Ask HN: How do you pick your domain name?

  • I bump up against this problem myself all the time and it's so infuriating (doubly so when most of the domains you want are registered but not even being used).

    Finding a domain name that is available, memorable, easy to spell, snappy AND which quickly gets the idea behind your product/service across is HARD but my advice is to persevere with it. A good domain name makes a big difference when it comes to user traction and seo (and, for me, just feels better than inventing some random name that bears no relation to the site).

    A lot of the time I find the .com is taken (but not being used) and the .net is free. So I register the .net and then try and pounce on the .com when it comes up for renewal (this is an art in itself). If the .com gets renewed I occasionally (depending on how badly I want it) approach the owner and ask if they'll sell it (be warned some people have ridiculous ideas of how much a domain is worth).

    An alternative is to try extensions other than .com (examples: .io .in .is .to). This is what pinboard.in did and I think it works (pinboard is easy to spell, memorable, snappy and does a good job of explaining what the site does). I use www.eurodns.com when searching for weird domain extensions (as you can check virtually all of them in one go).

    Failing all of that, get a thesaurus, dictionary and a few bottles of wine and just lock yourself in a room until something clicks!

  • You can't give up. It took us (hall.com) over 6 months. You can always change. We went from companyline, to halleo, to hall.com. Other pointer, test the domain with users to make sure it works. Our story: http://blog.hall.com/post/13936429456/how-we-got-the-hall-co...

  • You guys might also like my new web app, Lean Domain Search (http://www.leandomainsearch.com), a fast new domain search tool that pairs your search term with 1,000+ other keywords and instantly shows you which of the generated domain names are available.

  • It's always a good idea to pick up a short memorable, maybe hybrid word, if there are no available domain names what you came up with. I posted some of short, memorable, free .com domain names here:

    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3422233

  • I wrote a blog post a while back that describes what I did (and normally do) to find a domain for my project:

    http://blog.avi.so/post/10049987762/finding-a-domain-name

  • I would be happy to try and help you run some names and see if I can find anything. Contact me off my site in profile if you're interested.

  • Can you share a little more information about your project? It seems there are plenty of HNers who would like to brainstorm with you.

  • This is a clear sign of fear of shipping. Call it anything. Just ship. Change the name later if you have to.

  • I use http://bustaname.com/

  • I might be able to help. Contact me. Email is in my profile.