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Posted by Ben Cook as Internet Marketing
One of the most critical tasks when starting a new blog or any online project for that matter is finding the perfect domain name for it. While the domaining business is booming and there are millions of blogs already online, there are still great domain names out there to be had for reasonable prices. However, if you don’t know where to look or have a tool to automate the process, it can be incredibly time consuming. Enter Bust a Name…
Bustaname.com has quickly become one of my favorite tools on the web. Not only can you type in a domain name and quickly see whether it’s available, but you can also input several different terms and Bust a Name (BaN) will combine them and check their availability for you. The default setting searches for any combination of the terms you input (for example, entering the words blogging and experiment would check for both bloggingexperiment.com as well as experimentblogging.com). If you added a third word into the mix, the tool would then check all 12 two word combinations possible.
Once you’ve exhausted all your own ideas of words or phrases to include in your domain, BaN has a built in thesaurus that makes it incredibly easy to brainstorm even more terms to add to your list. As your list gets longer, it can be pretty unwieldy with similar terms generating combinations you wouldn’t want to use (for example if you have both “blog” and “blogging” on your list with “experiment” the tool might spit out “blogblogging” as a result).
Luckily, the creators of BaN thought of that and allow users to create groups of terms which will keep the tool from trying to combine the terms in that group. To continue my previous example, grouping “blog” and “blogging” would tell the tool to only combine these two terms with “experiment” rather than each other.
As if that weren’t enough, you can also choose to check for domains with dashes between the terms, three word combinations, and add common prefixes and suffixes (e, i, my, the, ly, etc). As you come across domains you think you might like, you’re given the option to save the name or buy the domain through BaN’s affiliate link that instantly compares the costs across several different registrars. And last but not least, if you happen to leave the Bust-a-Name site, you’re given the option to resume your previous session when you return.
What other tools do you find helpful when searching for domain names? What methods do you use when brainstorming domain name ideas?
13 Responses
Kevin
May 5th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
1Another good resource that I was not aware of.
I have been using makewords.com. I have gotten my last 6 URL’s through them.
I was also reading somewhere in the fog of information, that if you keep going back to the same URL because you are thinking about getting it, be careful. Someone may be tracking your actions and snap it up thinking it may be wanted. I dont know if that is true, but it is something I am always aware of.
Colby
May 5th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
2“Someone may be tracking your actions and snap it up thinking it may be wanted.”
Does anyone know if this is true? I don’t know too much about buying domain names, but have noticed that some names I’ve been interested in after searching Network Solutions have been snapped up within a few days of my search.
Ben Cook
May 5th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
3@Colby, it was revealed that Network Solutions did indeed register domains after people had searched for their availability with them. I believe they’ve since ended that practice but it was big news a few weeks ago.
Scott Fillmer
May 5th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
4cool engine, thanks for sharing it with us.
Mike Huang
May 6th, 2008 at 2:24 am
5Thanks for the site. I’ve been wanting to come up with “UNIQUE”, but “EASY” domain names to open up a few sites, but it has been hard. Hopefully this will make things easier
-Mike
AC
May 6th, 2008 at 6:57 am
6I have used Dot-o-mator before too. http://www.dotomator.com/index.html
Mr MultiVar
May 6th, 2008 at 10:41 am
7Well, I have a big lack of trust for domain name search tools and usually plan to register a domain within a short space of time from beginning the initial search.
http://www.domaintools.com/ claim to not have any issues with domain sniping and are the best tool I know of for checking out domain availability.
But, what I do is aim to get my keywords in the shortest domain name possible, regardless of the domain extension. I start with keyword research and have the most popular words to hand before trying to register a domain name.
If you search on your topic on Google you will see what kind of domain names rank highest. At the moment, they are fairly short and I do see some dashes in the URLs.
The dot ws domains seem to me to be the easiest way to get a short URL with 2 keywords but dot info seems to be preferred over dot ws even using a dash. Having said that, I did get the MultiVar.org domain secured recently which amazed me.
I don’t think it is a good idea to jumble the order of words in a URL since I tried that and it did not work.
For my latest domain registration I was thinking about how the words in the domain name would help in the overall URL i.e. the directory names. So think about that too. Word order is important.
Also, since so many domain names are cyber-squatted, I don’t think we should worry about using dashes in domain names for SEO. If your site has quality content, it should be no problem long term IMHO.
Ben Cook
May 6th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
8@Mr. Multi Var, using tld’s other than .com’s or your country’s tld (.co.uk etc) is IMO very short sighted. Sure you might be able to get your keywords in the domain that way, but you’ll miss out on a lot of type in traffic and in fact will probably be building traffic and brand awareness of whoever owns the .com domain. For better or worse most people think of web addresses as .com.
Stephen
May 6th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
9Heh, neat tool. Probably good if you’re really stuck for a domain but I like to rely on my own imagination, hasn’t let me down yet - well maybe once, but I was under the influence at the time, honest.
Affiliate Marketing Blog
May 6th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
10Although I also like to rely on my own imagination and creativity - as a matter of fact I registered my blog’s domain name above only about 5 weeks ago - the following domain name search tool is pretty neat: http://instantdomainsearch.com/
It tells you domain availability (as well as current pricing at several different popular Registrars) as you TYPE the domain into the search box. It’s very fast.
One last comment, I have also heard about domain sniping from various sources so it pays to be cautious no matter what tool you decide to use.
Terry Tay
May 6th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
11I guess my comment yesterday got lost in the filter. It wasn’t working for me and also when I clicked on the affiliate link it said I was logged in and it showed someone’s affiliate link. I posted the link it was showing in the comment, so I guess your filter send my comment to spam hell.
~Terry
Ben Cook
May 7th, 2008 at 1:21 am
12@Affiliate marketing blog, bustaname.com also has a field that will check the domain name for .com, .net, and I think .org all as you type. That’s definitely a nice feature if you come up with a few ideas and want to check them directly.
@Stephen, I fail to see how using a tool to check the availability or suggesting alternative words or arrangements is somehow not using your imagination. You still have to come up with things to input into the site, it just spits out what you tell it to.
Mr MultiVar
May 7th, 2008 at 8:24 am
13@ben I was coming at it from a different perspective, I agree that if you want to develop a brand then you should go for the dot com or localized domain.
What I was posting about is purely in relation to organic traffic, based on keywords, where as you know it is so hard to find a short domain name with your keywords in it.
Setting up a new blog, I would always go for a dot com, for example “loopyblogger.com” would be easy to remember and get the branding and type in traffic.
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