If you enjoy domain shopping, you may get frustrated from time to time with the lack of domains available.  If sometimes you feel like all of the good ones are taken, you are actually right.   Most good domains have been snatched up over the past few years as people began to realize their value, with probably more than half of them not even in use.   These people are smart because they treat their domains as an investment. 

I currently have about 10 domains in use, along with 4-5 similar domains that are being redirected to existing sites, in an effort to protect my investments.  Along with these domains are several inactive domains that I’ve purchased because I plan to use them at some point in the future, or because I felt that they have tremendous value.    

One way I go about searching for domain names of value is a website called Just Dropped.  This site works just like a domain search engine, but specializes in searching for domains that have recently been dropped for any number of reasons.   Sometimes people don’t want them anymore,  they can’t afford to renew the domains, or they just forget and don’t have it set to auto-renew. 

In many ways this has more value than searching open domains because you can find a lot of gems hidden among a bunch of worthless domains.    The only downside is that you have to register for any account with them, but this is free.

If you decide to go this route, you may have to spend some time at it.  Some of the lists are long and there are a lot of domains with no value at all, but there are always great ones mixed in that you can pick up.