Let's talk domains! Share tips, tricks and anything related.

I feel like I've got a solid process for quickly coming up with available domain names for side projects so that I don't spend days thinking about it and not actually build anything.

Read it here on my blog: http://chrisdermody.com/how-to-pick-a-name-for-your-side-project-or-business-in-10-minutes-and-is-available-as-com/,

But the main points are below (taken from my recent comment on another thread on IH https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/trying-to-find-a-name-for-a-business-too-long-ff145695be)

I always over-think the name of a project and I find it holds me back way more than it should, so I've devised a system that helps me get to a name I can use and move forward with. Its a work in progress (and this is off the top of my head), so open to feedback.

Usually my ideas are web based, so the deciding factor is often domain availability. To help me, I use these steps.

1 Only use .com and .io, it simplifies things and they're cheap. Open domainr.com for quick and easy availability lookup. Domainr is cool because it'll also show you other domains that might suit your keyword too, like if your site is mydevportfolio.com, it'll suggest mydevportfol.io. (full disclosure, that's my recent side project, feedback appreciated) 👍

2 SEO is key, so my go-to to start off the process is often things like my[keyword].com, [keyword]hq.com, [keyword]central.com etc. If you're lucky, one of these will be available, but it's getting rarer nowadays. So we need to go deeper.

3 Next, I'll look at synonyms. Open up thesaurus.com, type in your main keyword and see what comes back. This can be fed into the rest of the steps to find suitable variations.

4 My next port of call is usually looking at [verb/adjective][keyword].domain. Some of my go-to adjectives are: fresh, sharp, open, free, hot. Some of my goto nouns are: spark, air, bounce, break, snap. Feel free to pop these into thesaurus too to find more.

5 My next goto if I don't find a suitable one in the steps above us to get a bit creative with language. I'll open up Google translate and translate from English to Latin. Often Latin spits back decent words that don't make sense, but sound cool and can give a nice story to your brand. Put in your keyword and synonyms and see what comes back. This doesn't work all the time, but can spit out gems sometimes.

6 If I still haven't found a name I'm happy with, I'll look to the animal kingdom. What emotion do you want a customer to associate with your brand? If its strength, why not use something like lion, bull, rhino, bear. If it's friendliness, try koala, kitten, puppy, panda. Figure out the emotion and then Google to find animals that best fit that. Once you have some to try, combine them with your keyword and/or a verb or noun. So [noun/adjective] [animal].domain. Freshpuppy.io, sparkbear.com. Or if it makes sense, mix up the animal with the keyword. Koalabooks.com, gorrilladesign.io etc. One of the advantages of this approach is it gives you ideas for logos that suit too.

7 Colours. I have a blog post on how to "cheat" when picking a colour for your app (automatically inspiring a certain emotion in a customer). Use this to identify what colours might suit your business, and try inserting them instead of nouns/adejectives. Once you identify the base colour, Google different shades of that colour to get some ideas. Violetbooks.com. Limedesign.io.

http://chrisdermody.com/colour_scheme_minimum_viable_product/.

That's everything I use. Open to ideas though 👍

If you buy an expired domain, check first if it’s been banned by Google 😟😟

Advice: make sure you check out the https://USPTO.gov website.

Earlier this month, I got hit with a cease & desist notice for trademark infringement. Company threatened me twice before I responded to let them know I'd need at least a month or two to warn my customers and transfer the site over to a new domain. I've not heard from them since, but make sure your "domain" name isn't infringing on others.

I own about 70+ domains. I buy based on strength of the domain (e.g., speculation) or relevance to a side-project idea. I have sold a few domains over the years that have made holding the rest a neutral proposition.

Most of my domains are .com.au - .com is just too saturated to get winning names now. I have relinquished 10-20 domains in the last year.

I once registered pjg.com.au thinking it was pig.com.au going cheap. Realised and sold it for a multiple of what I paid.

In terms of tips, don't try to fit ideas to good domains you've come across. Find a remotely reasonable domain to fit the good idea. I think it's a huge trap to come across a domain like tripnotes.com and think "Wow, that could be a site where people take notes about their trips."

Launchaco.com/domains is my go-to. It’ll cross-reference with available social handles and give you clever startup domain add-one like “use{name}.com” or “try{name}.com” as well as searching other available TLDs like .io and .co

I own about 15-20. Only 5 or 6 related to my business and resolve to my product page and/or prevent my competitors from getting them. I recently went on a buying spree when the .app domains opened up. I bought a few premium ones. I’m hoping they are worth something.

A little late to the party, but a very useful tool I've been using is https://www.namemesh.com/ it tries a bunch of word tricks on your domain to try to find one that's available. It can search for .com .io among others, and registrars like godaddy and namecheap.

I own about 10 domains, of which 6 have a page. I would say my coolest domains are the unused ones :). My most recent buy is https://copycoding.com

I've had pretty solid luck to find domain names through http://leandomainsearch.com

You give it a word or two and it will show you domain names (.com primarily) that have those, related words, or combinations with other words that are available.

Generally, I plug-in one word for something relating to my project, then spend ~10 minutes going through the results, writing down the ones I like.

Hi, I'm interested in a specific four-letter domain .com. I've contacted a "represent of the current owner" through Uniregistry.com, who requests 69k USD for it.

Is there any way to go around this or negotiate down the price? Does somebody have experience in buying such expensive domains?

First, I use OVH as registrar: cheap, free obfuscation (mainly to protect from spam). Happy with them for more than 10 years and bonus it's 🇫🇷. Not sure domain registration is available for the US though.

They have a bulk registration mode that's handy to register multiple domains and to mass check availability (even for not OVH customers):

https://www.ovh.com/cgi-bin/newOrder/order.cgi?bulkmode=create (my favorite tool, ever)

Second, dot-com wins. Aim to simplicity and the long term.

Even if you targeting local, if the dot-com is available, prefer it (and obviously buy the ccTLD).

Stay away from ccTLD used as a pseudo gTLD of weird/unstable/too small countries.

Also, if you think of "foo-bar" domain, it's mandatory to also buy "foobar" and if it's not available, forget "foo-bar".

Dashes are nice for printed stuff or marked vehicles: "business-name.com" is easier to read and remember. And when there is an ambiguity: our brain sees words, and does not read them by default: for "footwo", was it "foot wo" or "foo two".

Again on variations: say your domain name out of loud: foo2bar implies "footobar" and "foo-to-bar" (maybe "footwobar" and "foo-two-bar" too).

And for ideas of names, I don't have a specific recipe. I look for every naming possible for the concept, synonyms, use Adword keyword tool to see what people search for...

Be sure to check with a native English speaker, because you don't want for your domain name to mean something fishy. Spanish and French checks can be good too!

Last but not least, I like figurative or semi-figurative names. It makes name self-explanatory and allows having important SEO keyword in the domain name.

Recently, dot-app represents some great opportunity for short or competitive names. For minor side projects, that's fine. I bought for example lire.app (lire = to read).

EDIT: your registrar MUST have auto-renewal, that's mandatory. You can't have your domains expires.

Buy domains from a trusted source. I buy from gandi and I pay a bit extra over the current market rate but their support is top notch. Guard the domain name details with your life.

Set reminders to renew the domain. The domain registrar will usually email you when it is close to expiring but its good to have your own set of reminders.

Always stick with .com for international business. Get a local one if you're 100% sure you will be conducting business locally.

Once you're business becomes big, its recommended to buy the same domain name with different extensions such as .org , .blog , .co etc. Also get abbreviations and spelling mistakes registered too.

Lastly, don't intentionally hoard domains.