There are probably still 4 letter domain names in .us (and friends). I got jrock.us a few years ago -- nice-n-short :)
There are still some okay 4 letter domains out there, too, in .COM.
The best I managed to grab recently was 1FTW.com.
Are all the good domains taken?
31–40 of 44 posts
Re: Are all the good domains taken?
#32There are still good domains out there. I just bought nect.us, for example (so I can do con.nect.us)
Re: Are all the good domains taken?
#33Names are out there, but you just have to be a bit more creative about picking them. You also need to be a bit more flexible about what you're willing to accept in having a domain that 'has bad spelling' or other quirks.
Re: Are all the good domains taken?
#34A 5 or 6 letter domain name isn't necessarily significantly better than a, say, 7 or 8 letter domain name. twitter.com is much better than twtr.com or similar. The trick nowadays, unless you want some unpronounceable nonsense, is to conjoin two words in some way. Let's assume your site's main topic / product / quality is "widgets." You could go with things like: gowidgets, widgetstoday, hotwidgets, redwidgets, widget…
That kind tend to be more forgettable precisely because there are so many combinations of words. For example, it's been a decade or so and I still don't remember if a given office supply store is Office Max or Office Depot. But I do know if it's a Staples or not.
Re: Are all the good domains taken?
#35Heaps 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
That's what 37signals does: basecamphq.com, backpackit.com, highrisehq.com, campfirenow.com
Re: Are all the good domains taken?
#36I've used http://pickydomains.com a few times. You pay $50 and provide information on what you're looking for (names you like, etc.). They brainstorm names. If they find one you like, they keep the money. Otherwise, they refund it. We used them when brainstorming Tumblon (http://tumblon.com) and Zencoder (http://zencoder.tv). In both cases, they didn't come up with the final name we used, but they came close and gave us some inspiration for our final name. Most of the suggestions aren't any good, but when you get 100+ suggestions, a few are usually worthwhile.
Re: Are all the good domains taken?
#37Heaps 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
That's what 37signals does: basecamphq.com, backpackit.com, highrisehq.com, campfirenow.com
and it always means I go to basecamp.com or campfire.com and then remember...
Re: Are all the good domains taken?
#38I 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.
I had one domain name I wanted for my personal site, and the .com was taken (and not even available for an extortionate amount despite that there was only advertising on there), so I got that name .org and .net.
Unless people knew/looked up my address from an email or business card, people kept going to the .com address..and sent email to the .com address as well and got "no such address" replies back. Then they'd call me up or something and bother me about it. Even my mom sent emails to the .com address.
Eventually I gave up and got another name that ended in .com, and I haven't had problems yet. Plus, it's something fairly memorable (if you know me) and also the first few google results for the name :D
I suppose the big problem is that even with the big name sites (del.icio.us comes to mind), some people have a hard time remembering "delicious" as being del.icio.us and instead go to delicious.com (I think I even heard something about them changing the main site address to .com...edit: it was from a TC article about the new preview.). It's been too ingrained into people's heads. It's probably not going to change anytime soon.
edit the second because it just popped up in my head: I might note this probably depends on where you live (or more specifically, where your visitors live). .com seems to be the default TLD people think of (sometimes the only one) in the US. Meanwhile it's not necessarily the case e.g. in South Korea, where .co.kr is just as well known as .com, et cetera.
edit the third because I haven't fully woken up yet (although it's 1pm PDT): I'm the general computer person for a small nonprofit in Southern California. We have a .org address, and you'd imagine it would be appropriate to use a .org address and that people would remember it. Nope. We're now considering buying the .com and redirecting to the .org because people have trouble associating a .org with an organization.
Re: Are all the good domains taken?
#39A 5 or 6 letter domain name isn't necessarily significantly better than a, say, 7 or 8 letter domain name. twitter.com is much better than twtr.com or similar. The trick nowadays, unless you want some unpronounceable nonsense, is to conjoin two words in some way. Let's assume your site's main topic / product / quality is "widgets." You could go with things like: gowidgets, widgetstoday, hotwidgets, redwidgets, widget…
That kind tend to be more forgettable precisely because there are so many combinations of words. For example, it's been a decade or so and I still don't remember if a given office supply store is Office Max or Office Depot. But I do know if it's a Staples or not.
That's the job of branding. Microsoft, Slashdot, Burger King, Coca Cola, TechCrunch, General Motors, Morgan Stanley and Mercedes Benz aren't particularly forgettable (even though Microsoft is about as generic as it gets!)
I'm not sure there are significantly more successful single word brands than longer named brands, although it certainly seems to be true online.
Re: Are all the good domains taken?
#40There are still good domains out there. I just bought nect.us, for example (so I can do con.nect.us)
The problem I have with those del.icio.us type urls is that I have a really hard time remembering where the dots go.
Way back when del.icio.us was just getting popular, someone told me about it. When I got home, I tried "delicio.us", "delicious.com", "de.licio.us", etc. Had to resort to googling to find the place.
Also, you have "con.nect.us", but who has "connect.us"? I think they'll be getting a lot of your traffic...