Does anyone know where sites such as deleteddomains.com get their information of when domains are going to be deleted/dropped/available etc? Is there an API into VeriSign or something of that sort that will let these websites know or how do they accomplish this?
They can be using the API Thing for sure, as they have tie up with bigger registartion companies. There are scripts also available in market which can do this. Some of them are like clickmojo and expired domain sniffer. etc. I was also looking for this kind of thing. But the registrars wants to go into a contract with us before they give us the info for this kind of things. Right now I am trying my hand on ENON's API. To get a ready made lists for this.
Verisgn provides free access to an ftp with TLD zone information. I have not looked at what the information really looks like, but it is said it is gigabytes of text files with domain information. I believe registrars and domain-related sites, download updates on a regular basis and build their own databases of domain information. When you check is a domain is registered, they check against that database (with the 0.0000% chance that the domain you want to register was registered after their last update). Companies who offer deleted domain information, simple scan that TLD zone database for the expiration date / status of a domain and pick the one they like (status DELETE, or expiration date coming soon). I faxed the Verisign docs a few days ago and I am still waiting for a reply from them... We share on the forums if I get anything back I tried to post the link to Verisign's page, but it looks like I do not have this right yet... I will cut off the domain and post the path only (I hope moderators will not get upset about this, since I am not posting my site )) So it is verisgn's domain and the path is: /information-services/naming-services/com-net-registry/page_001052.html