Finding Great Domain Names?

[YoNames]

Hey guys, just starting out in the CRAZY world of domaining. I think I'm starting to get my head round the basics, and I was wondering where people actually get their domains from... If you're hand regging domains, where does your insiration come from? Do you guys use any tools? Domain suggestion software?

So far I've discovered these websites on my own:

JustDropped.com
HandReg.co.uk
AvailableDomainNames.com
DomainsBot.com

Any more suggestions??? Thanks

 

[Rileyschott]

Hey yonames,
I am pretty new to this domain stuff too, so I know how you feel. Can be a bit overwhelming at times.
First I would like to mention that if you are looking for great domain names, you're best bet is to look for expiring and deleting domains. Chances are if there are any good domains out there, they are probably already taken.
But none the less, here are my suggestions:
For hand regging I like to use a couple different tools. One is to get a couple keyword ideas off the top of your head and type them into Google's adword keyword tool. If you have the synonyms box checked then it will spit out some relevant keywords that correspond to your existing ones. You can pretty much go at this all day.
Another good tool with alot of different options is makewords.com they have a handful of various ways to find unregged domains, plus it will tell you whether or not it is available with the results.
One more interesting site I just found is availabledomainnames.com they have lists of available domain names that you can look through to see if there are any you fancy.

As far as finding expiring/deleting domains, I suggest heavily on going to snapnames.com and going to there "auction list" page. There you can find lists for expiring domains for the next five days. Look through those names and compile a list that you think might be worth something. Then I would suggest going to the adword keyword tool again and typing in those names to see how many people have been searching for those keywords. Just make sure that you have selected "exact" search instead of "broad" That's a mistake I made and it makes a big difference on finding the value of a domain.

I hope this was helpful
Good luck and have fun!

 

[fooz]

When you guys are looking at the Exact searches, how many do you look for as a minimum? If a phrase has 2,000 exact searches per month, would you say that there is some value in the domain? Or are you looking for something more like in the 10s or 100s of exact searches?

 

[garptrader]

Yes, you will waste a tremendous amount of time trying to hand-reg quality .COM domains of searched phrases. They are gone and in the majority of cases also in the more common alternate extensions as well. Focus your efforts on drops but make sure to filter the lists to keep your review to shorter domains and with certain keywords. There is so much junk dropping that if you don't you will spend hours going through droplists and still find little worth picking up.

Many domainers disagree but I believe there is value in .Net if you can find searched phrase domains and pick them up cheap. This is an underappreciated area as so many domainers focus their efforts on .COM (rightly so). Perfect example - I picked up a two-word .Net for under $200 and the phrase is searched for close to 250 thousand times a month per Google Adwords Keyword Tool. I launched a site on that domain just recently. Don't mess with extensions other than .COM/.NET in your first year. .Net regs need to be much higher quality as they are harder to sell than .COM.

Probably the best source for quality domains is other domainers but forget about trying to make unsolicited offers. Most domainers will ask for end user prices but there is a Domains Wanted section here at Namepros. If you are willing to pay enough money to acquire a quality domain but still leave plenty of upside for the end user sale, there is likely some opportunity there. But I wouldn't recommend this to start because until you learn what a quality domain is you don't want to be paying $XXX a pop for domains which aren't worth that.

Study what sells at Namebio and DNJournal and seek quality regs. In the end the low-quality domains will get dropped as noone wants to pay money for them.

 

[painperdu]

Domain Tools: Whois Lookup and Domain Suggestions is basically a database of expired names with different ways to search it.

Sometimes I'll just have a brain storming session with the bulk search tool. Bulk search also allows you to take a list, clean it up, and post it into the search box. The results also show the other TLD variants.

You can still find some usable .com names but even those are disappearing fast. The other TLD variants are slowly gaining respect so don't discount them.

 

[garptrader]

I will add one more item. Resist the temptation to register everything that sounds good at first glance. Focus on acquiring quality domains even though that means you only register a small percentage of ideas which come across your plate. When those renewals come due, you want domains that you don't have to give a second thought as to whether to renew or not.

 

[YoNames]

Okay, thanks everyone. Some great ideas and tools here

 

[JoshuaPz]

I would add to the list:

* Domain Superstar User Dashboard (for finding available domains with keyword traffic)
* My own NameFlipper || Home (for finding dropping domains with very high resale potential)

 

[intheflow]

Tastedrop.com is one of my favorites.

 

[Tia Wood]

DomainIdeaBox.com is one I built.

 

[ezimedia]

HI

Here is what I do... to find good domains I can develop...

1) Go to snapnames and put keywords in that I am interested in that have to be in the domain names I want.... then they will email you a list of domain names each day that are pending/deleting....

2) I put those names in to a program like Available Domains Pro from alphacomsoft.com I scan the lists daily... to see what you can reg...

3) I take that list and put them thru the Bulk Appraisal tool on Estibot.com


out of around 3000-4000 domains I scan I find 3-5 names I can get for reg fee and I can develop with articles I get written and within a 1-2 the site is making money for me...

The domains I look for have a lot of searches in the serps and make sense... and also have word tracker results around 200+ at least...

So what do you do to find good names... I also do other things...to find good names.

Thx
Tom

 

[Trickac14]

Yea when I started I hand regged a TON of domains and a year later I just let them drop because they weren't worth it to me. Focus on buying names from other people, try getting them cheap to resell for profit later.