Finding dropped .ca domain names

Dropping a domain name is akin to recycling.

Where one domainers lets a .ca domain name go back to the CIRA, to be made available again, for someone else, that other person is likely to grab an excellent domain name which, with a little imagination, can be put to good use, perhaps in a very different context than what was originally thought.

Reusing previously owned .ca domain names is a good idea since some of them still have quality links pointing to them and between those and never registered names, chances are those that have previously been taken are either generic or of higher value, in one way or another.

As such, if you’d like to browse a huge database comprising hundreds of thousands of dropped .ca domain names, it’s now possible at MBNX, in its “dotca” subdirectory.

The names date all the way back to mid-October of 2006 and basically contain cleaned up versions of CIRA’s “To Be Released” domain name listings. To make searches more natural, the database has isolated the domain key in a field all by itself so a name like “domain.on.ca” has been archived as “domain”, “on” and “ca”, in three separated fields.

As such, finding a particular domain name with the “ca” keyword (probably meaning the short version of “canada”) is now possible. Previously, such a search would’ve “found” all the domain names because they all contain the “.ca” key.

So the very architecture of the database behind this free web service makes for an enjoyable dropped domain name browsing experience. Of course, this service is only offered for the .ca namespace so if you know about similar free services for other domain suffixes, please be sure to add them in the comments.

To get you started, you can check out the dropped .ca domain names for these particular keywords…

• technology
• domain
• canada
• computer
• online
• find
• search
• blog
• money

From this point on, you can search for any keyword you like. No censorship has been applied regarding these dropped domains so if it’s been dropped, in the last few years, it’s likely to be there.

Have fun finding domains you can’t resist registering, again!

Tags: domain names, .ca, dot ca, dropped domain names, dropped .ca, cira, tbr, to be released, good domain names, available domain names, search dropped domains, domainers, canada, canadian domains, mbnx