VeriSign has released VERISIGN® DomainScore™ to the public.
The beta tool allows anyone to enter an unregistered domain name and get an idea of how much traffic the domain gets.
DomainScore uses NXD data — basically visit requests to non existent domain names — to calculate a score ranging from 1-10. The higher the score the higher the traffic to the domain. The score is for the last full week, the last 30 days, and last 60 days.
Based on my experience with similar data for pending delete domains, I think you’ll find the data most relevant for domains that haven’t just expired. This reduces the amount of dead link traffic included in the total and gives a better impression of type-in traffic.
VeriSign already offers this data to registrars, some of which in turn offer it to customers. Dynadot offers the data but with a day turnaround time. Some customers have apparently run millions of domains through Dynadot’s system. However, a number of large registrars have held this data close to their chest for their own use.
The public tool provides data instantly on up to 100 domain names.
VeriSign might need to put a CAPTCHA on it 🙂
DomainersChoice.com says
The score is pretty much useless you have a range list which would tell you score 1 => 0-5 uniques per day , 2 => 6-15 …. but there is no such thing.
Rob Sequin says
Interesting.
You can only submit .com, .tv, and .cc domains.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Rob – the only other I’d expect would be .net
Morgan says
It really would be great to know what the numbers between 1-10 actually mean. I think data is only useful when you can interpret it 🙂
Markus says
Yet another useless tool by VeriSign.
Elliot says
@ Andrew
Used it to buy a few dog walker related domain names to forward to DogWalker.com.. will see how it works out. Thanks for letting me know.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Elliot – Cool, let us know. I registered a few domains using this type of data for pending delete domains. Some got lots of traffic, although much of it was 404 error.
prosper says
google.com has a score of 7.5. Anyone know the range? Is 7.5 the highest score? If not, then there needs to be some guideline sheet showing you the differences in scores because otherwise this tool is useless.
Andrew Allemann says
prosper – google.com shouldn’t be showing up since it’s registered…probably just a bug.
Gnanes says
It didn’t give any data for Mashable.com or Games.com. Google.com has a lower 7.4 score than a expired LLLL.com has a 8.4 score. And bing.com didn’t get any score at all. It still has few bugs they need to fix.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Gnanes – those sites aren’t showing up because they’re registered. The Google one is strange that it shows a score. It’s possible that an existing domain gets some NXD traffic but this should be rare. Either way I don’t think Google.com is supposed to be in there since it’s registered…so just a little bug. It’s a beta.
I’m sure VeriSign is monitoring this thread so feel free to leave all of your constructive feedback so the tool can get better.
My Blue Domains says
I would not call it a worthless tool as Markus states. I’d call it a tool that you could use in conjunction with a lot of other tools to gain an overall picture before making an investment.
I spent 20 minutes using it and found a handful that got a score of seven. The rest of the best of my “finds” were in the four and five range .
Thanks for posting this Andrew. I find it fascinating.
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Josh says
If not looking for old link traffic…Nothing beats common sense.
mike says
Just another scam, I mean tool to get sheep, I mean, people to register worthless domains.
I plugged in some names that I let drop months ago that got ZERO traffic and they come back with scores of 6.4, 5.2 etc. Don’t take the bait. How can they put a tool like this out without some kind of key. Since it is hard to get anything over 7.9, my guess is that anything under 8 gets almost no traffic and anything over 8 probably gets a little traffic.
DomainersChoice.com says
Versign has a better tool for registrars, where you get more info and not only the score.
Michaela says
I’m from Verisign, and I wanted to thank you for the great feedback on this new experimental, beta tool. With your help, we have identified a set of error conditions where a relatively small amount of traffic is being incorrectly categorized within the DomainScore tool as NXD traffic for domains which are actually currently registered and in the zone. To be clear, the DNS responses themselves are 100% accurate, this is only an issue in certain corner cases in how the data is reflected in the tool. We expect to have this resolved soon and will post an update once confirmed. Again we thank you for your input in how to make the tool as useful as possible.
Jothan Frakes says
@prosper re comment 7
Scale is 0-10, and it looks like it is leaking in existing domain names, skype.com and others also are appearing in the results.
It is typical that subdomains of a valid domain name that get removed from a given domain name leak out to the DNS servers of the TLD as part of the resolution process and are receiving an NXD from the .com servers, so they’re showing in the NXD log files that are parsed for this data.
Probably worth scrubbing existing .com domains against the data before any use.
LAM says
Leave it to Frakes on a Plane to ruin a good debate with facts…
Jothan Frakes says
@LAM lol, I’d actually meant that comment as a tip to users to get the most out of the tool that VeriSign had so graciously made available.
Michaela says
I just wanted to let people know we’ve updated the file for DomainScore. While it’s still in beta, it’s our intention to update it on a regular basis. Thank you everyone for the feedback
Michaela says
Another update. We’ve added .net traffic to VERISIGN DomainScore. And, there’s a slightly more detailed description of how the score is calculated on the site. You can find it here http://bit.ly/nzcmay. Thanks!