Ivan Rasskazov is the CFO of Intelium Corp. If you have been involved in domaining for any length of time, you have undoubtedly leveraged the technology offered by Intelium. The most popular, in my experience, are EsitBot.com and DomainIQ.com but there are several other tools worth checking out.
domainIQ is an extremely useful domain analytics and whois research tool. Users can uncover detailed information about domain names, registrants, nameservers or IP addresses and present that information in a meaningful and easy-to-understand format. The technology is developed and maintained in their Chicago office by a team of passionate problem solvers.
I was impressed by domainIQ’s services and reached out to Ivan for some discussion.
Mike: Are you or the founders Luc and Esa domainers at heart? I’m curious where the idea for this service originated.
Ivan: Long before I joined Intelium, I tried a bit of domain investing, but my origins are more in finance and wealth management. I’ve always seen domain names as an essential asset and care very deeply about the domain community.
domainIQ originated from a simple need for a cost effective way to look up domain name ownership. If you are investing thousands of dollars into a domain name, you’d probably want to do a little research into its ownership history. That’s how the service initially originated and then evolved over time. The idea for the service was Luc’s and he continues to have an active role in the development of the service.
Mike: There is a small amount of data available without a subscription. Subscribing opens up quite a bit more useful information. Can you talk about the different tiers of service?
Ivan: There are presently four tiers. Three retail tiers that start with Basic, and can go to Pro or Expert levels. There is also a separate Enterprise level. We plan to eliminate the Basic subscription in the future, though present customers will not be affected by the change.
The three retail levels mostly differ by the amount of queries you can execute, and data available for export. The Enterprise level offers customization and is designed to meet high query volume demand.
Mike: Describe for us the persona of your typical user.
Ivan: It’s hard to summarize a typical user as our customers range from domain investors to the security industry. Some are doing research on specific domain names, while others monitor entire portfolios.
Mike: How has GDPR impacted your ability to deliver information on domain owners?
Ivan: GDPR has reduced the amount of data we can research and archive, but it has affected all of the players in the industry the same way. It has made us rely more on the data we collect from crawls and less on whois.
Mike: What are some of the services that users find most helpful?
Ivan: Monitoring tools that help users track portfolios and in some cases monitor changes to their own domain names. Users also really like our Domain Search tool that searches hundreds of TLDs for domain name registrations with a particular keyword. Our APIs are also very popular.
Mike: How do you think domainIQ contributes to the state of domaining today?
Ivan: I think we are a positive influence on the domain industry. We provide a quality dataset and a large suite of tools at a fraction of what our competitors charge. The time and money you save can be reinvested into domains.
Mike: What is the most difficult part of running an online business like domainIQ?
Ivan: Balancing revenue and customer needs. That can go both ways. Sometimes users may ask for tools that would take quite a bit to built, and wouldn’t be used by anyone else. In other cases, we decline revenue from sources that are less than reputable. We have to be mindful of both our time, but also how domainIQ may be used.
Mike: Are there other tools or sites that you recommend domainers use in their research or planning?
Ivan: EstiBot, a very unbiased opinion of course.
When it comes to domain investing, there are some really great domain name bloggers out there. You can find many of them on NamePros, like Bob Hawkes. We also help in the production of the Liquid Domain Report published by Giuseppe Graziano. It has some great sales and other data.
Did I say EstiBot yet?
