How Brand Monitor and Domain Monitor Help Track Famous Brands that Let Their Domains “Go” for Resale

Buying and selling domain names is a tricky affair. Although domain investors only deal with one commodity, the value of one domain name can drastically differ from the value of others. Take, for example, the domain name midtownonlineshop[.]com, which is up for sale for US$11.99 for the first year.

If you remove the word “online” and go for midtownshop[.]com, though, the price goes up to US$9,800 per year. And if you venture further and choose the domain name oshop[.]com, you’d find that it is available for US$100,000 per year.

In short, the right domain names can be worthwhile investments, especially if you manage to get hold of those that some people are willing to buy for five or six figures. What’s more, there are two aspects that seem to apply to domain name investments:

• No central authority dictates prices: Unlike other products such as cars, houses, and other properties whose standard prices are dictated by individual entities or the market in general, domain name pricing entirely depends on buyers and sellers.

• The law of supply and demand is evident: Not surprisingly, despite the lack of authority dictating or influencing domain prices, the business still adheres to the universal law of supply and demand. The more popular a name is the higher its price.

With that in mind, it pays to monitor famous brands so you can swoop in when they let go of domains for whatever reason. Chances are that even competitors are interested in those domains too, which can thus prove lucrative investments that require regular and close monitoring.

But while manual domain brand monitoring is possible through the usual WHOIS searches, it can be time-consuming and too much of a hassle. That is one of the reasons why WhoisXML API, my company, developed Brand Monitor and Domain Monitor, solutions that can automatically monitor the domains owned by famous brands for you.

How Can Brand Monitor and Domain Monitor Help?
With the help of domain research solutions such as Brand Monitor and Domain Monitor, you can stay in the know at all times about domain names of interest and their close variants, allowing you to grab every opportunity to earn. Here are some ways domain brand monitoring can help:

• Up-to-date information on famous brands’ domains: Timing in the domaining market is more critical than ever. A decade ago, domainers relied on their networks for updates regarding which domains are up for sale. Top domainer, Justin Godfrey, for example, was able to get hold of the lucrative domain Ontario[.]com because its owners contacted him when their company got dissolved and he was the first to respond. But what if the company did not contact him? Would he still have been able to grab it? With Brand Monitor and Domain Monitor, any domainer can get the latest alerts on all domains he/she is interested in acquiring.

• Protection from typosquatters: While domaining is primarily a business of buying and selling high-worth domains, other considerations like mitigating domain copycatting risks come into play. Brand Monitor can provide you with a list of domain look-alikes so you can aim to purchase and resell both high-worth domains and their close typo variants which typosquatters may otherwise use to execute phishing attacks.

These are just a couple of ways by which domain brand monitoring solutions like Brand Monitor and Domain Monitor can help domain name investors. If you can think of other reasons, I’d sure like to know.