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information 9 Free Services I Use Daily for Domaining

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Domain name investors process a large amount of data and information every day to find relevant pricing, potential new investments and to seek out money making opportunities. Like many of you, I use a number of free services daily to find what I'm looking for. Below, I'd like to show you the free services that I use, and why I use them.

If you have your own suggestions for free daily services, please post a comment below.


LinkedIn
To conduct outbound domain sales, you'll need to have contacts. I've found that one of the best places to find contacts within any company is LinkedIn. The business social network has over 430mm users, with 128mm in the USA, meaning that any targeted end-user is likely to be on LinkedIn.

The majority of vital company contacts can be found in some shape or form on LinkedIn, which is why it's often my first port of call when conducting outbound sales. LinkedIn is completely free to everyone, but there are a few premium upgrades that may be of use, depending on how much you plan on using the service.

For the majority of domainers, the free version will be enough, and will allow you to make vital industry contacts. It'll also mean that you may be able to conduct outbound domain sales far more efficiently, thanks to LinkedIn's search functions.


Gmail
My email system is based at Gmail, like over 900mm other people on Earth. I find it to be the best free solution for email, plus it has the added benefit of supporting plugins. Plugins, which can be installed on Google's Chrome browser, can enhance your inbox to add extra features to suit your own needs.

I use two Gmail plugins; Sidekick and Streak. Sidekick is an excellent email tracking solution, and Streak gives you a Customer Research Management platform in your inbox. Both have free options for limited use, but even the free versions will improve your inbox, and in particular, your domain sales skills.

I have covered both Sidekick and Streak in previous articles on NamePros, so I won't go into detail about them here. Suffice to say that the two plugins are two of the most important services I use.


ExpiredDomains.net
This is a service that I can't believe is free. ExpiredDomains.net is a comprehensive list of pre-release, pending delete domains and auctions from a number of different auction houses such as GoDaddy, NameJet and SnapNames.

By setting up filters at ExpiredDomains.net, you're able to quickly search through thousands of domain names that you could buy in the coming days. Whatever your budget, ExpiredDomains.net can help you discover domains to buy to either hold or resell. There are similar services available, but there are very few that can match the power of ExpiredDomains.net


NameBio
One of the largest databases of domain name sales available is open to you at NameBio.com. Every morning, I take a look at NameBio to see prices of auctions that have closed the day before, and I also look in more detail at domain sales in categories that I have an interest in - such as 6N .COMs.

There are other domain sales databases available, such as DNPric.es, but I prefer to stick to NameBio. Chaomi is a website that I only read once a week, if that. I think the data there can be manipulated fairly easily by a small amount of investors.


Instant Messaging
Skype and WeChat are my two instant messengers of choice. I stay in contact with investors and brokers all over the world with these two free services. On Skype, I have connections with most brokers, and some large investors that I check in with periodically.

WeChat is primarily to talk with contacts from China, but it's also used as a tool to access some international domaining groups. Communicating via WeChat is fairly simple, no matter whether there's a language barrier or not; the built in translation tools mean you can hold a conversation in any language.


Twitter
Twitter has become one of my go-to sources for reading domain related news. People such as Jamie Zoch and George Kirikos do an incredible job of publishing domain related news. Many of the two-letter .COM sales reports and SEC findings come from George and Jamie.

All major domain related blogs and companies (including NamePros) have a presence on Twitter, so it's worth following a few of them if you're fairly active on the social network.


NamePros
Unsurprisingly, NamePros is one of my 10 domain related services. The largest domain community offers a lot of content and the chance to interact with other investors. There's also the active marketplace that gives members the chance to buy and sell domains without commission.


Domaining.com
Although Twitter is one of my personal favourite platforms for following domain related news, you still can't beat Domaining.com. The news aggregator has been offering its news feed and regular newsletter to investors for many years.

It's still one of the most valuable resources in the domain industry, thanks to its free-to-view collection of blog and news feeds.


Who.is
Up until recently, I was an ardent DomainTools user. However, since their account pricing changes, I've opted to use Who.is for the majority of my domain WHOIS lookups, which usually stretch into the hundreds per day.

I usually check WHOIS details for a number of reasons such as outbound sales, portfolio management and potential investment opportunities.

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Which services could you not do without on a daily basis? Share them below.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
MailTrack to see who reads my emails.

Connect by clearbit which allows me to find the email addresses for people in companies(super good for outbound)
 
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MailTrack to see who reads my emails.

Connect by clearbit which allows me to find the email addresses for people in companies(super good for outbound)
I guess thats similar to streak
 
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Also another possibility for a free service that I use every day (taking my list to a nice, round 10) would be MailTester.com.

If you're looking to contact an end user, and you're trying to guess their email address, this tool's pretty good for verifying an address.
 
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Just added streak! Seems awesome for organization
 
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James,
Thanks for the article. It seems that I used all those services. I recently found Streak which is great to organize my outbound emails. I do have a question about using Linkedin.com.

Can you explain how you would normally find the end users contact information?
 
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I used to use Who.is since 2008 but recently they are having issue providing corect whois information. Mostly outdated even after manual update.

I am now using Whois.com
 
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Thanks James.
I'm now using sidekick for outlook mail tracking but they have updated their plans. Basic plan would be at $50/user/month. I can't offer $50. Can anyone please suggest best mail tracking plugin for outlook.
 
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I do like the namebio daily reports
 
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This is very informative, I have started using nearly all platform mentioned, but still learning the art of sending email to get a real endures.
This info not only gives you tips and tricks but also boost the motivation as well. Thank you very much @James Iles
 
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Thanks for the post.
My Twitter Id @DNScholar
 
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Used to like who.is much but it got really inaccurate about a year ago so nowadays I use gwhois.org. Very fast and reliable for all tlds.
 
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Really informative post @James. Thanks.. :)
 
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Thanks James.
I'm now using sidekick for outlook mail tracking but they have updated their plans. Basic plan would be at $50/user/month. I can't offer $50. Can anyone please suggest best mail tracking plugin for outlook.
MailTrack
 
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Under Linux just use terminal-command: whois example.tld
Instead of 3rd-party websites... and where caching is enabled also...
 
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And for mailings (incl. tracking) you may try mailjet.com
 
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Heres another one - bloomberg.com/research allows you to see if the company is private or public. Also, gives you the names of board members, and top execs
 
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Under Linux just use terminal-command: whois example.tld
Instead of 3rd-party websites... and where caching is enabled also...

Yeah, I also use linux terminal. The fastest way to get whois info :)
 
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How come no one mentioned Whoisology.com? Which allows you to view domains owned by someone whom you wish to contact. I use this to gauge the possibility interest in a domain name I wish to sell and I know if the person is a domainer or non-domainer in order to avoid the former lol
 
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If you register names in various TLDs, transfer/renew, you shall find Registra.rs handy.
 
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