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An alternative for researching domain names is to apply for TLD zone file access. "Trying to find a one word domain name," is unlikely to be an acceptable reas

An alternative for researching domain names is to apply for TLD zone file access. "Trying to find a one word domain name," is unlikely to be an acceptable reason for access, though. I applied (and received access on my second attempt) about a decade ago for .com access. Among other things, I ran a check for any words in my spellcheck dictionary that were not already taken as .com domains. There is a reason for all the silly spellings in domain names today; I don't recall the first words that were available, but they were not short nor desirable for a domain name. There were also no 3 alphanumeric ascii character domain names left, at the time. I applied through Verisign. But, they are currently directing folks to apply via ICAN directly. https://www.verisign.com/en_US/channel-resources/domain-registry-products/zone-file/index.xhtml https://www.verisign.com/en_US/channel-resources/domain-regi... https://czds.icann.org/home https://czds.icann.org/home

donmcronald 5y ago
Does it include WHOIS info? If so I bet it's impossible to get access. Can you tell me if the info has registration dates? I have a use case where I'd love to do some bulk analysis related to domain squatting, but I've never been able to find a decent way I can make bulk queries against all the services I'd want to check.
- sillystuff 5y ago
  It is just a zone file, for the TLD, like Bind would use. No other information.
nikkwong 5y ago
That’s interesting. What type of reasons are typically accepted for getting access? I’m assuming if you are attempting to commercialize a domain website or project they may give you access?
- sillystuff 5y ago
  I do not know what their criteria for acceptance are. My first, rejected, request discussed looking into distribution of available domains. My second, accepted, request was more carefully worded to indicate it was for general research. The purpose of my request was for a personal research project to satisfy curiosity. My initial motivation was that there were things that seemed to be true about the distribution of available .com domains, and I wanted to see what the reality was. And, using NS queries would not scale. I looked for the shortest English dictionary words available, percentage of various length domain names still available (alpha only and alphanumeric; with single numeral, two numeral digits, etc.), for non-words I looked at the distance from the closest English dictionary word, collected the patterns of common permutations of dictionary words into domain names, I monitored change rate, etc. I've never "used" the information learned except to be able to speak with a little more authority in a single conversation where the subject matter came up. But, it was interesting to me :)
phgn 5y ago
Note that DNS zone files don't include all registered domains, only ones that have DNS records. Depending on domain extension, a significant number of desirable short words are registered but not in the zone file, or held by the registry for a higher price. Also, you can't get complete zone files for ccTLDs. This is part of the reason why domain search is often slow even on popular sites like GoDaddy or Namecheap. They want to give you very accurate results, which takes longer. Source: I'm fighting this accuracy problem all the time for the search at https://domain.garden https://domain.garden
zamadatix 5y ago
> no 3 alphanumeric ascii character domain names left, at the time. I went looking for a personal domain probably about 7 years back and wanted something short... it was disheartening to see the percentage of short domains that were just being squatted, and blatantly so. One guy even made his living off of brokering 1 letter domains. Eventually I found my first+last initials on a 2 letter tld that somehow hadn't been completely bought up (1 letter domains were long gone though) and have used that ever since with email reminders and calendar reminders everywhere so I never forget to renew!

donmcronald 5y ago

Does it include WHOIS info? If so I bet it's impossible to get access. Can you tell me if the info has registration dates? I have a use case where I'd love to do some bulk analysis related to domain squatting, but I've never been able to find a decent way I can make bulk queries against all the services I'd want to check.

sillystuff 5y ago
It is just a zone file, for the TLD, like Bind would use. No other information.

nikkwong 5y ago

That’s interesting. What type of reasons are typically accepted for getting access? I’m assuming if you are attempting to commercialize a domain website or project they may give you access?

sillystuff 5y ago
I do not know what their criteria for acceptance are. My first, rejected, request discussed looking into distribution of available domains. My second, accepted, request was more carefully worded to indicate it was for general research. The purpose of my request was for a personal research project to satisfy curiosity. My initial motivation was that there were things that seemed to be true about the distribution of available .com domains, and I wanted to see what the reality was. And, using NS queries would not scale. I looked for the shortest English dictionary words available, percentage of various length domain names still available (alpha only and alphanumeric; with single numeral, two numeral digits, etc.), for non-words I looked at the distance from the closest English dictionary word, collected the patterns of common permutations of dictionary words into domain names, I monitored change rate, etc. I've never "used" the information learned except to be able to speak with a little more authority in a single conversation where the subject matter came up. But, it was interesting to me :)

phgn 5y ago

Note that DNS zone files don't include all registered domains, only ones that have DNS records. Depending on domain extension, a significant number of desirable short words are registered but not in the zone file, or held by the registry for a higher price. Also, you can't get complete zone files for ccTLDs. This is part of the reason why domain search is often slow even on popular sites like GoDaddy or Namecheap. They want to give you very accurate results, which takes longer. Source: I'm fighting this accuracy problem all the time for the search at https://domain.garden https://domain.garden

zamadatix 5y ago

> no 3 alphanumeric ascii character domain names left, at the time. I went looking for a personal domain probably about 7 years back and wanted something short... it was disheartening to see the percentage of short domains that were just being squatted, and blatantly so. One guy even made his living off of brokering 1 letter domains. Eventually I found my first+last initials on a 2 letter tld that somehow hadn't been completely bought up (1 letter domains were long gone though) and have used that ever since with email reminders and calendar reminders everywhere so I never forget to renew!