For those not aware of it, popular domain industry research service DomainTools is raising rates on users next renewal date and slashing the amount of uses per services it offers with the price hike.

Rate hikes are common (not 725% in my case), rate hike + slashing the amount of “look-ups” to go with it are not. Higher price, less use doesn’t make that much sense to pay the new higher monthly rates IMO.

This is a big deal for the domain industry! Why? People like me that do a lot of research and publish stories that help the industry as a whole, will be going away. It will likely prevent new people who are considering to do it.

Domain name whois history is a vital part of research for almost every story that I write and for nearly all domain industry publications. The new $99 per month package for DT includes 25 whois history look-ups a month. I do 25 look-ups by lunch time every day on my currently unlimited plan that is a silver membership dating back to around 2006, which I pay for!

DomainTools is an exceptional service and one that corners the whois history market, simply due to how long they have been archiving data. I personally use DomainTools (paid) and DomainIQ.com (which I have a free account with an ad display) and using both really delivers nice results. Where one lacks, the other helps. DT is most helpful when it comes to whois history and the main reason I use DT. The 2nd most valuable service to me at DT is the Registrant Monitor and Domain Monitor.

Going from unlimited to 25 whois history look-ups and a $12 to $99 price hike (725%), is a killer for me. The $87 per month price hike isn’t the biggest killer, it’s the measly 25 PER MONTH whois history look-ups to go along with the $99 a month. The 10,000 to 1,000 domain monitor is a kick in the gut as well reduction.

I will no longer be doing my domain movers, (which I basically moved over to my Twitter account, for those not aware of it.) These tweet’s and my many past Domain Movers articles put a pulse on the industry. DomainNameWire, DomainInvesting, TLDInvestors, DomainGang, NamePros Blog and more sites all help the domain industry as a whole by writing stories about domain names. Without these stories, the pulse of the industry gets weaker and that is a bad thing for the domain industry.

Update: I misunderstood an email that mentioned press accounts “should” remain the same if one was already in place, so some of the above mentioned sites should not see a change in the current account they have. This will be helpful to the domain community and have less of an effect on the current sites. It still doesn’t help general users or future ones.

If I haven’t made my point clear yet, this price hike and usage reduction from DomainTools is going to have a big, negative impact on the domain industry in general if the currently proposed rate and usage remains.

I personally will not pay $99 a month for 25 whois history look-ups. The domain monitors I currently use are simply for writing stories for the industry. Paying nearly $4 per whois history look-up isn’t worth it and I will not continue to write or do domain name research.

If the decision maker at DT was to reduce usage to save resources and the costs to go with them, they will achieve this by members leaving due to the rate hike and lowered numbers to go along with the new packages offered for those who do stay. In the end, that appears to be the goal with what DomainTools are doing, because it doesn’t make sense other wise.

Having a good quarterback on your team is important and DomainTools is a vital leader for the domain industry. Without them providing a service that is affordable, the domain industry team will struggle.

In the end, I hope that DomainTools reconsiders the usage drop and simply goes with a price increase. The current proposed doesn’t make sense unless they want usage reduced.