Finding a .com domain name for your startup

>If you’re starting a web-based business you more than likely want a .com domain name.

Quite often you might start with some other domain and once your business starts growing you want to find a .com domain for it.

But all the good .com’s are gone, right?

Not necessarily. You just need a bit of imagination to find the right one. Here are some tools and insight I’ve gathered over the years that might make things a little easier for you:

Dot-o-mator

In their own words: “Use Dot-o-mator to create domain name suggestions. Just enter a word (or words) in the left box, and choose some endings (or enter your own). Click to combine them. If you see a name you like, you can check its availability or save it to your scratchboard.”

www.dotomator.com

Word Matcher

Want a nonsense-word that follows a specific pattern? Or a domain name that follows a particular pattern (like *o*o*o (i.e.: dojomo.com))
This is a great tool for generating a list of words following certain patterns. There are a lot of options so you can get quite creative.

www.quinapalus.com/cgi-bin/match

Bulk Checking of Domains

If you’ve come up with a list of possible names, it can be a pain to check them all individually. This is where a bulk name checker comes in handy. You can paste in a list of domain names and it will check them all for you. Much quicker!

Domain Tools Bulk Checker

Let Someone Else Do It

If all else fails, get someone else to do it. Simon Swords told me about a site he discovered called startupgods.com. They’ll come up with an available and relevant .com domain for your new startup for $100 or your money back.

startupgods.com

Get Quirky

If you can’t find a .com you want, then perhaps you could get a quirky name using one of the other domain name extensions.

@8bitKev pointed our domai.nr, a smart service that comes up with suggestions using the less common extensions for domains like ‘kashfl.ow’ or ‘fre.sh’. It also checks whether the domains are available for you and tells you where to register them.

[Updated] In the comments below, Danny also points to crazynamer.com which is similar in concept.

domai.nr or crazynamer.com

Second-hand goods

[Updated] In the comments below, Jonathan from Anglotopia suggest checking out “dropped” domain names. These are domains that have been previously registered but the registrant hasn’t renewed it.

dropped.ie

Don’t Rush!

Oh my god, oh my god, ohmygod, OMG!!! It’s available!!! Quick, pass my credit card.

SLOW DOWN! If it’s available now it’ll probably be available in another hour or two or even tomorrow. It’s way too easy to buy a bunch of domain names you end up not using. Or worse still, to buy an unusable domain name.

After hours of searching I fell of my seat when a suitable-looking domain popped up as available and I bought it immediately. Then I realised cojono.com wasn’t going to be much use as ‘cojono’ could be seen as the singular of the spanish plural ‘cojones’ – testicles, in English.

Good luck with your search.

Any nice tools we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments below

http://londontopia.net jonathanwthomas

I also recommend http://dropped.ie – it’s a great way to search domains that have recently been dropped off the registrars and it will also help you come up with ideas if the domain you want isn’t available.

Generally, it’s not really the domain that matters – but what you end up putting on it. Just make it catchy and easy to remember and you should be fine. When we started Anglotopia – only Anglotopia.net was available so that’s what we bought. I later acquired the .com but that was after we’d already established our ‘brand’ so it just redirects to .net.

The more critical thing to worry about is making sure you rank in the search engine for your domain name – we get so much traffic from people who just search for ‘anglotopia’ rather that type in the URL so it’s important to be at the top of the results.

Many people prefer to have .com’s but choosing to generally go with .net domains has not stymied our growth at all.
http://www.seanprice.co.uk Sean Price

Great tool I use to find domains in a very nice way is domainr (http://domai.nr/) fantastic tool!
http://www.massivemessage.co.uk MassiveMessage

I agree with prev posts, check out domains that are dropping. I had bought almost the full ‘monopoly’ set of domains for my company but the holy grail .com was already registered. I got the owners details through WHois and approached directly with an offer to purchase. Sooo glad that the buyer ignored these emails as 3 months later the registration expired and I bought the dropped name at a Snapnames auction for 5% of the price I was willing to pay!!
http://www.irunsolutions.co.uk Lynnette

There are so many other considerations when chosing your domain name – if you are wanting to market your business online then you need to understand the search terms that your potential customers will be searching for in order to find you. Just buying your company’s name does not guarantee people will find you online, especially if your brand isnt well known. My advice is take advice from internet marketing specialists before parting with any of your hard earned cash.
http://quotealbum.com Danny

Hi,

Nice post. For the previous commenters – no need to wait for domains to drop. There are quite a lot of available domains, if you are creative.

See http://crazynamer.com
Will generate interesting names for a company or website, with surprisingly a lot of available short .com domains.

Hope someone finds it useful.
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