I need hardcore technical details on how to create a daily list of
domains
that have expired/been dropped.

No, im not looking for a service (like deleteddomains.com) i need to
do it myself..!! Is this possible? If so.. tell me how. If it's NOT
possible
to do this myself please do not answer :)

I DO NOT need  theoretical answers since i know how the process works.
"get your list from netsol" is not enough.. i need an url or process
description etc etc..

I need technical details on how to get the daily masterlist and other
specs i need to build an application to produce the daily list.

Thanks,
Chris

Hello chris 21-

What you are going to need to do make or buy a cgi script that can
interface with the whois databases across the web. There is no real
'daily master list' unless you are going to pull lists from another
service that is doing the exact same thing you are trying to do. (This
would just make you a similiar service right?)

I found a few scripts that are already complete if you have the money
to pay for such a service.

If not - then you will have program one yourself, or find an Open
Source script that already connects to some whois databases and modify
to suit your needs.

Here are the ones I found that are already up for sale:

http://www.mycgiscripts.com/dmoz-expired-domains.html (Checks sites at
DMOZ)

http://www.aaronscgi.com/paidscripts/ased.html (pricey for domains
that still have search engine listings)

http://www.widexl.com/scripts/domain-spider/ (worth a further look)

To find these I did a search for 'expired domain cgi script'.

Now - a small process descripion:

1) Your server makes a request for a set of domains - either from a
list you make - or by certain requirements you set in a script. You
could for example strip data from one of the 'master lists' you speak
of.

2) Using sockets/HTTP protocol, the requested data is sent to your
script.

3) The scripts then strips the HTML from the page that it just
fetched, and then parses our the stuff you need. Again - this could be
taken from your 'master list sources' if you didn't want to connect to
the whois yourself.

4) The stuff you need is displayed via HTML on the web by the script,
or written to a database like MySql (or whatever you choose) for later
use.

This is just a rough format. There a numerous other ways this can be
done, and this far from inclusive.

You would really want (someone with) a background in Perl or PHP
,parsing, and regular expressions.

I hope this leads you in the right direction.

sgtcory

Also, don't limit yourself to CGI scripts, try other scripts as
well...search sourceforge.com or freshmeat.net for what you're looking
for, chances are someone has already done it and it's listed somewhere
there...

chris,

Sorry to tell you this, but I absolutely assure that this is
impossible.  I have lots ands lots of experience in this area.  You
have to have a zonefile to do this and there's no way to get a
zonefile unless you buy it from someone who already has it (and
they're not selling).  Sending a million dolloar offer to
DeleteDomains is your best bet.  Sorry.

xemion-ga ~ Google Researcher

Like I had stated earlier it is possible - so long as you want to work
a little harder for it.

You could simply parse, much like a metasearch engine does from the
larrger engines, the data from the query that you send. That in
addition to the scripts that I listed would make a rather nice
combination.

I do not claim to know the legal side of this, but I know it can be
done. You should check with some of the sites that are already doing
this, and make some sort of arrangement with them.

Good Luck

sgtcory

Hello,

This is absoloutely possible to do yourself, and it can be done for
free for .com/.net/.org!  By simply signing a contract with
verisign-grs, you can obtain a username and password to download the
root zone files - be warned, they are big! (Though they have shrunk
considerably in the last few of months).

http://verisign-grs.com/tld/ is where you can apply.  The process may
take a little bit, and involves you faxing or mailing the signed
contract - it's all to prevent spam, and I can support that!

A domain which is not listed in the zone file may be available - may,
as sometimes, for various reasons, they will not have name servers
listed.  But the true check is to compare one zone file to another,
this will give you a 'short list' of domains to check if they have
expired - a domain which is no longer listed is probably, in many
cases, available.

What a shame I'm not an official answer person yet... :)

Anyway, hope this helps.

One clarification... when I said "compare one zone file to another" I
meant "compare the zone file you download one day to the one you
download the next".  Your looking for records that have been removed
that used to be there.

Also to keep in mind: Your not the only person who is doing this kind
of thing.  The people at State of the Domain (https://www.sotd.info/)
have been covering re-registration of expired domains recently. 
Unless your very quick, or good at cutting deals with people, your
chances of getting a much-wanted expired domain are slim. Very very
slim.

Good luck :)

It is possible.

I am going to assume that what you really want is a list of
'available' domains on a daily basis.  You are only interested in
'expired' domains insofar as they have now become available.

If I assume correctly, then you can do this with a simple script that
will make requests of whois databases and process the results.  One
comment mentioned CGI scripts, and another mentioned stripping out the
HTML.  You do not need to do any of this because there is no need to
do it via the web.  When you make a request of a whois database the
result is returned in text.  All of the web pages we use to access
them (allwhois.com etc) simply take that text and format it.  Why not
bypass this completely and just process the text.

There are several ways to proceed:

1.  Run a script which will make whois requests of all possible
combinations of letters and then use this data to populate your own
database of domain names.  You will then know every domain name
currently available, as well as having a record of all expiration
dates for other domains.  From there you can simply run a query for
dates every day.

2.  Run a script to make whois requests and report to you any domain
names that expire on a given day, say tomorrow or within 7 days etc.
(This is probably the way I would start)

3.  If you are only interested in certain domains and you know what
they are, your script could only use that list (no matter how big)
instead of the all possible letter combinations.  You could even
develop some sort of formula for splicing certain words together etc. 
(Obviously the all possible letters is a bit of overkill.)

That's it!

PS -- You can minimize the amount of whois requests made by first
making a DNS request, but this will not work for you if you are trying
to find out which domains are actually 'going to expire' in the
future.

If you are interested in more details, I can provide more.  I did not
include actual code examples because I really am not sure what you are
trying to accomplish.  Ask for clarification and I can give examples
of code to use.  It shouldn't be hard if you have the right kind of
access.