Nathan Waters

Ever searched for that ultimate domain name you just came up with, only to find someone has taken it? … and worst still, that someone is simply sitting it on a parked page?

Well now the fun (or frustration begins).

You have the awesome website idea, but just need a short, easy domain which your visitors can remember and spell correctly. You need to find it, your life depends on it!

Here’s what to do:

1. Open Firefox… please tell me you use Firefox and not that other bug-ridden, security-holed, zero-tabbed alternative
2. Tab 1: www.dotster.com - I love this site. It allows you to search up to 50 different domains all at the same time. So I usually enter in as many as I can think of, hit search and see what’s available. NB: To be on the safe, click search again if a few of those “that would be such an awesome domain” comes up as being taken… as I’ve noticed on some occasions it says a particular domain is taken when it’s actually available.
3. Tab 2: www.nameboy.com - Another great site. Simply enter in a word or two, hit “go nameboy go!” and a pretty long list of mashed together words will come up and tell you whether they are available or not. This is a great way to find that available domain.
4. Tab 3: www.domainsbot.com - A recent site I just found which looks up domains, variations and whether or not they’re available or for sale on Sedo all on-the-fly using a neat AJAX script.
5. Tab 4: www.dictionary.com - This has two uses. One, searching the dictionary for a particular word, as sometimes the definition of the word can reveal some additional words that may be useful. And two, type in your word, click the “Thesaurus” option and search for alternative words.
6. Tab 5: www.rhymezone.com - This site is very useful for creating those domains that are remember-able. Enter in your word and a bunch of rhyming words are returned. Mash the two together and see how it sounds.
7. Tab 6: www.godaddy.com - Time to buy the domain. I use GoDaddy, but of course there are literally thousands of other places you can register a domain. GoDaddy is cheap and has a good reputation, so I tend to use them. Their checkout process is very slow, requiring each domain to be entered separately, and then there’s all the “Would you like to also buy…” stuff which you can just click “No Thanks, Continue to Checkout…”. One tip I’ll give you which I always use is to make use of the discounts. By this I mean listen to or watch Diggnation, which is not only hilarious and interesting, but at the end of each show they have a GoDaddy code (usually “DIGG”) you can use to get 10-20% off. When you get to the final checkout page on GoDaddy, there’s a little box which says “If you have a promo or source code enter it here:**”, simply enter in the code and click “Apply Code” and get a discount.

OK, that should get you most of the way over the line to creating and snapping-up that perfect domain name. If you’re still having trouble at this point, grab a piece of paper and write down every single word you can think of that relates to your business/website. The words can be directly related to what you sell, or can be words related to how you want your customers/visitors to feel about your website when they visit it… basically anything.

I’m not very creative when it comes to developing completely new words to use for a domain name, but this is another approach if you’re still having trouble finding an available domain. The word can come from anywhere. I have heard of people using words they heard their 1 or 2 year old child say, and moulding this into a domain name.

There are many pros and cons for and against creative domain names. Some pros include that it is an excellent way to create a brand when using a creative domain and it’s also a lot easier to find a short and available .com (something rare these days). Some cons are that some say search engines will rank your site higher if you have keywords in your domain name. (e.g. so when someone searches “cars”, your domain includes that keyword). A creative domain may also be difficult to spell or remember. It’s all really personal preference. If I found the perfect creative domain I’d grab it.

Now when it comes to domains, I’m paranoid. So if I find a name which I think is awesome and could fit well with an idea I have, then I buy it immediately. The reason being that if you leave it till a month or years time, it it most likely that someone will have taken it by then. It hurts the funds, but I figure if I need to I could probably turn my $8 *investment* into a couple of hundred or thousand dollars by simply selling the domain on somewhere like www.sitepoint.com. But if funds are an issue, then hold off until you can afford it.

Anyways, that’s all. Hope there were some helpful hints in that. Have fun searching, it’s an addiction.

Update: I’ve recently found a very interesting blog on brand naming which may also help with the domain naming/finding process.

Nathan Waters
Domain Paranoia