A domain name drop list is a list containing the expired

domain names A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...

that could be deleted from the

domain name registry A domain name registry is a database of all domain names and the associated registrant information in the top level domains of the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet that enables third party entities to request administrative control of a do ...

in the near future. These lists are typically used by

domainers Domain name speculation, popular as domaining in professional jargon, is the practice of identifying and registering or acquiring generic Internet domain names as an investment with the intent of selling them later for a profit. The main targets ...

to locate expiring domain names with value.

Drop list contents

There is no defined date range for data contained with a drop list, as they can contain anywhere between 1 day's worth of expiring domain names, to 30 or more days worth. Some drop lists contain only domain names that follow the domain name deletion process (where the domain name enters the REGISTRAR-HOLD status, followed by REDEMPTIONPERIOD, and PENDINGDELETE), some contain only pre-release domain names, and some contain both pre-release and regular domain names. The data contained within a drop list can also vary, with some lists providing only basic information, such as the domain name and its expiry date. Other drop lists provide more detailed statistics, including, among others,

PageRank PageRank (PR) is an algorithm used by Google Search to rank web pages in their search engine results. It is named after both the term "web page" and co-founder Larry Page. PageRank is a way of measuring the importance of website pages. According ...

, Link popularity and

Alexa rank Alexa Internet, Inc. was an American web traffic analysis company based in San Francisco. It was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon. Alexa was founded as an independent company in 1996 and acquired by Amazon in 1999 for $250 million in stock. ...

. Critics say that promotion and marketing of so-called droplists may encourage cybercrime and payoffs at registrars, indicating that a registrants can lose their domains without abandon.

Dropcatching

When a domain name is abandoned, or the period of validity is not renewed (expires), the webhost and registrar then action a "deletion" (the drop). Once a domain name has been deleted from the internet, it ceases to exist. Anyone may then register that name (the catch). The process of re-registering expired names is known as dropcatching and various

domain name registries Domain may refer to: Mathematics *Domain of a function, the set of input values for which the (total) function is defined **Domain of definition of a partial function **Natural domain of a partial function **Domain of holomorphy of a function *Dom ...

have differing views on it. Sometimes, people get locked out of their email and cannot reply to the renew request (or otherwise obstructed or hacked), and their domainname may be deleted and offered as available.

References

Domain Name System Online advertising {{compu-domain-stub

Drop list contents

Dropcatching

See also

References