Domain Monitoring Overview

Wenames.ca's Domain Monitoring Service works by analyzing current and future domain registrations and deletions, and provides users with a quick and intuitive interface for identifying matches between search terms that the user provides against the more than 300,000,000 domain registrations that exist globally. The Service obtains, indexes and analyzes domain registrations via DNS zone files from each of the thousands of domain extensions that exist, and this process is performed as frequently as every day.

One-Time Search

Webnames.ca's One-Time service works by querying the more than 300,000,000 domain registrations on file and provides results which match the criteria specified by the user. This process is similar to a domain registration search, but in this case the results will only contain domains which are already registered.

One-Time Searches can be performed by:

Results are displayed on screen and also provided in a CSV attachment delivered via email. The CSV attachment contains the full results as well as a WHOIS lookup link for each result. Utilize the WHOIS link to gain further details and insight into the corresponding domain registration.

Each time a search is performed, a Search Credit is consumed. Additional Search Credits can be purchased via the Buy More link on the page.

Ongoing Monitoring

Webnames.ca's Ongoing Monitoring service makes comparisons between the newly obtained DNS zone files and the previously obtained zone files in order to make determinations about what domain names are new (i.e. are new registrations) as well as which domain names have been deleted (i.e. have expired).

It's a simple process, however the challenge, and value, of the service is the sheer volume of data that is processed on a daily basis. Each day the service downloads and analyzes over 300 million domain names and provides users with alerts for new registrations or deletions which match the term(s) users have opted to monitor.

Ongoing domain monitoring can be configured by:

The initial, as well as subsequent, analysis and matching of search terms to existing domain registrations is performed overnight at the frequency specified. Results are provided in a CSV attachment delivered via email. The CSV attachment contains the list of results, as well as a column to denote whether each domain name is a new registration, existing registration, or has now been deleted, as compared to the results of the previous Scheduled Search. The CSV also contains a WHOIS lookup link for each result. Utilize the WHOIS link to gain further details and insight into the corresponding domain registration.

NOTE: Within the results of the initial search, all domains will have a status of 'NEW' , since the determination of the domain status is made by way of comparing the current search results to the previous search results.

For each search term that is monitored, a Domain Name Monitor Credit is consumed. Additional Credits can be purchased via the Buy More link on the page.