Are all the good domains taken? • Hacker News Board

Re: Are all the good domains taken?

#11

Post by ra » Mon, Apr 28, 2008, 11:03 AM UTC

A great option is to look at expiring names for domains being dropped because domainers couldn't monetize them.

A good tool is this, look at the tdnam expiring list: http://www.freshdrop.net/expiring_names.php

Just filter out everything except .com, and have a scan through. Hundreds of names drop each day. Minimum cost is $10 + reg fee, which is another $10 per year.

Right now I can see these dropping today, with no takers yet:

waffly.com zanze.com upbreak.com tibbu.com serific.com foxtrots.com frankable.com measurably.com

It's a gold mine!

Rich

Re: Are all the good domains taken?

#12

Post by kleevr » Mon, Apr 28, 2008, 11:07 AM UTC

swombat wrote: post #7

5-letter doesn't necessarily mean good. For instance, the 5-letter domains mentioned by kleevr in another post (kleevr.com, kratr.com, rabyt.com, exphi.com, excyt.com, xcytr.com, zroone.com, onezro.com, grabyt.com) might be nice and geeky, but good luck trying to get someone to remember them. There's plenty of good stuff in 6/7-letters. I recently registered flails.org for an open-source project, and my latest busine…

I think domains themselves will be old news before too long anyways. I think OpenDNS is working on some cool ideas in the area.

I bought a domain like CarTrust.com for about $400, wanted to build a site to fix the 'how to find a good mechanic' problem, but recently realized car care wasn't a core passion of mine, so I passed the domain on to someone else. I'd spend at least two weeks playing on registrars before checking out the auctions, because if you work at it long enough I'm positive you'll find something you like that's unregistered.

Re: Are all the good domains taken?

#13

Post by adrianwaj » Mon, Apr 28, 2008, 11:09 AM UTC

Heaps of domains left.

Your ideal domain + an extra short common word at the end of it: tip, now, it, ify, zone, space, net, repeat word + .com

Re: Are all the good domains taken?

#14

Post by rob » Mon, Apr 28, 2008, 11:23 AM UTC

Pretty much all of the generic, single/double words and three character domains are gone (and the people who own them are making $$$), but I've still found some good ones by adding two words together and being creative. It's just a little harder today than it was in 1999.

Re: Are all the good domains taken?

#15

Post by coderrr » Mon, Apr 28, 2008, 11:32 AM UTC

There may be no 4 letter, but there are still lots of 4 digit [a-z0-9-] .com domain names. Maybe not ones that you want, but they're there.

example: i48u.com, o440.com, u0-0.com, etc...

Re: Are all the good domains taken?

#16

Post by STHayden » Mon, Apr 28, 2008, 11:57 AM UTC

I often wonder ho this will scare over the next 10, 20, 30 years. It's hard enough now... by 2037 will there be any domain left?

Re: Are all the good domains taken?

#17

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 28, 2008, 11:58 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Are all the good domains taken?

#18

Post by sc » Mon, Apr 28, 2008, 11:58 AM UTC

It's not always about size. Sometimes it's about memorability. I think we're way past the point of "web 2.0"-y names being memorable (though some will still make it out of obfuscation).

Take a word or two that work well with your idea. There are millions of these small combinations out there.

Re: Are all the good domains taken?

#19

Post by jgfoot » Mon, Apr 28, 2008, 12:11 PM UTC

I know that marketing types tell us to ignore everything except .com, but is that still valid in 2008? There are a kajillion of TLDs available for global registration now, and many have lots of English-word domains available.

Re: Are all the good domains taken?

#20

Post by epi0Bauqu » Mon, Apr 28, 2008, 12:35 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #9

There are probably still 4 letter domain names in .us (and friends). I got jrock.us a few years ago -- nice-n-short :)

"Just" and a "few years ago" don't really mesh :) And jrock is 5 letters! Sorry if this is coming off differently than I mean it--I just think this comment is funny.