Product Updates

Zone Data: See Which Domains Are About to Drop

2026-09-16 · OSIR Team

There is a new section in the OSIR panel called Zone Data. It reads the daily zone files for the TLDs we have access to, and it tells you three things a normal availability check cannot: which registered names have just gone quiet, which names you care about are heading for a drop, and which words the market is registering this week.

It is in beta. The four screens described below are the ones that exist today.

What is a zone file, and why does it predict a drop?

A zone file is the registry's list of every domain in a TLD that currently has nameservers. ICANN's Centralized Zone Data Service publishes these to approved parties daily, and we ingest them every night. Today that covers five zones:

The useful part is not the list. It is the diff. When a domain disappears from the zone file, its nameservers were removed, and by far the most common reason is that it expired and the registrar parked it. That happens roughly 32 days before the registry finally deletes the name. A departure from the zone is therefore the earliest public signal that a domain may be coming back on the market, weeks before it shows up anywhere as available.

Two caveats, which the panel prints on the page itself because they matter more than the feature does:

• These names are still registered. Leaving the zone is not a deletion. The owner can renew during the grace period and nothing drops.
• The drop date is an estimate. We calculate it as departure date plus 32 days. No registry publishes a per-domain drop date, and some of these names will never drop at all.

Anyone selling you a guaranteed drop calendar is selling the same estimate with more confidence than it deserves.

Drop monitor

The main screen lists every name that left a zone, newest first, with the date it left and its estimated drop date. A raw .com list runs to tens of thousands of candidates a day, so the filters are the actual product:

• Keyword, starts-with, ends-with
• Extension and length, up to 12 characters
• Time window, sorted by soonest drop
• No hyphens, no digits

Each row has a Check registry button. That runs a live lookup and shows what the registry says right now: the EPP status codes, the real expiry date, and the sponsoring registrar. A name showing redemption period is genuinely on its way out. A name that comes back not dropping with an expiry two years away left the zone for some other reason, and you have saved yourself the trouble. Check availability runs a real-time availability check, and History shows the name's zone comings and goings over time.

Four-letter .com names are the obvious thing to point the filters at. The same filters work for a brand you are watching or a keyword you want in one specific extension.

Watchlist

Star a domain anywhere in the drop monitor and it lands on your Watchlist, up to 500 names. Watchlist domains are checked against the registry every day, ahead of everything else in the queue, so their status is never more than about a day old. Each one shows either not dropping with its expiry, or drops ~<date> with the estimate, which sorts the list into "still someone else's" and "worth setting a reminder for".

Keyword trends

The other direction. Instead of names leaving the zone, this counts names entering it, and ranks the words that appear most often in newly registered domains over the last 7, 30 or 90 days. It is a read on what people are naming things this week, taken from registrations rather than from a search-volume tool.

Two details about the counting. A keyword scores only when a name starts or ends with it, so a compound that merely contains the word does not inflate it. And fragments of longer words are folded away, so "solutio" does not shadow "solution".

Trends need at least one ingest after the first to have anything to compare against, so a newly added zone shows an empty table for a day. That is expected, not broken.

Name research

The fourth screen goes the other way around: give it a word and it shows where that name already exists across the zones we ingest. Seeing that a term is registered in four zones out of five is a fast read on how contested it is before you spend anything on the fifth.

What this is not, yet

Zone Data is panel-only for now. There is no MCP tool for it, so an AI agent connected to the OSIR MCP server cannot query drops or manage your watchlist yet. That is the obvious next step and it is on the list.

Coverage is five zones because zone file access is granted per TLD and we add them as access comes through. If a specific TLD matters to you, say so.

The watchlist screen carries a "what should we build next" prompt for a reason. This is early, and the filters, alerts and exports we add next are decided by what people actually ask for.

Sign in to your OSIR panel and look for Zone Data in the sidebar.

FAQ

How do you know a domain is about to drop?

We ingest the daily zone file for each TLD we have access to and compare it against the previous day. A domain that disappears from the zone has had its nameservers removed, which usually means it expired and the registrar parked it. The registry typically deletes such a name about 32 days later, so we show departure date plus 32 days as an estimated drop date.

Is the estimated drop date accurate?

It is an estimate, not a published date. No registry publishes a per-domain drop date. The owner can renew at any point during the grace and redemption periods, in which case the domain never drops. Use the Check registry button on a row to see the live EPP status codes and expiry date, which is the closest thing to a definitive answer.

Which TLDs are covered?

Today: .com, .net, .org, .info and .app. Zone file access is granted per TLD through ICANN's Centralized Zone Data Service, and we add zones as access is approved.

How many domains can I put on the watchlist?

Up to 500. Watchlist domains get a registry check every day, before anything else in the queue, so their status is never more than about a day old.

Does starring a domain reserve it or register it for me?

No. The watchlist is monitoring only. When a name you are watching actually becomes available, you register it the normal way, and whoever gets there first gets the name. There is no backorder or drop-catching service behind this.

Can an AI agent use Zone Data?

Not yet. Zone Data is available in the panel only, with no corresponding tools on the OSIR MCP server. Adding them is planned.

Where does the keyword trend data come from?

From names entering the zone files, meaning newly registered domains that have nameservers set. It is not search volume and it is not a registry report. A keyword counts when a domain starts or ends with it, and fragments of longer words are excluded from the count.

Image generated with AI (Higgsfield).