At 5/13/02 7:25 PM, James M. wrote: >We thought of doing a project like this a while ago. If you just want >com/net/org names, you can download all the currently registered domain >names from NSI everyday. From there you can do a simple db query to >determine available names.... > >The hardest part with the project was finding the bandwidth to download >NSI's massive name database everyday.
You don't need to download the zone files. You can get the exact same result by doing a DNS lookup on the domain name (look for an "NS" record). This is exactly the same thing as checking the zone files (and perhaps a little better, as it's a little more current and it works with any TLD). We use this scheme to look up over 60 alternate variations in less than 2 seconds (they're just simple variations like prepending "my" and appending "world"; no clever natural language or anything). You do still have the problem that a domain might have just been taken, or that it might have no nameservers assigned to it (or that it's a .info Landrush II name, although that problem will go away soon), but you'll have those problems with the zone files. We solved that by simply saying "the following similar domains MAY be available", and forcing a real lookup on the next screen if the person chooses one. Haven't had any complaints yet, and quite a few people (but not a huge number) have signed up for the "suggested" ones. -- Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies "The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was."
