Have a great idea for a new website but don’t know which domain name to grab for it? First, you’ll need some web hosting to put your site on the web.
If your site is going to run on WordPress, we highly recommend WP Engine, which takes the hassle out of site management and lets you focus on content. Sign up using this link for your first 4 months free!
Once your web hosting is settled, you’ll need a domain name—one that’s simple, easy to remember, and great for branding. Good domain names are also unique and descriptive. So, how do you go about landing a great domain name for your site?
How to Find a Great Domain Name
The right domain name is critical for search engine optimization (SEO). An SEO-friendly domain name is the first green light for high website traffic.
Let’s start by brainstorming on paper. But if your brain is not shifting gears, there are a host of domain finders that can help to crank it up. I am not suggesting that you rely on them, but domain name generators take your keywords and can come up with unique word combinations that you wouldn’t have thought about. A lot of them also allow you to look up available domain names using domain name registrars.
A single domain name search website can give you lots of word combinations to play around with. Let me give you a few more to help you find an available website name you need right now.
1. Dofo
Use this free domain name search tool to filter through 350 million registered domain names. Find more information on each like its creation and expiration dates. If you need more hints, just follow the latest trends and top keywords in domain names right now. The search also supports internationalized domain names in other languages.
Dofo helps you search more than 40 million domains for sale and register the right one with one of its domain registration partners. You can also follow specific domain names and check for an update that might benefit you.
Dictionary Domains is what it says on the label. It seeks out dictionary word that still might be available as a domain name. You can passively get new domain names sent to your inbox. The domain search result words are listed by their frequency.
If you aren’t fixated on top-level domain name extensions like .com, then the chances of finding a dictionary word domain name are high. A set of filters help to narrow your choices by domain extension, word length, and choice of plural words.
This free domain name search tool is also similar to a dictionary word domain name search. It finds short, available single-word domain names which you can then instantly register through the four domain name registrar sites.
Try the filters next to the search box. Also, try the advanced tool that splits your keywords into top-level domain extensions like .re and .am.
4. Nameboy
Nameboy is a popular domain name search tool that bases its results on a primary word and a secondary word. Nameboy says that its intelligent engine creates name variations from the sound and meaning of the keyword. You can use Nameboy as a business name generator, website name generator, company name generator, and URL generator.
It is affiliated to BlueHost, but you can use it for a simple domain name search even if you go with a different web host provider. That said, MakeUseOf readers can get a significant discount on BlueHost web hosting plans if you sign up using this link!
5. Namestation
Namestation comes with a slick interface. With just a few clicks you can enter your suggested keywords and combine them with prefixes and suffixes. Set a minimum and maximum word length and get your domain name results. The application also lets you combine keywords with hundreds of categorized wordlists for a search engine friendly domain name.
Namestation also hosts contests that can be used to get a crowdsourced name for your upcoming website.
123finder gives you four ways to discover the right domain name for your site. The applications are self-explanatory—Simple Domain Search, Advanced Domain Search, Instant Domain Search, and Keywords from URL. The Keywords from URL tool extracts registered and available domain names from a given URL.
Want to restrict your new domain name to a specific number of characters? You can use a keyword and filter through names with one of the unique tools on the site.
7. Domize
Domize has a Power Search feature which can use a comma-separated list of words, letters, or numbers to search for several domain names in one go. A special function also lists out synonyms or derivatives of a supplied word based on a misspelling. Other functions include listing out words that rhyme with the one you enter.
In short, the Power Search results give you many options to play around with a word and whatever domain name can be derived from it.
8. Wordoid
Wordoid has a unique way of generating a catchy domain or business name idea. Firstly, it can make up words that sound natural, almost natural or hardly natural. Secondly, it can do that in five languages: English, Spanish, French, German and Italian.
You can set up patterns that force Wordoid to generate words starting or ending with certain letters. You can also optionally put your own word somewhere in the Wordoid and limit the unique name to a set number of characters.
Lean Domain Search is a fast domain finder for your new site or a new Twitter handle. It pairs your keywords with other words or phrases to come up with novel results. which are still available to register. The results are restricted to the .com top-level domain.
The site says that 95% of the domain names displayed should be still unclaimed. You can sort the results alphabetically, by length, or by popularity.
10. Domainr
Domainr’s speed could surprise you. It takes milliseconds to check if a domain name is available or taken. And when you just had a brilliant idea, each second matters. The fast domain finder lists available website names and those that have been taken along with relevant info from ICANN’s WHOIS lookup.
Domainr has apps for iOS and Android, a Chrome extension, and bots for Facebook Messenger and Slack.
More Ways to Find Available Domain Names
Put a free domain name search tool to work and find available website names. It’s not as easy as that. All the good ones seem to have been taken and the ones that are left might not fit your site or brand like a glove. You can try to buy it, but that might pinch.
An alternative is to brainstorm and prefix your desired name with a verb or another word. If you have time on your hands, consider tracking and buying an expired domain name you can work with.
Image Credit: maxxyustas/Depositphotos
Read the full article: 10 Effective Domain Name Search Tools and Domain Finders
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Every time you utilize your web internet browser, you get in domain of websites you wish to check out into your internet browser’’ s resolve bar. What ’ s the innovation behind these names, and how do they assist you get to the locations you desire to go to?
Let’’ s break down what a domain is, and why we utilize them.
What Is a Domain Name?
Domain names are special names offered to sites to assist human beings remember them. Computer systems put on’’ t utilize the domain at all; it ’ s created to make web searching much easier for people.
The finest method to envision domain resembles a phonebook. If you opened your phonebook and saw a wall of various contact number, you’’d have little concept about which number was whose. How do you resolve this? Easy; you compose the contact’’ s name beside each number to advise you who ’ swho.
A domain name works. Preferably, a computer system wishes to manage sites utilizing IP addresses ; that’’ s the language it ““ speaks. ” Unfortunately, human beings are bad at keeping in mind IP addresses, as they’’ re typically 4 decimal numbers relatively picked at random.
That’’ s where domain been available in; they ’ re the name related to the number to assist human beings remember them. The computer system passes these names to a Domain Name System (DNS) server, which then matches the name to an IP address. The computer system then utilizes this IP to access the site.
Parts of a Domain Name.
To comprehend domain, let’’ s break down a name and see what each part is. What much better domain to disintegrate than our own?
Let’’ s look’at this website ’ s domain:// www.makeuseof.com/.
The Top-Level Domain.
The high-level domain is an extension to the domain. In our URL, this is the.com part of the name. This part is typically the URL’’ s “ style ” that informs the user a little additional info on the topic of the site.
For MakeUseOf’’ s high-level domain, we ’ re a website that deals with nations all over the world, so a basic. com extension is adequate. If we were a company based in the UK, we might opt for. co.uk rather to show that. We might use.gov to let visitors understand if we were a political website. Must we choose to concentrate on humor, we might have.fun or. lol as our extension rather.
There’’ s no authority over which sites get which extension. It’’ s totally possible for a site in the United States to sign up a UK domain. We likewise can’’ t set our custom-made extension; we need to select one from a pre-set list. When checking out the website, the high-level domain is simply a convenient signaller that lets the user understand what to anticipate.
The Mid-Level Domain.
The mid-level domain is the location where users have the most control. In our domain, the mid-level area is makeuseof. As you can inform, this is the part of the domain where individuals can specify the name of their website.
When pointing out a site, #ppppp> This part is what individuals refer to. If I state that I utilize Google, you intuitively understand that I’’ m speaking about www.google.com, of which “ Google ” is the mid-leveldomain.
.Additional Components of a URL.’
Now that we ’ ve examined the middle and leading domains,’we ’ ve technically covered all there is to a domain. makeuseof.com is the domain for this site; however naturally, if you take a look at what’’ s in your address bar, you ’ ll see there ’ s a lot more to it than that!
The remainder of the address beyond ““ makeuseof.com ” is called the Uniform Resource Locator (URL). It’’ s not part of the domain, however it’’ s utilized to construct and customize upon it to develop an operating site. It’’ s great to understand the extra parts of a URL and how they change the domain name to bring you the page you desire to go to.
The Subdomain.
The subdomain includes extra information on what part of the domain you’’ re accessing. In our URL, this is the part that states www. It represents what part of makeuseof we’’ re checking out.
www is the ““ default ” subdomain of a domain, utilized for basic web pages. It’’ s so basic that you put on’’ t even require “ www ” to access a site! If you’typed makeuseof.com rather, you ’d still get here on the website. When it was required, the www part is a relic from olden times.
Where it does assist, nevertheless, is when you’’ re segmenting a website into various locations. We might host it under the domain videos.makeuseof.com if we chose to have a location of the website committed to videos. Even though www has actually been old, subdomains still have an usage for separating the site into various classifications.
The Protocol.
The procedure specifies what type of connection you’’ re developing. In our URL, it’’ s the part that states https://.
Usually, among the 3 procedures is utilized: HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP.
.HTTP represents ““ Hypertext Transfer Protocol,” ” and is the basic fare for searching the web. HTTPS is the very same as HTTP however includes ““ Secure ” to the end to reveal your connection is secured. We utilize HTTPS since we appreciate our readers’ ’ personal privacies! FTP stands for ““ file transfer procedure,” ” which comes into play for downloading and publishing files. The Path.
Of course, the URL you see in your address bar today isn’’ t simply// www.makeuseof.com/. It has a great deal of things at the end which includes words associated with this short article.
This ““ things ” is called the course, and this assists separate each page on this website from one another. The course you see in the address bar today indicates this short article.
If you wished to check out the post ““ How to Peek at Shortened URLs Without Clicking on Them , ” for example, you ’d see its course is peek-shortened-urls-without-clicking. This course is the short article ’ s distinct “ house ” on MakeUseOf and is various from the course to this post.
Getting a Domain Name.
Getting a domain is fairly basic. It ’ ll come with the choice to make your own domain name if you ’ re constructing a site utilizing something like WordPress. If you ’ re utilizing a service such as InMotion Hosting , they ’ ll provide you a domain for your website. If you require a Domain Name that is currently taken, often those names are for sale at websites like Smart Choice Domains .
You might even have the alternative to establish an e-mail account with your domain for a really professional-looking address. Even if you can ’ t, you might have the choice to reroute mail to an e-mail company rather.
How Companies Fight Impostor Sites.
As we pointed out above, the high-level domain(. com,. co.uk, etc) is customisable.If you get a domain name that ends in.com, it doesn ’ t immediately indicate that.co.uk,. web, and other high-level domains’are under your control.
If you own a company called Purple Cat Pottery, andyou signed up www.purplecatpottery.com as your website, it doesn ’ t instantly “ reserve ” www.purplecatpottery.co.uk. Somebody in the UK might make their own business with the exact same name and register their website under.co.uk, and it ’ ll go to their site rather of yours.
People can exploit this to hurt users. Let ’ s state your pottery begins removing, however you just own the.com domain. Somebody might sign up www.purplecatpottery.net and develop a phony clone of your website. They can utilize this to disperse malware or established bogus buy orders for your pottery to visitors who come to the incorrect site.
Businesses tend to sign up several high-level domains which reroute back to the primary site to fight this. You can attempt it on this website; attempt going to// www.makeuseof.co.uk and see what occurs to the address as it loads.
Some Domain Name Examples.
https://www.google.com is a simple domain. We can inform the name of the website( Google )which it ’ s a global website (from its.com high-level domain ).
https://maps.google.com is a little bit various. Here, we can see the subdomain has actually been switched out from www to maps. As you can distinguish this URL, it will direct you to the maps area of Google.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page tells us alot from its URL. Its subdomain states en, which associates with the truth we ’ re searching the English variation of Wikipedia. It ’ s a company, so they picked the. org high-level domain to represent this. The course shows that this URL will take you to the primary page of Wikipedia.
https://www.amazon.com/ will take you to the United States variation of Amazon, however what if you wish to go shopping in a various nation? You can alter the high-level domain to a various nation and see the shop because currency. Https://www.amazon.co.uk/ for the UK.
So, what occurs when business utilize the very same mid-level domain, however various high-level domains?You ’ ll discover a video production business in Hawaii if you check out https://ohanafilms.com/. http://ohanafilms.co.uk/, on the other hand, directs you to a wedding event video manufacturer in the UK. This example reveals why business tend to sign up as lots of high-level domains as possible.
Comprehending Domain Names.
Domain names offer human beings an option to getting in IP addresses. As you ’ ve discovered, these names have complex information to them which assist us browse the web.
Want a domain on your own? Why not get one totally free?
Read the complete short article: What Is a Domain Name? 5 Straightforward Examples
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