Show HN: I built a free tool to find valuable expired domains using AI (pendingdelete.domains)

6 points by hikerell ↗ HN
Hi HN,

I’ve been collecting and analyzing expired domains for years — especially those about to drop. Every day, tens of thousands expire. Most are junk, but a few still have traffic, backlinks, SEO value, or just great names. Finding them used to take hours.

Last week I put my internal tools online: https://pendingdelete.domains No login, no paywall Updated daily Combines domain history, traffic, SEO data and AI-driven insights to identify valuable expirations The goal: help spot valuable domains quickly and skip the noise.

Still a work-in-progress — would love feedback: Is this useful? What signals or filters would you add? Any UI or speed improvements?

Thanks!

4 comments

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I think it’s an excellent idea, but since I don’t really know the criteria, I quickly find myself wondering, “how is this calculated?” and my lack of knowledge turns into doubt. Maybe a small explanatory page on how it works (or some tooltips near the prices?) would add more clarity?

In any case, I’m going to go make sure my domains are set to auto-renew!

I realize this is out of scope for your site, but where do you recommend going to purchase domains that are expiring? It seems a bit different process from buying a brand new domain.

Also you have a spelling error in the bottom left of the search screen. For today I see, "Total 395 doamins"

What is role of AI here? Ain't this all about WHOIS data and domain records
Whois data is the basic source to check if a domain is in PendingDelete status. With 30,000–50,000 domains expiring daily, it's crucial to filter out the valuable ones. I use an LLM in the first round to screen based on name and brand potential, and in the final round, I combine SEO data for a full quality assessment.