Over 50% of .dom domains are squatted or unused | Hacker News Reader

Over 50% of .dom domains are squatted or unused

smartynames.com

4 pointsjenntoda5 comments

I was wondering WTF .dom was, and how long that had been a thing.

> I would want to figure out the quality of domains in both used and unused spaces. A cursory inspection of domain files shows a lot of computer-generated domain names that follow a pattern of numbers, letters, and words. There is no way those domains were purchased by average internet users by hand, and were most likely generated and purchased in bulk.

> The most interesting follow up question in our mind would be - who generated those domains?

Those sound rather like DGA domains, so I wonder how much that's skewing their sample.

And I'm always rather skeptical of any "research" where the main conclusion is to buy their product. Still, depressing to see just how widespread domain squatting has become.

Hi, I am the guy who did the research. I haven't done enough analysis to see if DGA domains are skewing the sample, or more like which way they were doing it. It could be that all those domains are dormant and don't have DNS, but it could also be they are hosting a bunch of advertisement. It's a whole separate project that requires building out a more sophisticated scraper.

As per the conclusion, well, forgive me for trying to entice the reader to try the product :) Always Be Selling, right?

We did the research without trying to sell anything; it was just interesting. I'd do more, but it takes a while, and I am tired of this space, for the time being at least.

ps. It also takes forever to get the data. I had a local Clojure script running of my macbook pro, doing 10 parallel queues at a time, for what seems like days on end. At some point, my ISP (or something in the chain) suspended my access to a bunch of websites. ooops!

There’s a special place in hell for these domains squatters, parasite or trolls at best.

They prefer term "domain investors." Honestly, there are a few that figured out how to make money doing this, and there is a whole bunch more that bought into the idea, but have never made anything out of it.

If you are curious, I did some calculus on what it takes to make good money in domain investing, and it's not pretty. https://smartynames.com/blog/business/NTJmOWIxNzAt

You will make a small fortune investing in domain space, if you start with a very large fortune.

Domain squatting is a $2bn industry but there are still ways to find a good domain name

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