From my inbox, Jason asks:
Do you mind if I ask what some of your favorite domain tools are? I always struggle to find a decent domain for my side projects. Here are a few that I use:
http://www.bustaname.com/
http://pickydomains.com/
http://instantdomainsearch.com/
Appreciate any tips you care to share.
I mainly focus on expiring domains these days, while keeping tabs on current events for other opportunities.
For the expired, I have a couple of my own scripts at work that:
- Download the daily drop list from pool.com.
- Parse the drop list to remove all names > 20 characters and remove all domains that have numbers or dashes in them.
- I remove all but .com/.net/.org.
- I then filter the resulting list by a list of xxx keywords.
- With the keyword results, I then manually go through the list looking for domains of interest and adding those to my ‘watchlist.’
Then a few times throughout the day, I just run my watchlist through Moniker.com’s bulk search. When they are available, I then make my decision to register them on the spot, move them to a list for further research, a list of maybes (determined by my budget) or dump them from my watchlist. My research list and maybe list were the source of my recent post 60 Domains You Can Register Today. Stay tuned, it may become a monthly feature.
I think it sounds more complicated than it really is, but I only spend about 10 minutes/day on it. Eventually I’d like to further automate my system, but until I make the leap to full-time domainer, I can deal with the minimal time commitment.
For the expired names, I usually don’t chase them with the backorder tools unless I see a very strong reason for it, maybe 1-2 a month, tops. Using my watchlist and waiting out the automated tasters, roughly 80% of the names I add to my watchlist will eventually be available.
I also keep tabs on the domain name forums for domains for sale (digitalpoint forums, dnforum, namepro, etc.) but the noise level is usually too high to be an effective source of names.
For names for new projects, I usually ping a few people to brainstorm about 10 names each (whether registered or not) and go from there. I also know the guy the wrote the recommendation engine for [a popular registrar] and he gave me access to beefier version that he runs privately.
I’ve used Pickydomains a couple of times, both with success for the price I paid.
For the domainers out there, a new service for buy/sell/trading domain names, 
