by Peter Askew

Here’s a free way to get a sneak peak at a domain owner’s portfolio.

[Editor's note: Peter Askew writes Domainer's Gazette. He's a relative newcomer to the domain industry but has found success. I'm a fan of his blog and writing style, so when he recently approached me about occasionally writing for Domain Name Wire I jumped at the opportunity. Below is his first article; I hope you like it. -Andrew]

“Man, you throw a nickel around like a manhole cover.”

That comment was tossed onto my brother a few years back, and it’s now bled into me.

Cheap. Penny pinching. Sanford and Son. Call me what you will. But if there’s anything I like to keep my finger on, business-wise, it’s expenses.

And lately, that couldn’t be more true.

Down economy or not, though, I’m still buying names. Some through the drop, some by hand, but a majority have been direct – with end users who happen to own small portfolios.

Portfolio research can be tricky, though.

To perform proper research on a registrant’s portfolio, and uncover names inside a users account, DomainTools offers a powerful tool through Registrant Search. But remember, I’m cheap. And Registrant Search can be expensive (if a lot of names are uncovered). What’s needed is a baby step before a full report purchase. A free taster so to speak.

So, I racked my brain a few weeks back, to create an alternative. One that might provide a glimpse into a registrant’s account, all for free.

And I think I uncovered one…

Introducing ‘The Poor Man’s Registrant Lookup’. Take a peek inside any domain portfolio, poke around, research, etc. – all for free. No, and let me repeat, No, it won’t reveal an entire stash, but simply provides a neat slice snapshot of currently owned assets, and serves as an appetizer prior to a full report purchase.

How does it work? Well, mainly by leveraging Google. See, DomainTools allows Google to index its whois records. Meaning, if you visit mother Google, perform a “site:” command, along with a registrant’s name (or business name), Google will pump back a snapshot of all the pages within DomainTools matching that query.

Here’s an example – we’ll use good ole Frank as an example (forgive me Frank).

First, I grab the Registrant Name from any Whois search tool. For Frank, I search RumCakes.com. The name listed on the account is ‘Name Administration Inc.’.

Next, I jump to Google, and perform this search:

site:whois.domaintools.com “Name Administration Inc.”

That search, in essence, is asking Google, ‘search this domain, and pull up all results within your index with this quoted name.’

And bingo, Google jumps back and provides a snapshot. In this case, we’re looking at roughly 2,600 results including HealthClaim.com, PlumbingSupplier.com, and ShippingSoftware.com.

Neat stuff (in my opinion).

And fyi, if you encounter Google’s notification : “In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 68 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.”

Simply click the hyperlink ‘repeat the search with the omitted results included’, and the rest of the names will appear (sometimes with even more results than originally indicated).

Happy domaining!

Tags: domaintools, registrant search, reverse whois