New site claims to generate short domain names that can be pronounced and are available for registration.

A new site says it can help entrepreneurs find short, pronounceable, and unregistered .com domain names that they can brand for their business.

Pronouncey.com, which just launched (and itself was recently hand registered) it pretty simple. You just select the number of characters, hit generate, and then it randomly creates a domain name that it claims is pronounceable.

Does it work? I’ll let you be the judge.

Here are the first three randomly produced domain names it gave me this morning at varying lengths:

5 Characters:
Dwors.com
Ctful.com
Ypari.com

6 Characters:
zouses.com
ychers.com
bosess.com

7 Characters:
eepting.com
nuresse.com
chhings.com

See how to get started with this simple (yet valuable) software program.

I’ve mentioned Watch My Domains Pro multiple times over the years.

It’s a relatively simple software program that makes it easy to manage your domain portfolio. At a glance you can view expiring domains in your portfolio, see which registrars your using for each of your domains, and find out if you have domains parked with defunct parking services.

In this video I’ll show you the basics of using Watch My Domains Pro. I’ll show you how to add domains to a portfolio and then how I use each “view” to monitor my portfolio.

The software costs $49, and sometime recently the company started offering a free 30 day trial.

(As with all of my posts, this is not a sponsored post nor are there affiliate links.)

IP Neighborhood combines a number of valuable tools for domain name investors.

Last month Ron Jackson profiled IP Neighborhood, a new service by Simon
Johnson.

The profile piqued my interest because it described tools on IP Neighborhood that are similar to those of DomainTools. And with IP Neighborhood’s low price point (I just signed up for the $19.95/month plan), it could be a good alternative to DomainTools.

After trying it out for a bit I can confirm two things.

First, IP Neighborhood has some useful tools worth checking out. Second, it’s in no way a replacement for similar tools offered by DomainTools.

Whois History

One of the tools I use most often at DomainTools is whois history.

IP Neighborhood has a whois history tool that purports to give dates when changes were made in whois.

To give it a spin I punched in DNW.com. At first it said there was no record of the domain in the database, but it quickly pulled it up when I searched a second time.

The whois history section shows two changes. First, it shows in 2007 that iDev owned the domain. Then it shows in 2012 that my company owned the domain. But iDev didn’t own the domain until 2008. I bought the domain later in 2008, and that doesn’t show up as a change until 2012.

I ran a few other domains and found similar results with inaccurate dates.

I wouldn’t put much stock in the information you get from IP Neighborhood’s whois history tool.

Reverse whois

Click on a name or email address on a whois record and you can see a reverse whois, i.e. find other names owned by the same person. There’s also a separate search feature for this.

The reverse whois didn’t pull up nearly as many results at DomainTools’ similar service, but it was somewhat useful. DomainTools charges an arm and a leg for reverse whois reports, so if you’re just trying to get a feel for the types of domains someone owns, IP Neighborhood might be a good bet.

Domain Comparison

Want to find domains registered in .net or .org but not in .com? You can search by keyword and see a list. Don’t expect to find any gems, but a bit of sifting and you might discover some domains worth registering.

Auction Intelligence

This tool is pretty nifty. It lets you see who purchased domains at various domain auction services. It shows the whois record the day of the sale, 7 days later, and a month later.

Auction Intelligence might be a useful way to find people that are buying domains with certain keywords. They might be good buyer prospects for some of your similar domains. You might also use it to “decode” who certain buyers at expired domain services are.

There’s also some neat data on which companies are buying the most auction domains.

New Domains

The pitch on the site is that IP Neighborhood monitors “new domain name registrations in .com .net and org, so you can uncover new trends, emerging markets and track competitors.”

I checked a sample of domains and they were all fairly old registrations, so I don’t see the point of this tool.

I think you’d be better off using Lean Domain Search’s trend tool for this.

Valuation

Sales comps can be really valuable. IP Neighborhood pulls in sales data from certain venues, some of which you won’t find on other services (e.g. Australian sales).

This is useful, although I wish it included the name of the venue where the domain sold. It’s helpful to know if a domain was sold in an expired domain auction as opposed to a one-to-one transaction.

I also spot checked a number of domain sales reported by Afternic last week and none of them were in the tool.

In general, I’ve found it best to check multiple sources of data when looking for sales comps. Two good resources are DNSalePrice.com and Namebio.com.

Bottom Line

IP Neighborhood does a good job pulling together lots of types of domain data. I can see how it would be useful to a number of domain investors, especially at such a low price point. There are better alternatives for most of its tools, but the compilation of data in one place is a nice value-add.

Company’s market cap is back up to October levels.

Just as I don’t understand why the DOW has been hitting all time records lately, I also don’t understand this: Verisign is apparently worth the same with or without seven-percent-a-year price hikes on .com.

When Verisign dropped the bomb on October 25 that the Department of Commerce was reviewing its ability to automatically increase prices, the company had a marketcap of about $7 billion.

Verisign signed a contract renewal without the hikes.

Now, six months later, Verisign’s market cap is back up to $7 billion.

Verisign is a stable, cash printing machine. Yet you’d think shaving off hundreds of millions of dollars a year in pure profit would result in a lower valuation.

Company makes formal announcement about operations in Ireland.

Demand Media announced today that it is opening its international headquarters for the company’s domain services business in Dublin, Ireland.

Demand Media is serving as the backend registry provider for its own top level domains (applied for under United TLD Holdco Ltd.) as well as Donuts’. United TLD has applied for 26 top level domains and Donuts has applied for 307. Of course, many of these domains are in contention sets.

In its applications for new TLDs, the company noted that Demand Media Europe Limited, based in Ireland, would be its backend registry provider.

The company has hired David Ryan, formerly a senior director with Electronic Arts, as General Manager for the Dublin operation. It plans to hire 20-40 people within the next year.