Here's what I'd like to do with expirealert.com...

[manlymatt83]

I decided what I'd like to do with expirealert.com:

I'd like to start a service, where people can come to the site, create accounts, and add domains to be monitored. They can set up certain alerts, such as:

- If the domain expires
- If the domain is about to expire
- If the domain name expire date is changed (extended)
- If the domain name is registered (if at the time it isn't registered)
- If the domain name is put up for sale (some kind of spider that checks the content of a site daily).

I'd like to make atleast $5/day off this site (not much as you can see). If I can do this with just google, then I might not charge for a service like this. Otherwise, I was thinking of allowing free personal accounts, but charge for commercial use .... or to just allow 10 free credits to any account (so that ten domains can be monitored), but then a person has to purchase credits to monitor more names. What does everyone think? If I charged for the service, it would be cheap. 10 cents/credit or something ridiculous. Like I said, I'm looking to make $5/day off this site.

Any ideas/input would be appreciated.

Regards,

Matt

 

[manlymatt83]

So you guys are saying that, since i can't query the whois servers directly, this idea should be sent to /dev/null ?

 

[armstrong]

If you approach the major registrars directly, perhaps you can arrange for an authorized lookup facility. If they ignore you, you can try whois.sc's xml service ( http://www.whois-source.com/info/xml-partners/ ) until you get big enough to try talking to the registrars again.

For the small registrars, you might get away with querying them directly, as you won't have enough domains to trigger their warnings.

 

[primacomputer]

Webmasters would want to monitor their own domains for unauthorized whois changes, which of course can happen anytime. If expirealert doesn't do at least a daily query, then such changes won't get reported in time.

To do this you may need to query both internic and the registrar. Odds are someone would transfer the name and I'm not sure it disappears from one database and appears in another. There may be an overlap. However unlike drops, which are time critical, you could simply run this 24 hours a day in the back ground, or in off hours when you aren't monitoring the drops.

Or maybe I could just offer the free service, and then unlimited paid service (which gives you every single feature imaginable) for $4.99/month, and offer some discount codes on the web (for instance, all over namepros forums, etc.) which give you free months, $1 off, etc.... and if you refer a friend AND they sign up for the paid service you'll gett a month free, etc. That way there are no credits, its just a flat fee ...

That's the model I would use.

hmm ....

TERMS OF USE: You are not authorized to access or query our Whois
database through the use of electronic processes that are high-volume and
automated except as reasonably necessary to register domain names or
modify existing registrations.

Does that mean that i can't query the whois database for this service legally?

Basically that's what it means. Of course you can get away with it to some degree, but they have the right to shut you off if it gets out of hand. That's why it's important to optimize your use of whois instead of just raping it.

 

[manlymatt83]

I appreciate your help. Here's where my two plans are leacing me:

Option 1) I could choose to use the flat fee. You either have the paid service, or you dont Much easier with accounting, I wont need to run a credit deduction script... it'll be as simple as a boolean flag on the account, paid service or not paid The service will cost $4.99 per month, via paypal.

OR

2) I offer the free service, or the credit based service at 25 cents per credit, minimum purchase of 10 credits because otherwise with the minimum service fee of 30 cents I'd lose money via paypal. This way, lets say you want to use the free service for 10 of your domains, but you want to use the paid service for one domain thats very important to you ... you only have to pay 25 cents/month for that domain only....or maybe 1 credit per service, so if you just want basic alerts it would be 1 credit/month, telephone alerts would be 3 credits/month, daily reports is another credit, etc....

I'm just tied and stuck on this whole credit based system.



2) I already contacted godaddy. GoDaddy seemed to have no problem with me querying their whois servers, although I have been instructed to email their President Office department so I can get something in writing...maybe the other registrars wont mind?


I gotta go work on someone else's site now Let me know if any ideas pop into anyone's head.


-Matt