22 Domain Research Tools for Investors 

The best domain name investors always research their investments. Whether it’s to look up a specific domain name’s

• Approximate value
• Availability
• Traffic history
• Sale and auction listings
• DNS information
• Updates on changes to its status

Or to browse good domain names to purchase or backorder, these domain research tools will help set you up for domaining success. 

What is Domain Name Investing? 

Buying domains with the intention to profit from them is called domain investing, domain name investing, or domaining. The strategy most commonly associated with domain investment is known as domain flipping. This is the act of buying domains and selling them at a profit when the value goes up. Domain investing can also include cash parking, which is the act of putting ads up on a parked page to make a passive income from the clicks. 

Domain Investment Value Factors

There may not be an exact formula for domain name pricing, but there are factors that determine their value. These include, but are not limited to:

Length

Because they’re easy to type and remember, shorter domain names are almost always more valuable than longer ones. Three letter domain names are in particularly high demand among domain investors. 

Top Level Domain

The industry term for domain name extensions like .COM, .NET, or .ORG is top level domain, or TLD for short. The name of the website is called a standard level domain, shortened to SLD. 

Some TLDs are in higher demand than others. For example .COM domains are typically more in demand than other TLDs, which makes them more valuable. 

Age

Older domains are typically more valuable than new domains, especially if that history includes website traffic. If a domain has been around a long time, it’s likely that it’s useful. One exception to this rule is domains related to future events that are likely to trend. 

Traffic History

 Previous traffic is a good indicator for potential traffic in the future. That’s why domains with a history of attracting traffic are more valuable than domains without any traffic history. You can use any SEO research tool to see a domain’s traffic history, number and quality of backlinks, and other similar information. 

Brandability

There is more demand for domain names that are:

• Common words and abbreviations
• Easy to spell and pronounce
• Keywords relevant to an industry, geographic area, or event

Keyword research will tell you if the word(s) in a domain correspond with successful search terms. 

WHOIS Lookup

The WHOIS record is the source of truth for domain names. When you perform a WHOIS search on a domain, you can find: 

• The registry and current registrar
• The expiration date
• The owner’s contact information
• Details about the domain’s status

You can perform one on your computer’s terminal, but if you’re not used to interpreting data this way, a web-based WHOIS lookup is important to have in your domainer tool belt. 

Who.is

A user-friendly WHOIS lookup tool. Here's what the WHOIS information for sav.com looks like on there. 

Whoisology

A regular and reverse WHOIS lookup tool. This means you can look up the information by entering a domain, email address, or keyword. Here's the same lookup on Whoisology. 

DomainTools Historical WHOIS

A typical WHOIS tool only shows the current ownership of the domain in question. With a historical WHOIS lookup, you can also see the previous versions and when they changed. Here's sav.com's WHOIS history:

Domain History and Search Tools

These tools will help you learn more about a domain’s history, traffic, and more. 

DomainTools Reverse IP Lookup

Enter an IP address to see all of the domains currently hosted there. Here's a reverse IP lookup of one of their example IP addresses. 

DomainTools Reverse NS Lookup

Enter any nameservers and see all of the domains currently pointed there. Here's the lookup for Sav: 

URL Trends

Instantly retrieve traffic statistics and competitive data for any URL. 

The Wayback Machine

See the history of over 669 billion web pages. Here's their graph of how many times sav.com has been saved:

Domai.nr

Check domain availability in real time and get related suggestions fast. Here are their suggestions for "dog":

Domain Name Generators

Domain and business name generators are great for finding domains to invest in if you don't have anything in particular in mind. 

Company Name Generator

Find the perfect name for your company and click on it to see if the matching domain is available. You can enter a keyword or generate ideas at random. 

Dotomator

If you’re looking for a business name that doesn’t have a meaning on its own, this is the name generator for you. Click the button to randomly generate a company name and check availability for the corresponding domain. 

Bust A Name

Enter multiple words and the tool will combine them into available domains. 

Search by Keyword

Similarly, if you have a topic in mind but not any specific domains, these tools let you search available domains by keyword and get suggestions. 

DomainsBot

A popular domain name search engine and suggestion tool. 

Namestation

Use their domain name generator to pick your perfect domain name. If you need inspiration from other users, you can hold a name contest and choose a winner from their submissions. 

LeanDomainSearch

A user-friendly way to search available domains by keyword.

Nameboy

This popular name generator includes domain names, business names, blog names, and more! 

Randomainer

Generate available domains by keyword. 

Domain Name Soup

Domain Name Soup is a free domain name generator tool to help you find available domain names, watch taken domains, monitor and sort your own domains and ensure you don't let your domains expire.

Domainling

Search for available domains by keyword and find suggestions with prefixes, suffixes, typos, and synonyms. 

Domain Name Forums and Blogs

Got questions about domains that these tools can’t answer? Hit up any of these sites to get insight from the pros. 

NamePros

The most popular domain investing forum. 

DomainGang

A source of news and humor related to domain investing. 

Domaining.com

A one stop shop for domain investors. You can get news, tool recommendations, links to relevant databases, and more. 

Domain Name Wire

A blog that covers topics related to domain name industry news, wordpress, and webhosting. 

DomainSherpa

Articles and videos by domainers for anyone interested in learning more about investing in domains. 

How Sav Can Help

No matter which domain research tools you use, a solid, affordable registrar is the best place to start. That’s why Sav offers features like: 

• Wide domain name selection
• Industry low prices
• 4% commission rate
• Free SSL and WHOIS privacy
• DNS powered by CloudFlare 
• Partnership with the Sedo and Afternic networks

Register today to make your domain investments go further!