Today, we’re opening up two Domain Intelligence APIs in free Beta — built for independent researchers and academic professionals who need reliable domain data for their work.
Why We Built This
At ABTdomain, we’ve spent years building infrastructure to track the complete domain lifecycle across 1,000+ TLDs. Our databases aggregate data from zone files, Certificate Transparency logs, active DNS, and RDAP/WHOIS — updated daily.
We’ve always believed that good research starts with good data. Too many researchers and students hit the same wall: the datasets they need are locked behind expensive enterprise contracts, scattered across unreliable sources, or simply don’t exist in a queryable format.
So we decided to open up our core datasets as free Beta APIs — no paywall, no trial period, no strings attached beyond responsible use. If your work benefits from domain registration data, we want to help.
Two APIs, Two Perspectives
We’re launching two complementary APIs that approach domain data from different angles.
NRDS Search API
The Newly Registered Domain Search API gives you access to newly registered gTLD domains within a rolling 30-day window. You can search by keyword, TLD, registration date, domain length, and character composition — whether you’re studying naming conventions across extensions, tracking how registration volumes shift over time, or building datasets for linguistic or statistical analysis.
Results can be counted for trend analysis, paginated for large-scale queries, or exported in bulk as CSV for offline processing. If your research involves understanding what’s being registered and how, this is your starting point.
NS Reverse Lookup API
The NS Reverse Lookup API takes the opposite approach. Instead of searching by domain attributes, you start with a nameserver and discover every gTLD domain hosted under that infrastructure.
This is particularly useful for infrastructure research — mapping out which domains share the same nameserver reveals hosting concentration patterns, provider distribution across TLDs, and how domain portfolios are structured at the DNS level. The data is based on daily snapshots of active domains across major gTLDs, and supports the same flexible filtering: by TLD, keyword, registration date, domain length, and character type.
Together, these two APIs give you both a forward-looking view (what’s being registered) and a structural view (how domains are connected through infrastructure).
Who Is This For?
🔬 Independent Researchers
Personal research projects, data journalism, internet measurement studies, and anyone curious about how the domain ecosystem works. If you have a question about domain registrations and need data to answer it, this API is for you.
🎓 Academic & Students
University students and academics working on theses, papers, or coursework in DNS research, internet governance, network measurement, data science, or computational linguistics. We want to support your academic work with real-world data.
What’s in the Data?
| Attribute | Details |
|---|---|
| Domain Types | Major gTLDs (.com, .net, .org, .info, .xyz, and more) |
| NRDS Time Window | Rolling 30 days |
| NS Reverse Scope | Daily snapshot of all active domains |
| Update Frequency | Daily during Beta. Streaming updates upon general release. |
| Data Sources | Zone Files, Certificate Transparency Logs, Active DNS, RDAP/WHOIS |
What Can You Do with It?
Here are some of the most common research applications:
- Registration trend analysis — study how domain registration volumes change over time across different TLDs, spot seasonal patterns and market shifts
- Naming pattern research — analyze character composition, length distribution, keyword popularity, and linguistic patterns in domain names
- Infrastructure mapping — map out hosting concentration and provider distribution by exploring which domains share the same nameservers
- TLD ecosystem studies — compare registration activity across top-level domains and research how new gTLDs compete with established ones
- Internet measurement — use real-world registration data for DNS research or as datasets for classification and analysis models
- Dataset export — download filtered domain lists as CSV for integration into your research pipeline, papers, or coursework
Terms You Should Know
We’re offering this for free because we believe access to data leads to better research. In return, we ask that you respect a few simple rules:
- Research purposes only. These APIs are for academic study, personal research, and non-commercial projects.
- Non-commercial use only. Commercial use — including integrating API data into paid products or services — requires prior written consent from Lyalpha GmbH.
- No redistribution. You may not republish, sublicense, or resell the raw data, or use it to build competing products.
- GDPR compliant. We do not provide any personally identifiable information of domain registrants. All access logs are anonymized.
- Citation required. If you use our data in papers, reports, or public research, please cite:
Data source: ABTdomain (https://www.abtdomain.com)
How to Get Free Access
There’s no self-service signup — we review every application to make sure the data goes to people who will use it well. Simply send us an email with a brief introduction about yourself and what you’re working on. We’ll get back to you with access credentials and full API documentation.
Domain Intelligence by ABTdomain · Lyalpha GmbH, Düsseldorf, Germany.