How to find a short domain name • Hacker News Board

Re: How to find a short domain name

#31

Post by brador » Sat, Mar 03, 2012, 4:15 PM UTC

guylhem wrote: post #24

gigq wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How much was the .com? I've seen offered prices of $5K+ for fairly generic 4 letter domains...lot's of speculators buying and holdnig I guess...

Re: How to find a short domain name

#32

Post by SkyMarshal » Sat, Mar 03, 2012, 4:17 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #11

How do we know that as these searches are executed that the domain names don't become unavailable, because someone parks on them? That historically has been the problem with domain-name searches. I'd like an absolute guarantee that the searching is done in a manner that doesn't alert registrars or their cronies to new domain names to park on before running many searches here. The application is a text-searching appli…

That was my first thought too. Any time I search for a domain name these days, my process goes something like:

1. Enter it into a web browser, see if it's in use or parked

2. If not, run whois on it at the commandline.

3. If not, decide whether I want to buy it. If so, do so right away, otherwise assume it will be lost in a day or so.

And I'm not even 100% sure I can trust the browser search, depending on what the DNS server I happen to be on does with failed lookups.

Re: How to find a short domain name

#33

Post by neilk » Sat, Mar 03, 2012, 4:18 PM UTC

matt1 wrote: post #21

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…

I recently obtained a five-letter domain name (Grovr) in .org/.net/.com, and felt good about doing so on the cheap.

I hit on the that name out of desperation leading to silliness. The idea has to do with directed acyclic graphs of trust relationships, hence trees, hence "grove".

There aren't a lot of real-world analogs, so I'd been struggling to find some short name that explained the concept. I was working with a few others until recently and they had picked names like "layervote" which I never liked much. "Grovr" is obscure, but it makes me happy, and I'll probably make trees the fundamental graphic theme and metaphor.

But now you're telling me that misspellings are actually a big problem? How much of a problem, quantitatively?

Does that outweigh googlability? (On the other hand, if you add one letter, there is a popular children's TV character there which I'll never outrank, so that might be a problem.)

Re: How to find a short domain name

#34

Post by shocks » Sat, Mar 03, 2012, 4:22 PM UTC

I felt a bit limited by this, so I've just knocked up a similar tool with far more flexibility. Still actively developing it, but it's far quicker already.

http://dev.mindfuzz.net/domain/

Edit: Grammar.

Re: How to find a short domain name

#35

Post by larrys » Sat, Mar 03, 2012, 4:36 PM UTC

matt1 wrote: post #21

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…

"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"

Agree 100%.

I'd like to give my positive experience with leandomainsearch.com.

I used it when coming up with potential domains for a client (that was referred by a VC - a startup ready to launch with a new domain basically.).

Although the client ended up buying a domain (for sale) that I also suggested, I didn't tell them which names I found that were "free" essentially and which names they would have to buy from an owner. Or any pricing. I didn't want to color their opinion by creating a halo around the names available for purchase.

The majority of the ideas I got for available domains were from LDS. (In all fairness I also curated that list based on my knowledge since if you've used LDS you know it presents an overwhelming number of possibilities.)

The clients budget was about $20,000 for a domain purchase. In the end we bought two domains (one the one they wanted and one which was a typo of the one they wanted) for about $3500 total.

In my opinion the LDS names were as good as the ones the client wanted to buy. In some ways I thought they were better (but of course it's not my startup and maybe I was rated them higher because I choose them..).

The idea that I gave them when considering the final list (which took them several weeks to decide on) was to go out on the street and run the names by potential clients and consumers on this particular site and to see which names resonated with them. That allowed them to hone in on a great name at a reasonable price.

In any case even though they didn't go with the LDS name it was very valuable in the process.

Re: How to find a short domain name

#36

Post by matt1 » Sat, Mar 03, 2012, 4:41 PM UTC

neilk wrote: post #33

matt1 wrote: post #21

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…

I recently obtained a five-letter domain name (Grovr) in .org/.net/.com, and felt good about doing so on the cheap. I hit on the that name out of desperation leading to silliness. The idea has to do with directed acyclic graphs of trust relationships, hence trees, hence "grove". There aren't a lot of real-world analogs, so I'd been struggling to find some short name that explained the concept. I was working with a fe…

"But now you're telling me that misspellings are actually a big problem? How much of a problem, quantitatively?"

When you verbally tell someone about your site, how do you do it? Do you spell out the domain name? If not, people are probably having trouble finding it because it's not a standard spelling. And looking at the name I'm not even sure how to say it (is it "groover" or "grover"?). If you do spell it out, that should be an even bigger indication that people are going to have trouble because you had to spell it out in order for them to find it.

Re: How to find a short domain name

#37

Post by larrys » Sat, Mar 03, 2012, 4:42 PM UTC

shocks wrote: post #34

I felt a bit limited by this, so I've just knocked up a similar tool with far more flexibility. Still actively developing it, but it's far quicker already. http://dev.mindfuzz.net/domain/ Edit: Grammar.

Much better. I like this. Reminds me of when I did the same thing years ago with regexs to grab 3/4 letter .com (really there were so many available back then you had to whittle the list down).

Re: How to find a short domain name

#38

Post by NyxWulf » Sat, Mar 03, 2012, 4:43 PM UTC

matt1 wrote: post #21

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…

I just checked out lean domain search, it actually looks pretty handy. I like how fast it is at generating domain names and checking for availability. One feature that would make it much more useful is the ability to specify multiple words and have it do a combinatorial check on them against your other words.

One other thing, the "LDS" favicon took me by surprise. I had tabbed away for a second, then coming back I saw LDS and thought "now how the hell did I get on Mormon church site?". Only after I clicked back to it did I realize it was your site. I live in Utah, and the Mormon church is very prevalent here, so I don't know if others would have the same thought or reaction. Just thought I'd mention it. Good luck with leandomainsearch

Re: How to find a short domain name

#39

Post by shocks » Sat, Mar 03, 2012, 4:48 PM UTC

larrys wrote: post #37

shocks wrote: post #34

I felt a bit limited by this, so I've just knocked up a similar tool with far more flexibility. Still actively developing it, but it's far quicker already. http://dev.mindfuzz.net/domain/ Edit: Grammar.

Much better. I like this. Reminds me of when I did the same thing years ago with regexs to grab 3/4 letter .com (really there were so many available back then you had to whittle the list down).

Thanks! I'm looking at adding more tld's and words/synonyms.

Re: How to find a short domain name

#40

Post by matt1 » Sat, Mar 03, 2012, 4:51 PM UTC

larrys wrote: post #35

matt1 wrote: post #21

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…

"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" Agree 100%. I'd like to give my positive experience with leandomainsearch.com. I used it when coming up with potential domains for a client (that was referred by a VC - a startup ready…

Thanks larrys, that's some of the best feedback I've received.

I encourage everyone to do this: find some premium domain names that cost $X,XXX or $XX,XXX and mix them in with results from Lean Domain Search and see if people really prefer the expensive ones. (That would actually make a really good marketing tool/game that I could implement on the site itself.)

I've said it before: as word spreads that there actually are a lot of quality available .com domain names out there, I think the premium domain name industry is going to feel it. As it should.