Need Advice - how to tell when a domain will drop?

[ksinclair]

What tools do you use for this? Pool shows if a domain will drop in the next 5 days. I also use Whois, and FreeWho.com. But once a domain nears it expiration, I dont understand the process and it seems to vary by registrar.

And the whois dates change sometimes, why is that? For example a domain I was looking at, using DomainTools.com, said it has had several changes in NS and IP over the last few years; so it must have existed for several years, but the dates show as:

Created: 2008-10-25
Expires: 2009-10-25
Updated: 2008-10-25
​

So does that mean it dropped and was picked up on Oct 25 2008? Even if it was dropped, IMO the create date should show the original create date when it first became a domain. Or add a new line to show this.

FreeWho.com seems good but it hardly ever functions.

Kevin