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How to find a short domain name

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Re: How to find a short domain name

#21

Post by matt1 »

A few years back I built Domain Pigeon, a similar tool, that generated web 2.0-style domain names and made them available to visitors. One of my big lessons learned from that experience was that web 2.0 style domain names are NOT good domain names. More often than not people can't remember them and when they can, they misspell it and if they can spell it, it's only because someone had to spell it out when telling it to them.

I recently launched a follow up to Domain Pigeon called Lean Domain Search which I think handles the problem a lot better [1]. Rather than generating random words, it pairs your search phrase with 1,500+ other keywords and instantly shows you which are available. In this way, every domain it generates is a combination of two or more actual words which makes it much easier to remember and explain to people.

By all means explore and see what your options are, but try to pick a name that will be easy for people to remember and easy to spell.

[1] http://www.leandomainsearch.com

Re: How to find a short domain name

#22

Post by pg_bot »

You should be focusing on the quality of the domain and not the length. This point is clearly illustrated when you use this service, as almost every domain generated is awful. While it is true that a domain can be too long, you will certainly find better domain names by looking around 8-14 characters instead of 4-7.

Re: How to find a short domain name

#23

Post by shingen »

drewonstuff wrote: post #14
drostie wrote: post #2

This is beautiful, but it's such a shame that US law enforcement have been stealing .com domains from people for things that their users have done. We've had a bunch of Hacker News threads and I don't want to resurrect old beasts of that sort, but some option for non dot-com names would be wonderful. (Especially because .com reminds me of 1999-2001 at this point and it seems like we designers should perhaps be treati…

I couldn't disagree more with that we should be treating .com as passe. While .me or whatever is "cool", the majority of the world still relates to .com's the most. I'm in Taiwan right now and the people here probably have no idea what a .me or a .it is. They are using .com.tw, not .me.tw (and yes, of course I understand that .me is from Montenegro and this would never be possible). And the "reminds me of 1999-2001"…

I agree. A quick glance at the top 5,000 domains in terms of traffic more than demonstrates the sheer dominance of the .com brand for domains. It's beyond overwhelming.

There are very few relevant .me or .io (etc) domains. That will continue to be the case for years to come.

It's not Twitter.me or TwitPic.me or yfrog.me, it's not Tumblr.me, it's not Pinterest.me, it's not Groupon.me, it's not homeaway.me, it's not yelp.me. All the major success stories online will continue to be branded primarily through .com - and those that start out as .me or .io will move to .com as they can afford to purchase the prime domain.

Re: How to find a short domain name

#24

Post by guylhem »

gigq wrote: post #20
damusnet wrote: post #18

Does it mean that all 4-letter-.com domain names are taken?

Yep, all 4 letter domains were registered back in 2007 ( http://www.dotsauce.com/2007/11/02/four-letter-domains-all-r... ). Of course domains expire or are sold between owners so getting a 4 letter domain is still possible.

And you can get them for cheap. Got one .com as recently as last year, with the .org as a freebie. I'm now considering selling my 3 letters/numbers domain name - .net and .org.

Re: How to find a short domain name

#25

Post by shingen »

clone1018 wrote: post #15
meow wrote: post #12

Takes so long to generate first 50 names even when searching with just the defaults... looks like they don't really cache anything..

Cache random results?

No such thing as a random result when you have static selection boxes defining specific input. The results are obviously restrained by what letter combinations you pick (ie finite).

You could make an argument that caching all the possible combinations would be unreasonable for what's likely a low cost setup. However, I'd argue in favor of caching with both a popular and a simple reduction scheme.

Could speed it up radically by just caching on the first letter / number.

Re: How to find a short domain name

#26

Post by ericabiz »

WA wrote: post #16

I got this error a little later, when the script was already running for a while: Error Connecting To Server: whois.crsnic.net Maybe you should not use "whois" but just a simple "host" or "ping" to resolve whether or not a domain is free. When in doubt, you can still do an "whois", but for a heuristic approach, it would be waaay faster.

Faster, but inaccurate. There are plenty of domains that are registered, but the DNS doesn't resolve. That doesn't mean they are available to register!

Re: How to find a short domain name

#27

Post by gravitronic »

ericabiz wrote: post #26
WA wrote: post #16

I got this error a little later, when the script was already running for a while: Error Connecting To Server: whois.crsnic.net Maybe you should not use "whois" but just a simple "host" or "ping" to resolve whether or not a domain is free. When in doubt, you can still do an "whois", but for a heuristic approach, it would be waaay faster.

Faster, but inaccurate. There are plenty of domains that are registered, but the DNS doesn't resolve. That doesn't mean they are available to register!

When I wrote a domain searcher script what I did was filter first by names that return are resolvable, and then whois the remainder. Reduces load on the dependent whois server whose terms of service usually say "don't run scripts against me"

Re: How to find a short domain name

#28

Post by brianbreslin »

WA wrote: post #16

I got this error a little later, when the script was already running for a while: Error Connecting To Server: whois.crsnic.net Maybe you should not use "whois" but just a simple "host" or "ping" to resolve whether or not a domain is free. When in doubt, you can still do an "whois", but for a heuristic approach, it would be waaay faster.

do you think that would return too many false-positives? many of these domain search tools use an api for whois or for searching.

Re: How to find a short domain name

#29

Post by brianbreslin »

drewonstuff wrote: post #14
drostie wrote: post #2

This is beautiful, but it's such a shame that US law enforcement have been stealing .com domains from people for things that their users have done. We've had a bunch of Hacker News threads and I don't want to resurrect old beasts of that sort, but some option for non dot-com names would be wonderful. (Especially because .com reminds me of 1999-2001 at this point and it seems like we designers should perhaps be treati…

I couldn't disagree more with that we should be treating .com as passe. While .me or whatever is "cool", the majority of the world still relates to .com's the most. I'm in Taiwan right now and the people here probably have no idea what a .me or a .it is. They are using .com.tw, not .me.tw (and yes, of course I understand that .me is from Montenegro and this would never be possible). And the "reminds me of 1999-2001"…

Actually .me.tw would be possible, just as there are .gov.tw etc. so .com in the .com.tw is not a top-level domain (.tw is), it is a 2nd level domain in this case. so there could be xyz.tw just like .co was originally exclusive to government of colombia and you could only get 2nd level domains, ex domain.com.co etc.

Re: How to find a short domain name

#30

Post by itsprofitbaron »

damusnet wrote: post #18

Does it mean that all 4-letter-.com domain names are taken?

When they all were taken mainly by domainers they were going crazy that they'd be the new LLL.com's where the prices went from $xxx to $xx,xxx in a very short period of time.

However, what has happened with LLLL.com's is that they went very quickly to $xxx but have since dropped considerably so you can acquire LLLL.com's (4 letter.com's) from $15 upwards although if you want a really nice LLLL.com such as Made, Ball etc then those prices are different regardless of it being an LLLL or not.

Just have a look on Domainer forums such as Namepros, DNF, DigitalPoint etc and you can find some really cheap.

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