Finding old URL lists on the internet is a very effective method for extracting quality expired domains. You want to target your URL’s from 2008 or older. The reasoning is that the older the list the better the chance that those domains will be of high quality and less chance of spam. Finding lists like these takes a bit of practice and creativity, you want to really think out of the box. That being said being persistent and organized will help you find better success in finding these gems.
Strategy to find domains: Old Archives with Sets of Public data
Back in the late 2000’s, AOL released an archive of old data for the year 2006. This set contains a valuable list of all their domains for that year. If you look around the net you can probably still find this list. However, this list has already been picked clean from other domainers, nevertheless it will give you an idea of what similar lists are out there.
Instructions on finding old public data lists
You want to start with selecting lists with a lot of URL’s. Also, look for similar lists such as the AOL list that was previously mentioned. As mentioned before you also want old lists, again around mid-2000’s and newer. Also, you want to look around the net for HUGE public data sets which can be obtained easily for download. Look for lists that can be downloaded in CSV formats, which makes sorting a lot easier.
More Tips on where to find them
I would suggest looking at old institutions, government and non-government sites. Universities and colleges are another great place to find them. Other places to look are old blog directories. It takes a bit of practice. Your success will depend on the quality of sites that you find.
The following are some example sites that will give you a good idea on what to look for. These are lists that are huge data sets from places around the internet. As always use the power of the search engines and dig around cause you might be surprised on what you may find.
NOTE: Some of these files are really huge. I am talking Gigabytes. So keep that in mind and be patient for the download to come through.
Although finding a good list of relevant data can be the hardest part of the entire process, but it is definitely worth the time invested in the research considering the possibilities of finding hidden gems.