Domaining MBA Monday: Why DomainTools Is Such A Critical Tool For Domainers

In Lord of the Rings there is one ring to rule them all and honestly, after using it every single day for years now I can confidently say that Domain Tools really is one tool to rule them all. While Domain Tools is famous for their WHOIS tool and deep WHOIS history there are many other features under the hood that I find many people don’t even know about. So I’ve had a few new Domainers recently ask me, “Is Domain Tools worth the cost?” My answer is always a resounding “Yes!” and then I go into the details of what I like about it.

Now, I’ve had the question so many times I thought that I should put it all together into a blog post. That way, the next person that emails me and says, “Is it worth the price?” I can say – “Yes!” and send them a link to this post. Okay, now onto the good stuff!

First things first. Domain Tools is the best WHOIS tool on the planet, period. With a massive amount of historical data you can easily take a walk back through time with any domain you can think of. This comes in handy when you’re trying to figure out who owned a particular domain before the current owner. Data like this can even help you track down how much the original buyer paid, which I don’t need to tell you is pretty incredibly information to have in your back pocket during a negotiation.

Another feature that I use all the time is seeing how many other domains someone owns. If I’m trying to buy a domain from someone who owns 2,000 domains I’ll take a different approach than with someone who owns 2 domains. Once again, having this information at your fingertips is incredibly valuable.

Okay, now let’s go deeper. What really makes Domain Tools shine is that it’s like a Swiss Army Knife of tools all packaged together and even though most people only think of WHOIS information, they offer a whole lot more.

Brand Monitor

The Monitoring Tools are some of my favorite because you can set them up once and then completely automate what was once a manual process. Let’s say you want to know if anyone registers a domain with your brand name in it? Yes, Brand Monitor can keep track of that for you. Want to deep track of a domain that you’ve had your eye on, automate that with the Domain Monitor. Add on Registrant Alert and Name Server Alert and you can put just about monitoring that you’ve been doing yourself (or paying someone to do for you) and put it on autopilot.

DomainTools Research

What about Domain Research? First I’ll tell you that researching a domain doesn’t stop at finding out who owns it, you can go much further than that. Using tools like the WHOIS History and Screenshot History can really help you better understand what was done with the domain in the past. I often use these to make sure that I’m not buying a domain with a checkered past, the last thing you want to do is buy a domain that comes with more problems than income potential.

The Domain Report is the big kahuna and is one of the best ways to get a full picture about a domain and it’s owner. This could be something that you use both as a buyer or a seller, think of it as a Carfax for domains.

So, to summarize in one sentence – Domain Tools gives you a lot more than WHOIS information, they provide a full suite of tools that are absolutely critical whether you are negotiating to buy or sell a domain. Is it worth the money? Yes! All it takes is one deal a year where your research pays off and the tool more than pays for itself.

Oh, and last but not least, this is not a sponsored post. Domain Tools actually has no idea I am writing this but after getting the question over and over again from new Domainers I thought it was time to put this all together in one post. Now back to your regularly scheduled Monday!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton