains.com or Afternic.com (best to wait a couple days after they purchase) and you will likely see the prices!
Look at some "stats" for the domain, Google the term: what do you see.
What does the "landing page" of the domain look like? (when somebody visits the domain)
These are all little helpful tips to take a little bit of time and see what they are doing. Again, they are not perfect and buy some off the wall type domain names, but they do sell a lot of domain names every week and a lot of them are ones they own!
DailyChanges.com is an extremely great tool for snooping around. Don't be set in ways that prevents you from looking outside of the box. The above tip can work for a lot of different companies and the way you wish to spy on them. DomainTools.com is clearly another tool you can use to snoop and discover. Knowing the common DNS that specific domainers use, can open your eyes to a lot of interesting and new things. Give it a try!
