

How many .com domains are available? - brodd
http://blog.nametoolkit.com/

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jimmyjim
I am thoroughly unhappy about good .com domains being squatted. I can't say
how many times a perfectly good domain that I would have liked to start an
internet service on is being squatted with a page of "contact me if interested
in domain" message -- and it's more or less useless trying to contact these
persons, as they'll not reply, or demand absurd amounts for the domain.

~~~
rlpb
I think domains should just be more expensive, with the money going towards
something useful. Would you prefer to pay $200/year for a domain or $20000 to
get it from a squatter and then $5/year to keep it?

The economy is the system we've used to balance supply and demand for
centuries. We should use it to sort the .com mess out.

Companies can afford to pay significantly more for their domains. Personal
users can easily use subdomains at a lower cost if they wish, as DNS intended.

To implement, just ramp up the cost of gTLDs every year.

~~~
masterzora
As someone running a personal .net, I much prefer the $10/yr I'm paying right
now. I might be able to afford $200/yr now that I'm working, but I certainly
would not have been able to keep that up in college. I don't think cutting
students out from being able to have personal domains is at all a good
solution.

~~~
rlpb
You're the exception. You got there first. In a couple of decades, nobody in
your situation will be able to get any name that makes sense. At this point,
people will have to get subdomains anyway.

~~~
ohashi
Actually, the domain market I would say is on the decline as PPC which has
been fueling it for many years is spiraling down the drain. That business
model will erode and become less and less profitable over time. As that
happens, I suspect more domains will cross the margin of profitability and be
dropped back into availability. It won't happen overnight or instantly, and
the best stuff will not become available, but things at the margins will. I
think some registries already manipulate renewal/registration costs to make
sure there isn't a decline.

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breck
How can I get a recent copy of the Verisign .com TLD master zone file?

You need to send a fax to get it from their website so I figure there's got to
be a quicker way([http://www.verisigninc.com/en_US/products-and-
services/domai...](http://www.verisigninc.com/en_US/products-and-
services/domain-name-services/grow-your-domain-name-business/analyze/tld-zone-
access/index.xhtml))

UPDATE: I downloaded the forms. Filled them out. Signed up for a HelloFax
$4.99 account. Created a new fax using HelloFax. Uploaded the 2 documents.
Attached my signature. And sent it. 26 minutes after making my original
comment. Not too hard :). I'll update this when I hear back.

UPDATE 2: You can also pay $24.95 a month and get them here:
<http://www.premiumdrops.com/zones.html>

~~~
yahelc
If you're not contractually prohibited from sharing it, it'd be great if you
could share it here.

~~~
breck
Sorry I believe I am contractually prohibited from sharing sadly. Unless
someone can read the fine print and provide me with a different opinion.

~~~
ohashi
I wonder how others are selling it then?

~~~
breck
Different license perhaps? I'm sure Verisign will let you sell it if you pay
them.

------
jeggers5
95,743,705 are currently being used. The amount of available domains is
virtually unlimited due to the fact that you could have 'dsdijhfjkdf.com' as a
domain.

~~~
GMali
And out of those, how many are parked?

~~~
hessenwolf
It is a study we would like to do. The plan is to select a random sample of
domains for each length and query a source, e.g., Alexa, show a confidence
interval by length for domain traffic.

The stats hypothesis would be to test whether length can be used as a
predictor of traffic.

~~~
janesvilleseo
I was taken aback by the 13 character length, I wonder how many of those are
parked, what the average length is for the top 100,1000, 10000 sites according
to Alexa/Google/Etc. I suspect there there is a nice split between the parked
longer names and the shorter actually used as a website names.

~~~
nt_mark
ycombinator - 11 facebook - 8 Wikipedia - 9 googleusercontent.com - 21

Shorter domains definitely make sense, but probably not a good predictor in
itself though they have aesthetic value.

------
ohashi
Finding good domains still available is a more interesting problem than just
saying there are some.

~~~
djcapelis
There are already people in that business... the question the blog entry posed
was how successful they've been in squatting on all the good domains.

~~~
ohashi
There are always new approaches and methods to find them.

------
cappaert
I was interested a while back in finding short (5 or 6 letter) .com domains
still available. Wrote a little script to do a bulk check at Godaddy.

There are a few variables you can alter in my script:

\- pre: any text BEFORE the consonant-vowel-consonant string

\- suf: any text AFTER the string

\- ext: the domain name extension (defaults to .com if left blank)

\- max: the maximum number of domain name results (starting at a random
character)

Since GoDaddy limits the bulk check to 500, the quickest way to do a domain
check is to run the script setting the max at 500, then just copy and paste
the result in the bulk domain lookup.

Couple different examples:

[http://tonycappaert.com/projects/domaingen.php?suf=it&ma...](http://tonycappaert.com/projects/domaingen.php?suf=it&max=500)

[http://tonycappaert.com/projects/domaingen.php?pre=go&su...](http://tonycappaert.com/projects/domaingen.php?pre=go&suf=me&max=500&ext=.net)

Paste the result in the Godaddy bulk check at
<http://www.godaddy.com/domains/searchbulk.aspx>

------
ez77
Is there an official channel to compile registered domains?

~~~
nt_mark
Verisign com zone file, available for free upon request

~~~
breck
Anyone know where you can download this without sending a fax?

~~~
dedward
They want the fax likely because it's legally binding. They also want to
ensure that it's clear they are the authoritative source for those zones - so
no sharing what you download.

If you want it on any regular basis.. send the fax :)

~~~
lukeschlather
E-signatures are legally binding. Likely they want the fax to discourage
anyone who actually wants the list from obtaining it.

------
scarmig
Shortages are a sign of a flawed market.

What needs to be done is something similar to the radio spectrum; require a
regular bidding process on a given domain (or, more likely, the set of domains
that are in-demand).

Squatting becomes a less desirable business when you've got to pay $100/year
for an in-demand domain.

~~~
hessenwolf
I used to work in a spectrum research lab (<http://www.ctvr.ie/>). I didn't
get the impression the auctioning was working all that well.

------
tzury
I was looking for the zone file during last week. Gladly, it is a fax away.

~~~
nt_mark
I believe ICANN is looking to reform zone file access as part of the new gTLD
system it's initiating.

[http://securityskeptic.typepad.com/the-security-
skeptic/2010...](http://securityskeptic.typepad.com/the-security-
skeptic/2010/02/icann-advisory-group-seeks-to-improve-tld-zone-file-
access.html)

------
jacobbijani
Barmkin.com is a pretty great domain name, actually.

------
edwardy20
If only people would stop automatically assuming .com is the only way to go,
we wouldn't have a domain shortage problem.

~~~
highace
Sadly, they hold the most credibility. Everyone's heard of .com, specifically
the casual web users or less tech savvy. I tried .co once, but when I passed a
mention of the domain on to someone else, what did they type in? That's right,
.com.

Locally (.co.uk for me) there's many more available, but that makes it harder
to target a global audience, and also as above, a lot of people tend to try
.com first, potentially introducing them to a competitor.

------
lachenmayer
Shouldn't ICANN's decision to allow the registration of new TLDs more or less
solve this problem?

~~~
bad_user
No, those new TLDs will be more or less worthless.

~~~
troutwine
I haven't kept up on the debate. Why would new TLDs be worthless,
approximately?

~~~
hessenwolf
I don't think they'd be worth any more or less than any given dotcom.
Uniqueness is important (try searching for help on the R programming language
without using 'cran' as a keyword), but links and keywords will I am sure get
you further.

