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A comment on Use brute force to find an available domain name for Web 2.0 projects.

Re:Use brute force to find an available domain name for Web ... by jackowayed on Monday August 16, 2010 @12:43AM (#1606861)
How do you check if domains are available? I searched a little for a domain name API not too long ago, but all I found were things that required you to sign up (and almost always pay money, I think).
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Re:Use brute force to find an available domain name for Web ... by il on Monday August 16, 2010 @12:51AM (#1606882)
The quickest way, without hammering anyone's server is to download the Verisign zone file daily and just search it.

They frown on using it for domain lookups, but you might be able to get access anyway.

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Re:Use brute force to find an available domain name for Web ... by rubyrescue on Monday August 16, 2010 @07:00AM (#1607396)
bustaname just uses a DNS lookup for an A record at the root of the domain. they say it's not 100% reliable but it's much faster than whois and i guess they don't want to use the zone file.
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Re:Use brute force to find an available domain name for Web ... by treitnauer on Monday August 16, 2010 @02:09AM (#1607009)
We'll have one soon at http://iwantmyname.com

The only reliable way for domain checks is to query the registry database directly through a registrar instead of going through whois / DNS.

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Re:Use brute force to find an available domain name for Web ... by js4all on Monday August 16, 2010 @01:48AM (#1606972)
You can do Whois lookups. This standard is as old as the Internet.
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Re:Use brute force to find an available domain name for Web ... by mike-cardwell on Monday August 16, 2010 @08:15AM (#1607530)
DNS is much faster. whois is usually rate limited and a lot of whois services have restrictions on automated querying. Obviously, whois is more accurate though.

So. When I need to test if a bunch of domain names exist, I first of all do a DNS NS lookup. If you get a result, you know the domain exists. If you don't get a result, then do a whois.

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