It is common to use drop catch services to try to acquire expiring names you are sure that you want. But what if you have a less certain interest in a domain name – Is there an easy, and free, way to be notified when a domain name is close to expiration, has gone into an auction, is at closeout, has been listed for sale, or is available to register?
The answer is yes, and if you have an account at @Dynadot it is easy to set up, and totally free. I have used Dynadot as a registrar for years, but only stumbled on their domain monitoring a year or so ago. I bet I am not the only one to be slow to use domain monitoring, so the purpose of this article is a short guide to both how to use it, and why you might want to.
Setting Up Domain Monitoring
Here are the steps to setting up monitoring at Dynadot:
Once you have an operational Watchlist the entries look like the following, with the meaning of columns pretty obvious. The domain name is on the left column, but I cut that off so that names I am monitoring are not publicly displayed.
Portion of a Dynadot Domain Monitoring Watchlist, with the domain column on the left not shown.
Here are a few notes:
You can add your own notes to any domain name you are monitoring. This might be helpful occasionally, but is not something I use personally.
Under Settings you can turn on to have Dynadot automatically place a backorder when names in your Watchlist are about to drop. I don’t personally have this turned on, since I may not still be interested in the name by the time it becomes available.
The system does not exclude actions you take yourself, so I always find it a little humorous when it tells me a name is available to register, then I register it at Dynadot, and a few hours later it tells me that someone registered the name (yes, it was me!). If I list it for sale at Dynadot it will shortly after tell me someone listed it on the Dynadot Marketplace and it is available to buy. I only monitor several dozen names. If you have a huge list, the notifications probably would get overwhelming.
The judicious use of bold is something I really like. I can quickly scroll through the list of names and see opportunities present.
How Might You Use Domain Name Monitoring?
So it is free and easy to set up, but when might you want to use domain monitoring? Here are the ways I use it, and I hope readers will expand the list in the comment section below.
In the Domain Monitoring tab, as well as Watchlist described above, there is something else called Tracker. Tracker is a tool to search for available names at various auction, closeout and backorder sites. For example, if you are really into the term ‘agent’ you could set it up to see names in auctions, closeouts, etc. that include that term.
You first set in the Filter the conditions, say that the domain names contain, or end, or start with, a certain keyword, be in one of a selection of different extensions, etc. You also specify the sources, which can include any or all of the following:
After you set the filters, there is a delay of typically hours before the results will be updated. When you do have results, they will look like the following.
Portion of a Dynadot Domain Monitoring Tracker, with the domain names blocked out.
On the top right is an icon for downloading the list to process in a spreadsheet. The Valuation is according to the Dynadot appraisal. Under action, you can select like, attack or not interested, and it then places the name in a list according to that, for example the names you like.
The icon to the right of source, for example GoDaddy Auction, is a link directly to the listing.
You can order the list in various ways, such as Time Left.
I have only begun to use Tracker, so can’t offer a detailed comparison with other tools available for tracking names on different platforms. One nice thing about Tracker is that it will continuously update as names that meet your filter conditions appear on the scanned sites.
Final Thoughts
I have personally found the Domain Monitoring Watchlist helpful, and have secured several names from my watchlist. That said, each time we have a new way to search for available names, it makes it easier to acquire domain names that we should have left. Dennis Tinerino of DomainSmoke nicely reminded us of this in an X posts the day I am publishing this.
I urge readers to share ways they use domain monitoring, and tell us about other tools monitor domain names.
Updates:
June 16, 2025: Added mention of NamePros Blog article that covered Domain360. Thanks for mentioning that product in the comments, @NameGroove .
The answer is yes, and if you have an account at @Dynadot it is easy to set up, and totally free. I have used Dynadot as a registrar for years, but only stumbled on their domain monitoring a year or so ago. I bet I am not the only one to be slow to use domain monitoring, so the purpose of this article is a short guide to both how to use it, and why you might want to.
Setting Up Domain Monitoring
Here are the steps to setting up monitoring at Dynadot:
- Sign into your Dynadot account.
- In the left hand column, Domain Monitoring is about two-thirds of the way down, between Aftermarket and Tools.
- Open the Domain Monitoring tab and then select Watchlist.
- If you have monitoring set up, it will show your list of monitored names. If you are just starting out, select Add Domains at the top right.
- Enter the domain names in
Example.comformat, with different domain names separated by a comma or on separate lines. Click the Add to Watchlist button.
Once you have an operational Watchlist the entries look like the following, with the meaning of columns pretty obvious. The domain name is on the left column, but I cut that off so that names I am monitoring are not publicly displayed.
Portion of a Dynadot Domain Monitoring Watchlist, with the domain column on the left not shown.
Here are a few notes:
- The system uses bold to display items where some action is possible, for example domain names not registered, in closeout, or in auction.
- When a name is in an active auction, it shows the number of days and hours to close, and the current bid.
- Note that TLD count is available as a column, so no need to go check it on dotDB.
- The In Drop will show names about to expire, so by monitoring this you can request one or more services to try to catch the domain name. Depending on your settings, you can get an email notifying you of this as well.
- It will show names listed for sale on Dynadot Marketplace, but not on other marketplaces. So the Watchlist is not a comprehensive means to see where a name is listed for sale.
You can add your own notes to any domain name you are monitoring. This might be helpful occasionally, but is not something I use personally.
Under Settings you can turn on to have Dynadot automatically place a backorder when names in your Watchlist are about to drop. I don’t personally have this turned on, since I may not still be interested in the name by the time it becomes available.
The system does not exclude actions you take yourself, so I always find it a little humorous when it tells me a name is available to register, then I register it at Dynadot, and a few hours later it tells me that someone registered the name (yes, it was me!). If I list it for sale at Dynadot it will shortly after tell me someone listed it on the Dynadot Marketplace and it is available to buy. I only monitor several dozen names. If you have a huge list, the notifications probably would get overwhelming.
The judicious use of bold is something I really like. I can quickly scroll through the list of names and see opportunities present.
Tip: while there is a button to add names available to register to your cart, always check as the monitoring list does not tell you if the name is registry premium. I was excited when a name I was monitoring became available to register, but then discovered it had a significant registry premium fee.
How Might You Use Domain Name Monitoring?
So it is free and easy to set up, but when might you want to use domain monitoring? Here are the ways I use it, and I hope readers will expand the list in the comment section below.
- I monitor names that are similar to names that I already have, either for possible acquisition, or simply to know their status. For example, if I have the plural, I might monitor the singular form.
- When I get an idea for a name, but discover it is registered, I may monitor it to see if it will later drop or go into an expiring auction. I find it a handy way to keep a list of names I would find worthwhile, and every now and then they may become available. Of course, names you really want you might want to seek in a private acquisition.
- I think it is important to monitor the status of competitor names. You might want to follow the identical term in a different extension, or synonyms for the term you hold in the same extension.
- For new extensions, and a few generalized country codes, with a much higher renewal fee than first year registration cost, I sometimes monitor domain names I am dropping, so I will be notified when they will again be available at a discounted registration fee. The probability case for a name may be positive at the reduced first year rate of say $6, but not at the full renewal rate of $50 per year.
- Whenever I consider a new extension name, one of the checks that I perform is to see if for the name
Example.extensionthe corresponding .comExampleExtension.comis available, or vice versa. I have used Dynadot Monitoring to keep track of status of the other half of these pairs of related domains. - As a special case of that, in artificial intelligence we are seeing both use of domains of structure Example.ai and ExampleAI.com, or sometimes AIExample.com. If you have one of these, you can use domain monitoring to follow the other, and get it if it goes into auction or closeout, or drops. Of course a separate question is if it is a good idea to hold both forms.
- If you see that a name you sold has not been put into active use, perhaps because business situations change, you can place it on your Watchlist, just in case it drops and you want to acquire it again.
In the Domain Monitoring tab, as well as Watchlist described above, there is something else called Tracker. Tracker is a tool to search for available names at various auction, closeout and backorder sites. For example, if you are really into the term ‘agent’ you could set it up to see names in auctions, closeouts, etc. that include that term.
You first set in the Filter the conditions, say that the domain names contain, or end, or start with, a certain keyword, be in one of a selection of different extensions, etc. You also specify the sources, which can include any or all of the following:
- DropCatch PreRelease
- Dynadot Auction
- Dynadot Backorder
- Dynadot Closeout
- GoDaddy Auction
- GoDaddy Closeout
- NameJet Auction
- Sav Auction
After you set the filters, there is a delay of typically hours before the results will be updated. When you do have results, they will look like the following.
Portion of a Dynadot Domain Monitoring Tracker, with the domain names blocked out.
On the top right is an icon for downloading the list to process in a spreadsheet. The Valuation is according to the Dynadot appraisal. Under action, you can select like, attack or not interested, and it then places the name in a list according to that, for example the names you like.
The icon to the right of source, for example GoDaddy Auction, is a link directly to the listing.
You can order the list in various ways, such as Time Left.
I have only begun to use Tracker, so can’t offer a detailed comparison with other tools available for tracking names on different platforms. One nice thing about Tracker is that it will continuously update as names that meet your filter conditions appear on the scanned sites.
Final Thoughts
I have personally found the Domain Monitoring Watchlist helpful, and have secured several names from my watchlist. That said, each time we have a new way to search for available names, it makes it easier to acquire domain names that we should have left. Dennis Tinerino of DomainSmoke nicely reminded us of this in an X posts the day I am publishing this.
There are other options for finding names at auctions and closeouts. In the recent NamePros Blog article Introduction to Finding Domain Names on Auction Sites, I covered Domain360 which is excellent for this purpose.
I urge readers to share ways they use domain monitoring, and tell us about other tools monitor domain names.
Updates:
June 16, 2025: Added mention of NamePros Blog article that covered Domain360. Thanks for mentioning that product in the comments, @NameGroove .
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