Tried to register a domain name lately? It’s getting tough to come up with a reasonably short and usable name in the .com domain that’s not taken. This post details the most useful resources I came across when recently trying to come up with a new name.
Most good names are taken. Where do you start trying to come up with a new name?
Read Dot-o-mator Choosing a Good Domain Name
Read posts on The Name Inspector
Scroll Down and find the listing of “Big Picture Posts” on the right navigation. Click to read each article.
Likewise, scroll to the Names section and read the review of each name.
Read Firewheel Design’s Four Concentric Circles of a Web 2.0 Name
Back in the day when the 56k US Robotics modem was the gold standard for home internet connectivity, we would find domain names by going to the Network Solutions website and typing the name we wanted into a form, submit it, and then wait 5, 10, 15 seconds or more to see if it was available. Nowadays there are many sites that will help you generate word combinations and allow you to type in a name and give you instant feedback if that name is available. Googling on “domain name generator” will give you an idea of the range of tools out there – the list below is what I found most useful after trying out many others.
DomainTyper has the best Web 2.0 Domain Name Generator and the quickest response times for checking availability as you type. For my fellow SEO geeks, the site also has a similar instant feedback page for checking Page Rank on Google, Alexa, and others.
PCNames is similar to DomainTyper, the only feature it has DomainTyper does not is the Word Suggestion tool which is like a mini-thesaurus
Nameboy generates name candidates based on your keywords. There are a lot of sites that do this, I found Nameboy to be the most contextual, many of the other sites seem to just string random words together without any real context association.
What you are doing here is a quick check to see if there are existing companies which might use your name in some way or if there are any negative or positive connotations associated with your name. Enter the name you found on Google – once as the name itself and once with the words separated. You want to avoid picking a name that might have negative connotations or images in the search results that you would not want associated with the image you are trying to portray. Would you want your potential customers seeing your name mixed in with these search results? Does another company obviously have rights to this name within your industry? How likely is it your site would show up in the first page of Google search results?
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.
Next, do a US Patent and Trademark Office Trademark Search to see if any companies have a legal claim to your name or terms very similar to your name. Enter your name both with and without spaces. This will not tell if you would be able to trademark or copyright something, but it gives you a pretty good indication if something is already trademarked. There is no point in registering a domain name with an obviously trademarked or copyrighted name or term as you would probably get a Cease and Desist Order should your site gain any traffic. Keep in mind that a difference of one or two characters may or may not mean your name would be considered distinct – the only way you can find out for sure is by applying for a trademark. The general rule of thumb on trademarks is you can probably use a name if it’s trademarked by a company in an industry other then your own and it’s not in such widespread use that you would obviously be stealing their name (e.g. you can’t have a company called Coca-Cola Software). However you would still be competing against that company in Google Search Results, so if your name is the same or similar to something already trademarked then you will probably want to keep looking until you find something unique.
Again, I am not a lawyer, so you should consider everything I just said to be completely false and unreliable.
As an example of what a trademark search looks like, here’s what you get when checking the term “google”:
No matter how great a name you think you’ve found, follow these steps before you buy it to save yourself from morning-after regret when you’ve purchased a name you don’t really like:
1. Say it out loud
2. Run it by family members or friends
3. Sleep on it - Wait until the next morning before you buy it
4. If you do register it, do so for one year only and don’t buy any extras until you are sure you are going to keep the name.
5. Wait a few days before you setup a hosting site or buy an SSL certificate to make sure you still like it before you spend any money.