"dreams" by paojus
I’ve seen a lot of people complaining that there are no good dot coms left. Sure, the obvious ones are gone, but a little creativity can help you to land a great name. Some of my domain names include:
- lyricless.com
- spamcomment.com
- quickblogtips.com
- howtoachieveanything.com (currently empty)
Just because the first domain you searched for is taken, doesn’t mean you can’t find something else. It might even be better than your first choice. Here are some tips I’ve come up with while looking for new domain names.
Use a Thesaurus
Found a potentially good domain name, but it’s not available? Try looking up one of the words in a thesaurus and see if you can get something that’s available.
This can backfire if you go for something too obscure, though. Imagine if I’d called Quick Blog Tips something a bit more thesaurus-y, like Vivacious Blog Tips, or Mercurial Blog Tips. It’s a bit much!
Choose Something Less Generic
I once created a blog called The Guide to Blogging. Not a bad name, but fairly bland. Weekly Blogging wasn’t much better to be honest.
Finding a name that has the potential to grab your audience is something to aim for. But as with using a thesaurus, don’t go overboard. Shiny Disco Ball Blogging Tips is probably one step too far. Then again, maybe that’s not such a bad name…
Flip the Words
I wanted to buy Blogging Weekly, but it was listed as a “premium domain name” and the registrar wanted $2,000 for it. However, I was able to buy Weekly Blogging for $18.
This isn’t just about the price (although that was a pretty good saving) – it’s about whether you can get your desired domain name by moving one or more of the words around. Of course, it does need to make sense – Tips Blog Ten Top probably wouldn’t be the best choice.
Make Up a Word
When looking for a name for my open source CMS, I chose Injader. Not everyone liked it, but it was unique – a combination of Invader, and Jade.
My wife and I also came up with Rennablue, an anagram of our names – Ben and Lauren (without the “and”).
Not everyone can come up with good made-up words, and I’ve come up with some really bad ones! But it’s a fun way to come up with an interesting domain name. It may be harder to rank on Google, but on the other hand, it should be easier to find your site once people have heard the name.
Try a Different Suffix
I prefer dot com, but in some cases, you might want to consider a different suffix. For instance, the recently released dot co was interesting as it opened up a lot of previously unattainable dot com domains. I have a three-letter dot co domain that I used for a brief period of time, but I haven’t done much with it since I started posting most of my content at benbarden.com. Maybe dot co is an option for you, too.
Look at Keyword Tools
I believe there’s a keyword tool floating around in Google Adwords, which can be used without paying for advertising. This is good for finding out how much advertisers are paying to advertise on sites with certain keywords, although not ideal for finding a good domain name. But if you’re driven by the potential money-making opportunities, it’s worth checking out the tool before you go shopping for domains. That way, you can isolate the domains with the best opportunities.
Spyfu is a good way of finding out the same kind of thing, but an added bonus is that you can see the domain names of advertisers who target certain keywords. I wouldn’t recommend trying to copy their domains (see Impersonation, below), but you might find a word that sparks off a whole set of new domain name ideas.
Ask for Help
I sometimes ask my wife to help me find a good domain name if I’m stuck for ideas. I’d also be happy to help you if you’re looking for a good domain. Read my “open offer” at the end of the post for further details.
Don’t Give Up
If you can’t get your favourite domain name in one sitting, don’t worry. Make a note of anything you quite liked but didn’t feel ready to buy, and come back later. Maybe in a day or two you’ll come up with something suitable.
…And Some Things To Be Careful With
- Hyphens: I’m not keen on hyphens (my-site-name.com) mainly because they can confuse people who type in the domain name. Imagine dictating a domain name over the phone – it helps to keep things simple.
- Numbers: A domain like tips4everyone can take a bit of explaining – it’s a number 4, not the word. Mixing up words and numbers can be really confusing – tentips4bloggers would be something to avoid, for instance.
- Length: Very long domain names are annoying to type. Try to avoid them.
- Impersonation: If the domain you want is already taken, you may not want to choose a different suffix or a very similarly named URL as you may confuse visitors to both sites.
- Keep Quiet: Don’t accidentally give away your best domain names before buying them! Keep them very quiet unless you’d be happy for someone else to use the domain instead of you.
- The Name Isn’t Everything: It is important, but even the best domain name will not get very far if you don’t commit to building the site. I’ll hold my hands up here and admit to having loads of domain names I’ve hardly used. And because I’ve done virtually nothing with them, there’s really no value in selling them – not that there’s much point in hanging onto them. I’ve let a few expire recently.
An Open Offer
If you’re looking for a new domain name but you haven’t got very far, please feel free to contact me. Tell me the domains you’ve tried, what your site will be about, and whether you have any attachments (or not) to certain words. I can’t promise to give you a domain name that will solve all your problems, but I will try to find something good. If I succeed, you’re free to go ahead and buy the domain. All I ask is that you drop a link to benbarden.com from your blog. Thank you!
Over to You
Do you have any tips for finding domain names?
About Ben
Hi Ben! Very helpful insight here; I will pass it on to some of my clients who are contemplating a new site.
Hi Erica,
Thanks for the comment.
Glad you found it useful – thanks for passing it on!
Some great advice you are giving
Good post, I have a hard time explaining this to clients, especially ones with major budgets that feel buying a domain from someone for $100K is the best option. If it’s not required for branding, no need to spend that kind of money on a domain. Unless of course you can foresee the amazing benefits of the domain for a project such as creditcards.ca or other relatively large profit domain.
Hi James,
Thanks for the comment.
I totally agree – paying over the odds for a domain may not be the best use of a client’s money. I imagine it would be pretty tough to swallow if the client is also trying to negotiate a lower rate with the design/development team!
I guess it depends on the price and whether there’s a good ROI. But really, why not buy a cheaper domain name and build a decent site instead of chasing a dream that may or may not happen if you get a very desirable domain name?
If by chance someone reads this post, and see’s my comment and thinks “$100,000″ for a domain, creditcards.ca was bought for $600,000 and creditcards.com sold for $18 Million, similar to recent fb.com selling price of $8.5 Million – domains are worth loads and should be seen even by you as a piece of “real estate” in the online industry.
Hi again James,
Indeed, selling a good domain could be an interesting business model, if people are willing to pay. Your comment also highlights the vast difference between .com and .ca.
edited to correct a typo
Yes, vast difference between .com and .ca mainly due to the reason behind the domains. .com is a commercial world wide acceptance, whereas .ca is mainly focused towards Canada, also a highly viewed piece of information to search engines. If you are a .ca you are more likely to be viewed in high rankings in Canada, whereas if you are in the UK, domains most likely to be presented in search are .uk domains etc… (except .com)
The .com can be seen and presented worldwide since it crosses all borders since the beginning
a .com is a worldwide piece of real estate, whereas country domains are specifc to countries, resulting in the overall purchasing and selling power of domains.
Hi Ben
Very helpful tips here for choosing domain names. I am at the moment researching for a couple of niche sites I am building. Went for the obvious domain names which of course were taken.
So this is on topic for me. When I checked out the sites that had the great domain names they were advertising sites or not being actively used! So now I got to do some out of the box thinking to get some good ones too and have good sites to go with them. If I get stuck I’ll be back
Patricia Perth Australia
Hi Patricia,
Thanks for the comment.
Good luck with finding a domain name that you’re happy with. It can take a little time, but there are definitely options out there. Even if every possible domain was available, it’s better to zone in on a decent domain name, particularly for a niche blog. A one-word domain would be lovely, but I’ve seen so many two-word domains that are bland and would rank poorly for a niche site. Sounds like you’re going about it the right way
I like to combine made up words with slight misspellings such as Fluttrs or Triberr. Short, brandable and available.
Hi Dan,
Thanks for the comment.
I like made-up words if I can think of something that works well, and if the domain is available! Not so keen on misspellings though as it’s more likely that people will have trouble typing the domain name.
I am looking at some niche blogs to start. In the US, stock options (those that trade, not talking the incentive kind) are pretty popular amongst certain investors.
I liked the idea of “Options Cafe” but it was available only as .net . The dot com has been taken, over a year, but not developed. What do you advise? Develop OptionsCafe.net or find an option-related set of words that still has dot com? My first .net is recipe buzz, and in 10 weeks, I’ve gotten it to 275K alexa rank.
More than anything, I’m amazed how nearly every site I think might be good is taken, but not developed. Not even a “coming soon.”
Hi Joe,
Thanks for the comment.
Why not start with “stock” and work from there? It might be better to throw around a few ideas via email as I wouldn’t want someone else to register them first
Cuation when typing domains into email most don’t realize, that within 1-2 days of typing a profitable domain choice in and email it is then suddenly purchased, as if a coicidence – there is a reason this happens
Don’t type a clickable domain like http://domain.com just type domain.com instead
I wonder what kind of tips you might get from “Mercurial Blog Tips.”
Made-up words, as Dan suggests, are still a viable strategy.
Hi Bell,
Thanks for the comment.
Maybe blog tips relating to Mercury? (Either the planet or the metal.)
Or perhaps a Doctor Who blog, as Matt Smith has been referred to as “mercurial”.
(PS Sorry if you saw 2 replies – I was briefly disconnected from the Internet and my first comment wasn’t listed as a reply to your comment.)
Ben I am impressed by your consistant “reply to all” blogging business model.
good job! I believe all blog owners need to be made aware of always replying, possibly a new post for you 
unless you have written a post on this before.
Cheers
Hi James,
I may have a post on that topic – but can’t recall it right now. I’ll check – thanks for the tip.
Thank you!
I started replying to comments much more often when I purchased the Genesis Framework, because of threaded replies. I never used to like threading. Now I do
Normally my first choice of domain name is taken but I don’t have to look much further before I find the perfect name. It’s just a shame so many good names are owned by squatters, e.g. programming .com, .net, .info, .co and .co.uk are all registered and point to a domain holding page
I agree that squatting on good domain names isn’t really fair to the rest of us. Although I do have a number of unused domains, I’ve always planned to do something with them – sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Generally speaking, I let domains expire if I’m never going to use them again.
However, when a squatter grabs them a week or two after they expire, it makes me wonder if I should’ve kept the domain simply to allow me to sell it to someone else directly (not necessarily for very much money), instead of giving squatters the opportunity to sell at a premium just because they can.
I’d like to see some of the obvious squatter domains zapped so they can be used for something real. But where do you draw the line? They might just add more pages to what is currently a one-page landing pad.
Funny, I have undeveloped domains a list of 40+.
I’ve given some up as well. Every one of them snatched up, but then also undeveloped. So, I’m assuming the big guys get a cheap annual fee and if there’s any chance of value they are playing the numbers game.
As far as regulation, I see no answer. A rule of “no undeveloped sites” would just prompt a “for sale” holding page or something similar. I forward some site to Sedo which has an ad page for each, and since break-even is $8/yr, I’m ahead by just keeping them. Others, I use for short email forwarding. I own 6HP.com I don’t know why. I saw it available and thought 3 characters, even with the number. A few ad hits per year and it’s paid. Another, workshop2, I grabbed because I am a woodworker as a hobby. There’s a company in England using wksp2.com that approached me, I made an offer to sell it, no counteroffer came.
I also own a particular country domain in the form cafecountry.com , I really have no idea what I thought then, but now I wonder if, given how cheap I can outsource, if it’s worth developing and promoting just as a project. Funny, it actually has more potential for ad revenue tan my own developed sites.
I am still struggling to understand the value of the dot-com. If the name itself has to suffer, is the Com really worth it? I can find the ideal name (well I have it, undeveloped) or to get to the Com, have a name that’s longer and less intuitive.
Funny – http://stockpicker.com/ is reserved, nothing there, but http://stockpickr.com/ (dropped the e) is active and PR6.
As this post should hopefully suggest, there are ways to find a great dot com. These aren’t perfect tips but they have helped me a lot. It may depend on which keywords you’re targeting, and how saturated the market is already – which may actually be a good indication that perhaps certain domain names aren’t really worth chasing. Even if you get a perfect domain name in that sphere, will you be able to fight off the competition?
Joe Taxpayer – a word of advice, never focus or user PR as a value to the domain price.
Many reasons, hopefully Ben can give an explanation on that. I’m just a commenter and don’t want to take over someone elses blog, lol. Just been watching this post, interesting comments thus far 
PR, like any statistic, cannot be relied upon. Stats can change daily, and for reasons you can’t control. PR is but one statistic that is not the be-all and end-all when measuring if a site is influential. However, it is a strong metric
Stockpickr is a great domain btw
definetely wicked for branding purposes, simply because it is memorable, yet professional and has much psychological benefits. Good pick if that is your domain, just clean it with a more solidifed look such as 3 shaded blues with black for dominance and green for CTA’s. Anything with financial topics, keep in mind your visitor must feel a sense of “wealth” when viewing your information (Green) where they also need to trust what you are saying to them (blue – llight shades), read into color psychology to get a sense of what I am referring to. 
Just my advice for the day is all.
Cheers
StockPickr is not mine. It has low Alexa and recognition, they are often mentioned on CNBC.
I guess I hadn’t given this aspect too much attention, and before launching other domains, need to think a bit.
I’m all about providing advice Joe, I have run several financial websites in the past including stocks and other investing websites. So if you would like some advice, just shoot me an email (james) at yougomedia.com or i set up a questions spot on my blog which has helped a few
– http://seoblog.yougomedia.com/questions , or even simpler just witter me 
@yougomedia <– if Ben doesn't mind that I link these. I give you(Ben) full right to delete this comment cuz its sorta wrong to promote myself, but I find I can benefit Joe on his financial website quest.
I don’t mind James, as it’s relevant
I could never find a decent domain for my keyword… This article will definitely help me and ill take it into my considerations for sure !
Ive been reading some comments and you mentioned that PR statistics can change daily but still its a most reliable source of site ranking out there …
I partly understand that, and always look for higher PR pages to buy when I have to even I have to spend a bit more.
thanks.
Hi Giochi – thanks for the comment.
I don’t agree that PageRank is the most reliable source of a site’s ranking. Although it’s a complex algorithm, the 0-10 scale that blogs are ranked with is (IMO) too simplistic.
Hi Ben. You have answered everyone’s comments – I am impressed. Just wondering if I might also impose on you ’cause to be honest, not only am I new to all this but also currently very confused. Two main questions I have at the moment are 1. is it true that the keywords have to be first in the domain name? 2. is it advantageous or not to have hyphens?
I’m not Ben, however II seen your response in my subscription email and had to answer since I have experience with this with _every_ client. This answer varies on your marketing and business objective. In almost every client case of mine, _no_ keywords do *not* have to be in the domain name, nor have to be first. However, this does relate heavily on your overal website objective such as branding a name, or targeting a “keyword” specific traffic?
Domain does hold a lot of power, however, with correct marketing and overall website goals the domain is the least of your worries.
Is it advantage to have hyphens? example: whatrhymeswith.com/rhyme/benbarden or whatrhymeswith.com/rhyme/ben-barden ? – we all would choose the second, being the user, it is easier to read and understand, and, still memorable . So as a user, since we can read this better, overall the search engines can as well – one of my own ten commandments of seo ( http://seoblog.yougomedia.com/seo-ten-commandments ) states “focus on the user” – Google also states this in their ten philosophies ( http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html )
! – another great read for you on hyphens written by google is http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=76329 <– they even state the following statement 
!!!
"Consider using punctuation in your URLs. The URL http://www.example.co.uk/green-dress.html is much more useful to us than http://www.example.co.uk/greendress.html. We recommend that you use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_) in your URLs." <– they tell you what to do
Barbara – hyphens in the long URL are no issue, the second level domain name should avoid them. i.e. my domain JoeTaxpayer.com has no hyphen, but the post name “high taxes” would show as joetaxpayer.com/high-taxes for easy reading.
@Joe Taxpayer. Thanks Joe – food for thought. I get caught up in the SEO etc that I sometimes forget – make it easy for the user!
Hi Barbara – thanks for the comment.
Hope the replies from James and Joe are useful. There’s not much more I can add to them!
One you didn’t have to answer, Ben. Thanks for your response anyway, and your blog. All very informative.
Hi James – thanks so much for your very detailed response, I really appreciate your input. I’ll have a look at your suggested readings as well. Love the idea of ten commandments to follow!