How to Find Websites by Category
You need a list of sites in one niche: dental clinics in Ireland, cycling blogs, B2B software vendors, every news site in Chile. There are seven common ways to build it, and each has a real limit.
This guide is honest about all of them, including our own data. Pick the method that fits the size of your list and the time you have. Most good lists end up combining two or three of them.
First, how big is your list?
The right method depends mostly on size. A list of 30 sites and a list of 300,000 sites are different jobs, and the manual methods stop working somewhere in between.
Hand-picked
Search operators and a few association member lists are enough. You can review every site yourself.
Assembled
Combine several manual sources and remove duplicates. Expect days of work and gaps you cannot see.
Data-driven
Manual methods cannot reach full coverage. A categorized database gives the whole niche, filtered by country and size.
Maintained
If the list has to stay current, plan for new sites and closures. Manual lists start ageing the day you finish them.
Method 1: search operators
Search engines understand a set of operators that narrow results. They are the fastest way to find the visible, well-ranked sites in a niche.
Useful patterns
intitle:"recipe blog" -pinterest
inurl:blog "trail running"
"powered by" "online shop" site:de
"member directory" "solar installers"
"wholesale" "bulk orders" -amazon site:co.uk
Quotes force an exact phrase. site: limits results to a domain or ending. intitle: and inurl: look for words in page titles and addresses. A minus sign removes a word or site.
- Quick lists of a few dozen sites
- Seeing who ranks for a topic
- Country focus via domain endings
- Results per query are capped
- Some operators act as hints, not rules
- Big brands crowd out small sites
- No counts, no categories, no structure
Method 2: web directories
Directories sort websites into topic trees. The large general directories of the early web have closed or stopped growing, but niche and local directories are still around.
Where directories still help
- Local business directories for trades, clinics and shops in one city
- Professional registers for lawyers, accountants and architects
- Software and app catalogues for tools in one category
- Topic directories run by enthusiasts for hobbies and crafts
Many entries point to profile pages on the directory itself, so you still have to find each site's own domain.
- Local and professional niches
- Sites that rarely rank well
- Pre-sorted topic structure
- Old listings and dead sites
- Paid placements mixed in
- Coverage depends on who signed up
- Terms often forbid bulk copying
Method 3: associations, chambers and trade fairs
Industry bodies publish member lists, and trade fairs publish exhibitor lists. For B2B niches these are among the most accurate manual sources, because members are active businesses.
Good sources to check
- National and regional trade associations for your industry
- Chambers of commerce member directories
- Exhibitor lists of the main trade fairs in the sector
- Certification bodies that list certified companies
- Public registers of licensed firms, such as financial regulators
- B2B and regulated industries
- Real, active companies
- Strong signal of relevance
- Only members or exhibitors
- Skews to larger, established firms
- Each source has its own format
- Rarely covers consumer niches
If your goal is B2B prospecting, our list of B2B websites and the lead generation and sales intelligence page show how category data covers the same ground at scale.
Method 4: communities and social platforms
Forums, discussion groups and social profiles often link to the sites a niche actually reads. This is the best way to find the small, loved sites that never show up in ads.
How to mine them
- Look for pinned posts with "recommended sites" or "resources"
- Search groups for "favourite blogs" or "best sites for"
- Check the website field on profiles of people in the niche
- Note which domains get shared again and again
- Hobby and enthusiast niches
- Finding influential small sites
- Understanding what readers value
- Slow and very manual
- Biased towards one community
- Hard to repeat for many countries
- Platform rules limit automated collection
For blog-heavy niches, see our list of blogs page, which shows how personal sites split by subject.
Method 5: curated link lists and "best of" articles
Many niches have curated lists: "top 50 travel blogs", "best accounting software", open lists maintained by volunteers, and encyclopedia list pages.
Getting more from them
- Combine several lists and keep sites that appear more than once
- Check the date: lists older than two years miss many new sites
- Follow the outbound links of the strongest sites in the list
- Watch for affiliate lists that rank by commission, not quality
- Finding the well-known names fast
- Popular consumer topics
- Seed lists for further research
- Same leaders on every list
- Often outdated
- Commercial bias in rankings
- Stops at tens, not thousands
If leaders are all you need, our top 100 websites by category already lists ten per major category.
Method 6: scraping search results or sites
Some teams automate the methods above: running thousands of queries and collecting the results, or crawling directories. It looks scalable. In practice it has three problems.
Terms of use
Search engines and most directories restrict automated querying and bulk copying in their terms. Check them before you start.
Visibility bias
You only collect sites that rank for your queries. Sites that rank poorly, or that use other words for their topic, stay invisible.
No labels
You get domains, not categories. Someone still has to check that each site really belongs, and remove the shops that only mention the topic.
Upkeep
Scrapers break when page layouts change. The cost moves from buying data to maintaining code.
Method 7: categorized website data
A categorized website database already holds the label for each domain. You select the category, the country and the size band, and the list exists in seconds. This is what we sell, so here are its limits too.
What you get
- Over 100 million categorized domains to select from
- 59 web filtering categories and IAB v2 and v3 tiers
- Country, audience personas and popularity groups
- Strict lists (main subject) or broad lists (subject applies)
- CSV, JSON or Parquet files
Browse category sizes on websites by category or explore the database directly.
- Thousands to millions of sites
- Many countries at once
- Repeatable, structured lists
- Joining to your own data
- Category level, not your exact niche wording
- Very new sites may have thin content
- Country is set only where clear
- A paid licence, not a quick search
The seven methods side by side
A rough comparison. Dots run from one (weak) to five (strong) and reflect typical results, not every case.
| Method | Coverage | Accuracy | Speed | Structure | Best size |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Search operators | ●●○○○ | ●●●○○ | ●●●●○ | ●○○○○ | Up to 50 |
| Web directories | ●●○○○ | ●●○○○ | ●●●○○ | ●●●○○ | Up to 500 |
| Associations and fairs | ●●○○○ | ●●●●● | ●●○○○ | ●●○○○ | Up to 2,000 |
| Communities | ●○○○○ | ●●●●○ | ●○○○○ | ●○○○○ | Up to 100 |
| Curated lists | ●○○○○ | ●●●○○ | ●●●●○ | ●●○○○ | Up to 100 |
| Scraping | ●●●○○ | ●●○○○ | ●●○○○ | ●●○○○ | Up to 20,000 |
| Categorized data | ●●●●● | ●●●●○ | ●●●●● | ●●●●● | Any size |
A workflow that combines methods
The best lists usually mix sources. Here is a sequence that works for most niche projects, from a few hundred sites to many thousands.
Define the niche
Write down which sites are in and which are out, with two or three examples of each. This settles arguments later.
Pull the base list
Select the matching categories and countries from category data. For small projects, start with operators instead.
Narrow by size
Keep the popularity groups that matter. Tiny sites can be noise for advertising, yet gold for local sales.
Add trusted extras
Merge association members or community favourites, then remove duplicates on the domain.
Spot check
Open a random sample of 50 sites. If more than a few are off target, tighten the categories or switch to strict lists.
Keep it fresh
Plan a refresh. New sites launch daily, so a list from last year already misses part of the niche.
Example niches and the method that fits
Real requests we see from data buyers, and the approach that usually works best for each.
| Niche | Typical size | Best approach |
|---|---|---|
| Every news site in one country | Thousands | Category data, news category plus country filter. See the news domains list |
| Craft beer breweries in one region | Hundreds | Association member list, then search operators for gaps |
| Real estate agencies in Spain | Tens of thousands | Category data, real estate plus Spain filter |
| Top cooking blogs worldwide | Hundreds | Category data with a popularity cut, plus community favourites |
| Software vendors for HR teams | Thousands | Category data with IAB tiers, then a keyword check |
| Gambling sites to exclude from ads | Millions | Category data only; manual methods cannot keep up |
For industry-shaped niches, the website to industry page explains how sites map to industries, and our real estate domains page is an example of a ready industry view.
Signals that a site really belongs in the niche
When you review candidates by hand, these signals separate true members of a niche from sites that only mention the topic once.
Navigation
The main menu is about the topic. A bakery has products, ordering and opening hours, not just one blog post about bread.
Repeated content
Many pages cover the subject. One article is a mention; fifty articles are a focus.
Business model
The site earns money from the topic, through sales, bookings, subscriptions or ads aimed at that audience.
Audience
Comments, newsletters and social links point to people in the niche, not a general crowd.
Common mistakes when building niche lists
We see the same problems in lists that buyers bring to us for matching. Most are easy to avoid once you know them.
Counting pages, not sites
Search results return pages. Ten results from one large portal are one site, so remove duplicates on the domain early.
Mixing hosts and brands
shop.brand.com and brand.com may be one company. Decide whether your list is about domains, hosts or brands before you count.
Forgetting country editions
A brand with sites in twelve countries can count as one or twelve. Both are valid, but mixing them distorts any statistic.
Keeping dead sites
Lists from directories and old articles include closed sites and parked domains. Check that each site still serves its own content.
Ignoring size
A list where a national leader and a one-page hobby site weigh the same is hard to use. Add a popularity band to every row.
No definition
Without a written rule for what is in and out, two people building the same list will produce very different results.
Cleaning a list before you use it
A short cleaning pass makes any list, manual or bought, far more useful. These steps take minutes in a spreadsheet or database.
| Step | What to do | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Normalise | Lowercase, remove "http://", "www." and paths | So the same site is not listed three times |
| Deduplicate | Keep one row per domain | Accurate counts and no double outreach |
| Remove risky sites | Drop adult, gambling and parked domains unless you need them | Brand safety and clean results |
| Add country | Tag each site with the country it serves | Lets you split by market or sales territory |
| Add size | Tag each site with a popularity group | Lets you prioritise the sites that matter |
| Sample | Review 50 random rows by hand | Shows whether the definition holds in practice |
Checking a site you found
Whichever method you use, you will end up with sites you are not sure about. A category lookup answers the question quickly.
One site
Enter a domain in the domain checker and see its categories, country and popularity group.
Many sites
Send a file of domains and get categories back for all of them. Our website category lookup page explains single and bulk lookups.
Whole niches
Skip the lookups and order the category directly. See the database of websites by category for fields and taxonomies.
Finding websites by category: questions
How do I find websites in a specific niche?
For a few dozen sites, search operators, industry associations and community lists work well. For thousands of sites, or for whole countries, a categorized website database is faster and more complete.
Which search operators help find websites by category?
The most useful are quotes for exact phrases, site: to limit to a domain ending, intitle: and inurl: for words in titles and addresses, and a minus sign to exclude words. Search engines treat some operators as hints, so results vary.
Are web directories still useful?
General web directories are mostly outdated. Industry directories run by associations, chambers of commerce and trade fairs are still useful because they list active members in one niche.
Can I scrape search results to build a list?
Search engines generally restrict automated querying in their terms, and results are capped per query. It is slow and fragile, and it only returns pages that rank, not every site in a niche.
How many websites are there in a typical category?
Major categories run from about one million to well over ten million domains worldwide. Narrow niches can still hold tens of thousands of sites.
Can I find websites by category in one country only?
Yes. With search operators, limit results to the country ending, such as site:fr. With category data, filter on the country field, which also catches sites on .com that serve that country.
How do I find new websites in a niche?
Manual methods find new sites late, because new sites rarely rank or appear in directories. Category data that adds newly registered domains as they appear is the quicker route.
Is it legal to build a list of websites?
A list of public website domains is generally fine to compile. The care points are the terms of the sources you collect from and any personal data, such as names and emails, that you add later.
How do I check what category a website belongs to?
Use a website category lookup. Enter a domain and you get its categories, country and popularity group.
Get the whole niche, not just page one
Tell us the categories, countries and size range you need. We will size the list and send the options.
Request a category list Browse categories