Show HN: Browse recently expired, pronounceable domain names (Part II)
decentdrops.comHa. So here it goes I guess, I’ve been working on this pretty consistently for too long now (backend mainly).
Inspiration for the project was based off one I made over half a decade ago. And I gratefully got recognized on HN for it! I saw (my) username that posted it, tried a few of my go-to password ’s, and boom, I still got it :)
Here was the thread for a trip down memory lane https://web.archive.org/web/20160322215116/https://news.ycom...
And the new one is called DecentDrops.com - Would have totally used DomainInferno again but looks like some squatter had it, hey that’s what I get for neglecting I guess. Still not sure why.. Updated daily. Sorry I’m bad about rambling and don’t want to do a (bigger) wall of text but if you’ve got questions shoot em!
That thread still works! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9025800.
I didn't see any differences with the archive.org page. It would be interesting if there were some.
As recently expired names, you should be aware that they may suffer an array of detriments.
Notably:
"Pinned" security properties like recursive HSTS may apply until they expire. Even if you have only ever operated http://clown-photos.example.com/ and never https://clown-photos.example.com/ the previous owner of example.com could have set policy saying all names are HTTPS-only.
Certificates issued in the Web PKI as much as three years ago for names in these domains may still exist and be valid. In principle some of them might even not be in CT logs. As new owner you are entitled to have those certificates revoked, but to do that you first need to know they exist.
Adverse user permissions decisions apply indefinitely. If the previous owner spewed notifications, or had unsolicited video content the resulting adverse decisions by users survive the change of ownership. (The other side of this applies too, if you buy a popular cat video sharing site, you're going to inherit lots of "allow autoplay" type permissions) but that's something you'd probably explicitly plan for rather than being a surprise.
White and black lists maintained by third parties may impact you. Whether that's a DNS blacklist that means some PiHoles block your whole site because the previous owner was an advertising network, or a spam blacklist that ensures your newsletter is never seen by its subscribers, that could be a real problem. Some list maintainers are very responsive, others not so much.
Speaking of lists, the domain could be on the PSL. Again you can ask to be removed (or indeed added if your planned use would mean the domain should be on the PSL and isn't). But if you don't realise the domain is PSL listed, you'll be astonished that it's impossible to get a Let's Encrypt certificate for *.example.com, or that cookies and frames and other origin-restricted stuff doesn't work as you expect.
> Speaking of lists, the domain could be on the PSL.
Public Suffix List for those like me who might not have all the latest TLAs memorized.
You know, someone needs to make an Iron Chef styled reality TV show where teams of web developers are each handed a random recently-expired domain name and challenged to make a viable service that fits that domain.
You joke, but I know people who hunt to acquire domain names first, and then come up with business ideas based on them. Putting it bluntly, I feel that this is an astoundingly misguided way to operate business ventures, and, so far, the market seems to agree.
Sounds like this article. https://www.deepsouthventures.com/i-sell-onions-on-the-inter...
Which seems to be successful.
Sounds like it could be an entertaining hobby though
Well shitlab.com seems to be available, so let’s see what I can do with it! Maybe rectal pathology?
> business ideas based on them.
Were any of those converted into an actual business?
I believe VidaliaOnions.com was born from buying the domain first.
@searchbound on twitter is the owner. It's his thing to acquire a premium domain first then develop it.
> I believe VidaliaOnions.com was born from buying the domain first.
I had come across the Vidalia onions post on HN but missed that bit. Thanks.
nitpy.com could be a new Python linter.
I have an idea for superhempy.com.
edit: Oh no! It could mean they have caught superhempy.
That would be a fun concept for a hackathon!
If anyone's wondering why the results started looking a tad more strange (and higher rate of unavailable domains on the list), it's because todays list was just processed over the course of the past. ~20min. Have some jobs spread out a little to be nice to the server and inconsistencies.
For the next who knows maybe hour or so, from this minute actually, you'll probably notice a few more than average domains one the list are already taken. Don't worry i've got my best robot people on it
This is neat. After browsing for several pages, I'm yet to find something that is a decent name.
In a similar space, I really like https://park.io
Surprising. I just purchased couple that I found there. My rule for a domain is that needs to be easy to pronounce, preferably it's not a real word, doesn't have many Google results for the name, doesn't contain w/v, i/y and h.
So for instance snuno doesn't mean anything, 5 letters, easy to pronounce in all language, people don't get confused when you pronounce it. The name eventually becomes associated with whatever you put in.
After I saw Mt.Gox taking off, I realized, that the name is challenge only initially. People will figure it out once they think there is value.
> I'm yet to find something that is a decent name
If you agree "naming is hard", then most names are by definition pretty bad... At best, this list is random, and at worst it's the set of terrible names people gave up on and allowed to expire
I've spent an embarrassing amount of time looking at domain names over the years. This is going to cost future me hours. Thanks for sharing!
R.I.P. cryingbitches.com, gone before I even knew her
Oh now that's decent!! Which one of you picked it up. I'll pay top dollar!
Hello, very cool site. Nicely done. I have a few questions for you about some domains I've had for a long time. Please contact me via email at my username on gmail if you have a moment. Thanks!
Perfect for a personal homepage
I remember seeing a hacker talk about picking these domains up and setting up an MX record to collect emails meant for the past registrar. .. Including 2FA and passwords resets if I recall correctly..
Thanks for this, found a diamond in the rough.
Good on you for restricting people from sending "4" or less for the character count; I'd probably hide that too and use that for my own needs in your position, though it only raises the barrier from opportunistic searchers to people with a mild amount of curl/grep knowledge.
I don't own a single one nore have tried but I understand many would. Honestly I did that 100% because they're simply always taken by bots on the spot. It'd be a waste of space on the site/cluttering the feeds. Our process is muchhhh slower around the clock as we check all domains and delete any no longer avail, again to keep the lists tidy, it'd only get everyone's hopes up just to have them let down. I can guarantee it
If I did want a 4 letter domain, how would I get one? Is the best way to pony up a few grand for one? I plugged a few into a domain-name service and some were available for as little as $3k...
5 letters, however, $8.99!
Check out Dropcatch.com, Namejet and GoDaddy Auctions. You can get a decent 4L com for under $1000 if you're patient. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but generally speaking you're going to get a much, much better name by spending $100-1000 at auction then by handregging. There are bots and people trawling through pending delete lists catching anything good before it becomes available.
Domain resellers are trouble but I wonder how lucrative actually domain reselling is considering lots of people are doing it.
Thanks for the service! I found a decent 4-letter that I can use as a pseudonym for political blogging now ;) Grade A!
a) Really awesomely cool!
b) Kinda sad to read all those names and think that someone once thought, 'hey, this could be my baby.' Sure, I imagine a bunch of them were just hoovered up by domain squatters, but at least a few of them are failed sites, right? … right?
Certainly a bit sad. I cannot read those domains without imagining what the story behind them was.
Justinandsam.com is just heartbreaking.
Why is it heartbreaking? Think positive. Probably just a domain used for a wedding registry and RSVPs leading up to the event and then no longer needed after the big day.
Yeah, I saw a few decades-old small businesses in there, likely casualties of COVID-19.
Yeah a lot of them are very clearly failed projects and businesses and it’s fascinating reading through them.
w.r.t. b), it looks like you can figure out which were legitimate sites using the "Insight" column!
Hmm what business could be built around havecheesewilltravel.com?
Grassroots artisan cheese distribution?
I like it! :)
Really impressive, and de-motivating for me! :) I was working on something similar as a side project. The only information that was not easy to get, because it was not delivered with every DNS request, is the "expiration date". How did you manage to get it? Or even more interestingly: Are you willing to give some insights, how you realised it?
Anyone have recommendations for a nice and easy, "no BS" site for selling a domain? Or even some "we'll (try to) sell it for you and take a commission" type of place?
I've got one domain that I think I could actually sell for a decent price, but I just really don't wanna deal with it...
Sedo is by far the easiest. Just list your domains and it's painless. I've sold well over $100k worth of domains via Sedo over the years with zero hiccups, despite their somewhat clunky website - can't say the same about other marketplaces.
If you don’t mind me asking, what are some of the top domains that you have sold on Sedo?
Combinations of (something)cloud.com did well, by companies wanting to start their own cloud services for their industry. Not branded / trademark terms, just normal words combined with cloud dot com. I'm sure that trend is winding down but there's always a next big thing.
Dan.com is amazing. Can’t recommend it enough. Quick signup, modern interface, and a nice looking sale page that handles everything, including analytics. You can offer buy it now, auction, or installments or a combination of those.
check out dnjournal.com it tracks big domain name sales (the price AND the broker)
After browsing the list for a bit, I really wish I had a use for haterade.org
Nice site! Just from a UX perspective, I’d advise against a modal dialog within a second of landing on the page. Consider a dismissible header for the introduction instead.
I have sem.fyi available and several other nice 2-3 letter .fyi domains at https://rad.fyi
ButtholeDragon.com
Useful service, congrats on the launch. Do 4 character domains basically never drop or why is the minimum length 5?
If four letter .com names drop, they're re-registered instantly.
There are thousands of four character .com names available though, and outside .com thousands of four letter domains, for example:
kfmw.net cwix.net wprd.net npyp.net vpol.net vrlx.net olfs.net ldti.net ufcc.net dgol.net [...] rbkd.org ytcu.org ohtf.org cjmn.org wgnn.org mjrb.org mafk.org cklw.org wegl.org ctnb.org
And available three characters are commonplace too, for example:
g0f.net j1c.net y1g.net x2z.net j2y.net o8x.net 2tq.net k8c.net 2g9.net c8p.net [...] 6o4.org k13.org 19f.org 2rd.org 2fo.org 3yu.org hh7.org ag4.org p-1.org 7de.org
There's at least one 4-character domain in the results (easier to find when you set max to 4), `xuci.org`. So they do drop.
If you squint your...ears it almost sounds like "sushi.org". Not bad.
Is it possible to add a column with the Page Rank or Domain Authority of the particular domain?
You know I briefly looked in to it because I'm not dumb I understand it'd make this unstoppable, but there's very few options with very high prices. You never know with what the future holds but yeah, not cheap. Definitely doable though.
The good thing about 'our' filtering is that it would take down the number of daily requests to their API, but still...a. lot. I wouldn't say it's out of the question even remotely, I have the funds but am cautious with my finances/investments. But you're right and I should definitely give it some serious though..
That strikes me as a good option for a future "professional" tier of the website.
You could just pull number of google results as a proxy. You have the link to the google search now, being able to sort or filter by that would weed out a lot of junk.
Would also be nice to sort/filter by Wayback hits.
PR matters less these days but if you're going that route then maybe also pull Alexa, Ahrefs and Moz and the like (I've got a complete list somewhere)
This is great, but most of these don't seem that pronounceable to me.
knotso.com seems like a very clever name for a knot-tying instruction site or game. I'm not going to make one though. Anyone keen to?
Awesome.
I just registered (majorsportsapparelmaker)golf.com
And yes, they make golf shoes and apparel.
So that's fun.
You can’t use it for anything and the only value is in hoping they randomly decide to contact you and ask to buy it (you can’t approach them because that is extortion of trademarked property) rather than going through the courts.
You can make a “brand name golf sucks” blog.
Perhaps.