strategy Making A List… And Updating It Often

The most successful domain investors have a system. That system may include many elements, but one of the most important is a method for acquiring quality names that businesses will want. As is said, “you make money on the buy.”

But there are so many names to search. As I write this, the list of deleted .com names this month is more than 2.4 million according to ExpiredDomains.net, and the pending delete list stands at 2.6 million names.

To make the task of finding worthwhile names easier, many investors use keyword lists. They search pending delete, expiring domain auctions, closeouts, wholesale listings, or recently deleted names for names that include terms from the list.

For obvious reasons, most investors keep their precise lists private. Even if someone is willing to share their list, it would not be optimum for you.

As @djasmine asked on Aug, 29 2022:

I discovered that almost all domainers use keyword lists to search for and select domains that sell very well ... what is the best way to build such a list?

Click to expand...

This article is one answer to that question.

What Sectors and Niches Are For You?

Unless you are aiming for a huge and diversified portfolio, you will want to concentrate on certain sectors and niches. Those sectors will influence your keyword list. Before you start to make your keyword list, decide on the sectors and niches that are right for you.


Some investors like to use broader sectors, such as fintech or fashion, while others prefer much narrower sectors, such as electric vehicle charging stations.

It is generally best to invest in what you know. Select sectors where your education, interests or work experience give you a level of familiarity and expertise.

The NamePros Blog article Domain Name Superpowers may be useful background as you consider competitive advantages you bring to domain investing, and how that relates to sectors and niches that are right for you.

Consider Market Trends

Sedo Domain Market Trends each month gives the most-searched terms from the Sedo marketplace, along with the corresponding approximate Google search volumes. For example, Sept 2022 the top terms include NFT, bet, .com, crypto, shop, hotel, pay, yoga, meta, and .io. While many of the terms were predictable, I was somewhat surprised to see yoga and hotel so popular. It is interesting that quite a few people search with extensions, in addition to terms, rather than using the check boxes to limit the extensions.

Resources such as Sedo Domain Market Trends may influence what sectors you consider, since it makes sense to prioritize sectors many buyers are searching. Keep in mind, however, that other investors also have this information too, and those sectors are highly saturated in names listed for sale.


Industry Terms

Now that you have decided on your sectors and niches, the next step is to determine terms popular in those sectors. For example, agency is a popular term for marketing or naming firms, while tech or labs would be more suited to scitech companies.

You can generate terms through browsing lists of prominent and emerging companies in the sector. For example, this list of venture capital firms, indicates that terms like capital, investment, partners, associates, ventures, fund, group, etc. are frequently used in that sector.

Descriptive Terms

Many domain names are either two words or some sort of merging of two words. The art of domain names is to find great combinations of terms that work together. Your next task is to come up with a list of descriptive and qualifying terms that fit with the sector.

It is much harder to come up with this list. One approach is to look at a curated set of names for sale in that sector, and see terms that appear more than once. For example, I selected security from the Industry Domains section of SquadHelp. Strong terms in this sector included shield, safe, alert, strong, defence, bold, guard, inteli, secure, sentry, protection, guard, lock, pro and many others.

The dividing line is not always clear between sector terms and relevant descriptive terms for that sector, so don’t get held up on which list to put a term into, as long as you include it in one or the other.

Popular and Trending Terms

So far we have concentrated on terms within a certain sector, but it is also important to consider popular and trending terms – but make sure that the ones you select are appropriate to your sectors.

Recently dotDB added top keyword listings. You can get the top 500 keywords free, but need to be on one of their paid plans to get the top 30,000 and 100,000 terms. Ignore any popular terms that are clear trademarks, and go through the list to find additional terms appropriate to your sectors.

Add Some Power Words

The article Data Analytics from SquadHelp for Brandable Domain Names can help you expand your list. For example, the first section includes the most popular power words from the SquadHelp marketplace, based on sell-through rate, at least for the period covered and that marketplace. Only include words that are a potential fit for your sectors, however.

Estibot Domain Trends

Estibot Domain Trends, is a monthly indication of the most registered terms, along with the domain count and a graph showing registrations in that term over a 90 day period. While what is being registered is not necessarily an indication of what end users are buying, there is probably some correlation.


The Estibot Domain Trends information can be valuable in two ways. First, it might influence the sectors you choose. For example, as I write this, shop, news, home, life and design are all in the top ten terms. Secondly, it can suggest additional terms that are appropriate to your existing sectors.

Put The List Together

While I find it handy to build the list in segments, sector terms, descriptive terms, trending terms and so on, I think it makes sense to make one overall list for each sector, with all of the terms together.

Using The List

You can use the list when searching lists of expiring domains in auction, names that are about to drop, or recently expired names.


If you hand register some names, you can also use terms from your search list as starting points in LeanDomainSearch or similar name generators. Even if you don’t hand register, seeing combinations suggested by the LeanDomainSearch tool may help you add to your terms list.

Keep Up To Date

The key to a good list is to be alert to changing trends and opportunities. Popular power terms change rather quickly, as do which sectors are hot. On NamePros and social media are some lists from quite a number of years ago. These can be mined for ideas, but ask yourself whether the term is still as relevant today.

Your list should be constantly changing, with new terms added, and others deleted, as branding trends and hot sectors change.

Start Somewhere

I have personally not been very structured in building and using lists of terms, but plan to correct that in the coming months. Good lists can help you be more productive and to find better names.

I imagine some of you are saying: I invest in so many sectors. These ideas might be good, but I simply don’t have the time to create lists of terms.

This would be my answer to that:

1. Start small. Perhaps take a single sector or niche, and try to come up with a list just for that to try out the approach.
2. Pick a niche that you plan to expand holdings. Take some, perhaps really narrow, niche that you have decided to add some domains in, since you don’t need to make lists for sectors that are already well represented in your portfolio.
3. The perfect list never gets written. In lots of things in professional and personal life if we wait for perfection, a task never gets done. Don’t be held up on getting every great term into your list, just try to put together a list with some of the strong terms. You can add to the list as you use it.
4. Be on the lookout for great terms to add. Whether from recent domain sales, discussions on NamePros, tech news, or some other way, be alert for names that should be added to your list.
5. Critically review the list. At least annually, look through the list, and any terms you no longer feel so sure about, do some research on recent sales, startup names, etc. to see if they still have relevance.
6. The lists will not tell you what names to acquire. Rather, keyword lists will help you find names that you might consider acquiring. The art of domain name investing is to pick which of those are truly quality names that have decent probability of sale at a strong price.

Personally I have started with just two niches. Browsing the brandable marketplaces has already suggested terms for my list that I had overlooked.

I welcome comments and suggestions, particularly from those who have been using domain name term lists for some time.


Thanks to @djasmine for posing the question, and to all those who suggested resources, both in that and in other NamePros threads, related to keyword terms lists.