Tracking Domain Names for a Competitive Advantage

There are many companies that track domain names to get a competitive advantage over their competitors or to monitor another company’s strategic initiatives. Previously I discussed the use of IP address monitoring to track new domain purchases, but some companies simply track new domain registrations to essentially do the same thing.

I read a blog post in Boston Magazine where they speculated about where a Boston-based news outlet wanted to expand (prior to their demise). Because of domain privacy, they aren’t able to know for certain that the company bought those other names, but based on the date of registration and the registrar, they could get a pretty good idea about who registered the domain names.

There are many types of information a company can use to track a competitor. They are able to monitor trademark and patent filings, follow business license applications, watch city/state filings…etc. A company’s domain registrations are another tool to allow outsiders to look ahead and make predictions or assumptions about another company’s strategy.

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Written by Elliot on April 17, 2008 in Buying Domain Names

Comments (6)

Bahamas Hosting

April 17th, 2008 at 11:02 am

Elliot,

Here is a pretty scary tool, in case you have not seen it yet: http://www.myipneighbors.com/

- Richard

***UPDATED BY ELLIOT***

Especially if Google looks at that stuff for PR. I use a dedicated IP for Lowell.com and Salinas.com.

Gordon

April 17th, 2008 at 12:41 pm

I also like to use domaintools to monitor categories of domains. For example Elliot, you could set up an alert for “Lowell” and get an email every day with a list of the Lowell related domains that were registered – would give you good insight into who is doing what in town.

@ Bahamas Hosting

April 17th, 2008 at 4:31 pm

Bahamas Hosting,

How would you prevent a site like that from gathering your information?

Cheers

Emil @KING.NET

April 17th, 2008 at 5:16 pm

Another security tool I used when I’m consulting job e.g. netcraft.com. Check it out. You can get more details related to IP, domains, etc.

HOpe this help.

Bahamas Hosting

April 17th, 2008 at 5:18 pm

Here are two ways to prevent the site from finding your information.

For shared hosting – use a hosting company that fills their shared servers with a lot of domains, that way the tool will show your domain and 100 others domains which may, or may not, be your domains.

For dedicated hosting – use separate IP addresses for your sites

- Richard

Emil @KING.NET

April 17th, 2008 at 5:22 pm

I think myipneighbors.com is providing inaccurate results. I checked hardworking.com and results hundreds. I’m assuming the dedicated IP address was used in the past. This is a misleading information IMO.