The best place to see recently launched websites is the public certificate logs, which you can search free at crt.sh: a new site needs an HTTPS certificate, and publicly trusted certificates are logged as they are issued. Product Hunt, BetaList, Google's date filter and launch posts on social media cover some of what the logs miss. Then date each site, read its homepage for five minutes, and pitch the one fix that is your job.
What counts as a recently launched website?
For prospecting, recently launched means the site went public in the last week or two. The day the domain was bought and the day the company was formed both come earlier, sometimes months earlier, and there is nothing to look at yet.
Three dates tell you where a site is:
| Date | Where to find it | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Domain registered | An RDAP lookup (RDAP replaced WHOIS for generic domains) | When someone bought the name |
| First HTTPS certificate | crt.sh | Roughly when the site first went live on HTTPS |
| First archive capture | The Wayback Machine at web.archive.org | When a crawler first saw a page there, if one has |
A site whose domain is from last month and whose first certificate is from this week is the one you want. A domain from 2015 with a certificate from this week is usually an old business that renewed or moved hosts. Treat that one as an established site.
Where can you see recently launched websites?
| Source | What shows up | How fresh | Cost | Good for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Certificate Transparency logs | Any site that gets an HTTPS certificate | Hours to days | Free | Every kind of service |
| Product Hunt and BetaList | Startups and apps announcing a launch | Launch day | Free | Content, growth and design work for startups |
| Website builder showcases | Sites built on that builder, picked by the builder | Weeks, often later | Free | SEO and marketing (the design is already done) |
| Google's date filter | Pages Google indexed recently | Days to weeks | Free | Niche and local searches |
| Social media launch posts | Owners announcing a new site | Launch day | Free | Social, content and local work |
Certificate Transparency logs
This is the widest view. Certificate Transparency is a set of public logs that record publicly trusted certificates as they are issued. Browsers expect HTTPS now, so almost every new site gets a certificate around the day it goes live.
crt.sh lets you search the logs for free:
- Search a domain to see its full certificate history. The oldest entry dates its first launch on HTTPS.
- Search with
%as a wildcard to discover names, for example%bakery%or%physio%. Broad words time out, so keep the term narrow. - Ignore subdomains like
mail.,cpanel.,staging.anddev.. Keep the bare domain and itswww.version. - Each result shows a Not Before date, which is when the certificate became valid. Scan that column for this week, then search each promising domain on its own to confirm this week's certificate is its first, not a renewal.
Expect noise. Plenty of certificates belong to parked domains, test servers and hosting control panels, and plenty of new names never become more than a holding page.
Product Hunt and BetaList
Product Hunt lists new products every day, and BetaList collects early stage startups around their launch. Everything there is new by definition, and the makers are usually named on the launch page, so you know who to write to.
The catch is that these are mostly software startups, and many already have a designer or a technical cofounder. Pitch what they are least likely to have covered in launch week. That is usually content, SEO basics, or the preview image that appears when their launch link gets shared.
Website builder showcases and design galleries
Many builders run public galleries of sites made with their tool, Made in Webflow being one example. The sites are real and fairly recent, but they were picked because they already look good, so a web designer has little to offer there. An SEO or a marketer may have plenty, since a beautiful site can still ship with no meta description. Design galleries that collect polished sites are similar: most were built by a studio that is still on the job, so they are better for studying layouts than for finding clients.
Google's date filter
Search a niche and a place, for example yoga studio leeds, then open Tools and set the time to Past week or Past month. You get pages Google dates as recent, not sites that launched recently, so a ten year old site with a new blog post will show up too. It still finds local sites the logs make hard to spot, because you can search by town.
Social media launch posts
Owners announce new sites. On Instagram, LinkedIn, X or Facebook, search phrases like new website, website is live or site is finally live together with a niche or a town. The owner has just told the world they care about the site, and you can reply to the post itself.
How do you tell a real launch from a parked page?
Most new certificates do not belong to a business you can sell to. Run each one through four quick checks:
- Does it load? A connection error, a registrar parking page or a domain for sale notice means move on.
- Is it a business? It should say what it sells and how to buy, book or get in touch. Personal blogs, template demos, fan pages and community groups are not leads.
- Is it new? Check the domain date and the first certificate date. Both recent means a launch. An old domain with a new certificate means a renewal or a rebuild.
- Can you reach a person? Look for an email on the site, in the footer, or in the social bio linked from the homepage. Use what they publish. Guessed addresses bounce, and bounces hurt your sending reputation.
If you sell locally, add a fifth check: the site names your town or region.
What stage is the site at, and what do you pitch?
A recently launched site is usually at one of four stages, and the stage decides the pitch more than your service does.
| Stage | What you see | What it needs | Who should pitch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Holding page | A logo, a line of text, maybe an email | A real website | Web designers and developers |
| Soft launch | A few pages, template text left in, rough edges | Finishing work | Designers, developers, copywriters |
| Full launch | A complete site with products or services listed | Visibility and sharing | SEO, social, ads, content |
| First month | Live a few weeks, little has changed since | Steady traffic | SEO retainers, content, email marketing |
A holding page is the clearest web design lead there is, because the owner has already admitted the site is not done. Everyone else should wait for a full site. Until then there is nothing to optimise or share.
How do you read a new homepage in five minutes?
Open the homepage, right click, choose View page source, and search the code with Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on a Mac). Only claim what you can see on the homepage. One page cannot tell you whether a business takes bookings, has reviews or runs analytics, so leave those out of your message.
| Gap | How to spot it | What it costs the business | Whose job it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| No meta description | No meta name="description" tag | Google picks its own text for the snippet, sometimes a cookie notice | SEO |
| No social preview image | No og:image tag | Shared links on WhatsApp, LinkedIn or Facebook show no picture | Social, ads, brand |
| No favicon | A blank or default icon in the browser tab | Looks unfinished in tabs and bookmarks, and Google can show it beside results | Design, brand |
| Images with no alt text | img tags with no alt, or an empty one | Screen reader users hear nothing useful, and search engines learn less | SEO, development |
| Old copyright year | A 2023 footer on a site that launched this month | A template nobody finished, which makes a new site look neglected | Design, development |
| Pages over plain http | The site stays on http://, or links to http:// pages | Browsers label those pages not secure | Development |
Before you pitch a favicon, read Google's guide to how favicons appear in search results, so you describe the problem the way Google does.
Then check twice. Paste the link into a chat with yourself to see the preview. Search the business name to see the real snippet. One wrong claim in the first line and the owner stops reading.
Which gap should you lead with?
Pick one. Six problems in a first email reads like an audit nobody asked for. Lead with the gap the owner can see for themselves and that is clearly your job:
- Web designers: a holding page, an old copyright year, or a missing favicon.
- Developers: pages on plain http, or images with no alt text across the whole homepage.
- SEO people: a missing meta description. Show them the snippet Google picked instead.
- Social and ads people: a missing preview image. Send a screenshot of their bare shared link.
- Brand studios: the favicon and the preview image together, pitched as how the brand looks outside the website.
What should the first message say?
Keep it short and about them. It needs four things: a detail that proves you looked, the gap and what it costs, a small free offer, and an easy way to say no.
An SEO pitch
Subject: The Google snippet for Kettle and Crumb
Hi Sam,
I saw Kettle and Crumb's site went live this month. The sourdough subscription caught my eye.
When I searched your name, Google showed your cookie banner as the description under the result. That happens when a homepage has no meta description, because Google has to pick some text itself.
I write these for small food businesses. I can send three versions for your homepage, free, and you can use whichever you like. Want them? Happy to leave it if not.
Priya
A developer pitch
Subject: The Not secure label on Northgate Joinery
Hi Marco,
Congratulations on the new Northgate Joinery site. The photos of the oak staircases are great.
I noticed the site loads on plain http, so Chrome shows Not secure next to the address, which is the last thing you want a customer to see before they ask for a quote. It is usually a quick fix with a free certificate and a redirect.
I can send you the steps for free if you would like to do it yourself, or set it up for you this week. Which would suit you?
Dan
Giving the steps away works. The owner remembers who helped, and many will ask you to do it anyway.
Follow up once, four or five days later, with something new: the drafted descriptions, a mock-up, or a before and after screenshot. Then stop.
How do you keep up without checking the logs every day?
Doing this by hand once is worth it. You learn what new sites in your niche look like and which gaps keep coming up. Doing it every day is slow, because most of the time goes on names you never write to.
Vetted Leads does that filtering for you. It reads the certificate logs as sites go live, keeps the real businesses and online stores, dates each domain, lists the homepage gaps from the table above, and only shows emails that the business's own mail server confirmed exist. As of 28 October 2026 the feed holds 64,623 leads, 1,067 of them launched in the previous 24 hours, and on 27 October the crawler checked 823,891 sites.
You can try it with 3 free contacts, once, with no card, and see the newest 50 leads each day. On the Pro plan, Freddy drafts the first message from the site's gaps. The plans are on the pricing page, and if SEO is your service, the page on finding SEO clients shows how the feed fits that work.
For sources beyond websites, such as company registers and local opening announcements, see how to find new businesses online the week they launch.
What mistakes should you avoid?
- Pitching a domain that shows nothing. Wait until there is at least a page to point at.
- Calling an old business new. Check the domain date as well as the certificate.
- Claiming what one page cannot show. A homepage cannot tell you a business has no booking system, so do not say it does.
- Sending a full audit. One gap usually gets read, and a list of ten usually gets archived.
- Pitching design to a showcase site. It was picked for the gallery because it already looks good.
- Writing to a guessed address. Use the one they publish.
Try it today. Search crt.sh for one word from your niche, keep the five domains whose first certificate is from this week, read each homepage for five minutes, and write to the two with the clearest gap.
Questions people ask
How can I see websites that launched today?
Search the public certificate logs at crt.sh. A new website needs an HTTPS certificate, and publicly trusted certificates are logged as they are issued, so a domain whose first certificate is from today is usually a site going live today. Use a niche word with % as a wildcard, such as %bakery%, and skip subdomains like mail. or staging.
How do I find out when a website was launched?
Check three dates. An RDAP lookup gives the date the domain was registered, crt.sh gives the date of its first HTTPS certificate, and the Wayback Machine shows when a page there was first captured, if it has been. A first certificate from this week on a domain registered in the last few months is a new launch. An old domain with a new certificate is usually a renewal or a rebuild.
Is there a free list of new websites?
Not one list that covers them all. The certificate logs are free to search and show the widest range, Product Hunt and BetaList show startup launches, and several sites publish daily lists of newly registered domains, though most of those names never become a website. Each source needs checking before you contact anyone on it.
What do new websites usually get wrong?
The homepage gaps that show up most often are a missing meta description, no social preview image, no favicon, images with no alt text, a copyright year left over from the template, and pages that still load over plain http. All six can be checked from the homepage source in a few minutes.
How soon should I contact a newly launched website?
Within the first week or two after it goes live. There is a real site to look at, so you can say something specific, and the owner is still finishing things and reading every email. Contacting a domain that does not load anything yet is too early, because there is nothing to point at.