Previously, I talked about Zone File Access, DAC Connections, then started a Quadrology of Articles; Part 1: What You Need To Build A Drop List, Part 2: Building A Drop List, Part 3: Maintaining A Drop List and Part 4: Accessing Drop Lists.
Now I am going to cover the easiest, cheapest and least painful (on the pocket) method of obtaining drop lists. I’m not going to discus if the lists are cherry picked or filtered or anything else, since its futile. All I’m going to say is, depending on how the list were built covers how complete it is, which accounts for missing names. I’ll cover how older lists were made briefly later on.
Generally beyond a week will cost anywhere from £10-50 per month depending on the metrics (data points provided) and how far into the future the lists go. £10-15 per month will get 7-30 days, £15-25 will get you 30-60 days, £40+ per month will get you 60+ days. I’m not aware of anyone who is offering unrestricted access to complete zone files, most people who have this have built their own.
I am aware of 1 or 2 people who offer a PRSS style look up, where you give them a keyword and they return X many records which match. Prices are usually £2-3 per query, using my guide you could build your own system even without Dac Access.
Free Drop Lists
This is by far the easiest option, but also the most limiting option. It really depends what you require from the drop lists.
The main limitation with free drop lists is the date range, I believe the longest publicly accessible range is 10 days, but I haven’t seen it with my own eyes. Most I have seen are 7 days, some are 7 Days + Today. Domain Lore and Caught are the first 2 in this group which comes to mind.
Domain Lore use the old PRSS Generated Zone file from 2006-ish, which were around 2 million names out of a current 11 million. The upside is, it contains the early names which are arguably the better names. It’s also shorter at around 700 per day.
It doesn’t include .UK at all, extremely limited .org.uk and .me.uk, the former will become more critical as we draw closer to 2019. Domain Lore includes some metrics, and has some sort functions.
Caught, I’m not sure where their data comes from, but likely built up over the years. Again I’ll cover the method I suspect here in the building part later on. Neither of the above have paid options or offer a complete drop lists at last I checked.
DomainView, which currently uses the Nominet zone file, and previously used the .com zonefile and word lists. They offer pretty complete metrics. Rob the developer is always open to suggestions for new metrics to add. They even go as far as showing you what has been booked with their public catching service within the scope of your membership.
They offer 2 days (Today/Tomorrow) of drop lists, but no metrics at all for free. The lists are often in excess of 4000-5000 names, and include .uk, co.uk, org.uk, me.uk and net.uk, I haven’t noticed any plc/ltd/sch.uk domains. The list is updated with hourly sweeps to remove dropped domains so it shortens through the day. More than 2 days are available for a price, but thats the next section.
ExpiredDomains.net offers some basic metrics and but its limited.
Paid Drop Lists
There are various paid services, the main 2 I’m aware of DomainView and Dropped.UK, I’m sure there are more than that, but that’s all I’m aware of. There were a few others such as DCE but they closed down.
DomainView (60 days, Zonefiles, Parking, Backorder Credits, Upto £15) offers a variety of subscription options beyond the 2 free days. These are 7, 14, 30 and 60 days ranging from £5-15 which include various other things. These extras include zonefile downloads (not .uk), backorder credits, parking system access and more.
The Current Metrics are…
Main Domain Back Ordered, .UK BackOrdered, Domain Name, Length of Doamin, Register Year, Domain Keywords, Google Searches, Google Cost Per Click (CPC), Alexa Links, Alexa Rank, Google Page Rank, Registered in Other Extensions, Taken in .com, Taken in .net, Taken in .org, Taken in .us, Taken in .info, Taken in .biz, Taken in .mobi, Taken in .xxx, Majestic Backlinks, Majestic Referring Domains, Majestic .EDU Backlinks, Majestic Referring EDU Domains, Majestic .GOV Backlinks, Majestic GOV Referers, Majestic Trust Flow, Majestic Citation Flow, Moz Domain Authority, Moz Page Authority, Moz Backlinks, Moz Rank, Times in Archive.org, First Archive.org Date, IPS Tag, Scheduled Drop Date.
Some of the more interesting features is, they show you what domains have been booked by their backorder system and you can also catch under multiple names.
Dropped (61 Days, Backorder Credits, upto £20), I’m not 100% sure what metrics Dropped.UK offer, beyond a few basics. They are a more expensive option than domain view.
I should really use the free trial to see what metrics they offer just for the sake of this post but really they should show what you get rather than harvesting contact data.
Dropped do have a few nice catches to their tag, but it seems they book certain names for themselves, which I’m not keen on. They are not the only catching company which does this, and this isn’t really within the remit of this article.
I’m sure there are other droplist services but I think I have covered the main free lists and paid lists, and some good options there.
If you know of any others do use the comments and I’ll update this post, same for any corrections or new information.
A Manchester Based Photographer and Website Developer with interests in Strongman, Fitness and Geekery.