Domain Name Ideas
This pages has useful ideas for coming up with a valuable domain name.
There are many ways for coming up with a domain name. Here are a few of them.
Merging two different words
This technique can be incredibly effective if you can come up with a good combination. If you get it wrong it may sound clumsy but if you get it right you can have a very unique name, which can be cleverly branded while at the same time having a name which sounds intrinsically familiar. Many times when someone up with a purely unique name based on a word they invented the name ends up sounding very pretentious and reeks of desperation to be different.
 | Travelocity.com, a combination of "Travel" and "Velocity". |
| A great example from a lesser-know site would be Exploratorium.com - combination of "explore" and, probably, "auditorium". |
| adholes.com, a site dealing with advertising. |
| newseum.org, a very effective splicing of "news" & "museum". |
| pornholio.net, "porn" & "Cornholio". |
| A decent example I saw on Ebay the other day was "Econogift.com", selling for $1. |
Related phrases, concepts, and items
These sites have names that are related to phrases of the category of your site. This is one of the most popular methods of picking a successful name and is also very effective because these types of names have simplicity and individuality. They don't have the downside of generic names while still having be able to have the association to the subject matter, unlike some abstract names. Some good examples are:
| ShutterFly.com, a photo site. "Shutter bug" is a nickname for a photography hobbyist. |
| TheStreet.com, a stock market site. "The Street" is a nickname for Wall Street. |
| Bet-the-pot.com is a poker site "Bet the pot" is a poker phrase that means to bet an amount that is currently in the pot already. |
| TripleDigits.com a motorcycle community whose name was inspired by motorcycles riders who drive more than 100 miles an hour. |
| Audible.com's name is an online store that sells audio books. |
| SmokingGun.com is a site that shows evidence of embarrassing events. |
| TheKnot.com, a wedding site. Their name comes from the phrase "tying the knot". |
| WhiteCordCult.com, an iPod fan site, is named after the signature white cord that hangs from it. |
Numbers in the domain name
These sites have a number in the domain name. These are becoming very popular lately because there are simply so many domains available with numbers in them. One successful site with numbers in the name is
43 Things (sort of a social networking site). It is becoming popular to put specific numbers in your site that have a certain connotation.
| "123" is a common addition to domain names to indicate simplicity or learning - 123genealogy.com and music123.com. |
| "360" is a common addition which is synoymous with being comprehensive - Academic360.com and 360soccer.com. |
| "365" is an addition which is derived from "365 days a year" and can be interpreted as "all the time" - bet365, football365. |
| "911" is a number that represents urgency. It is used by webmasters who create sites whose content is made of news stories. The most popular example would be gambling911.com. And it can also refer to a Sept 11th site. |
| "411" is a number that representes information and is a popular suffix - Podcast411.com and Stereo411.com. |
| "1" is interpreted by some as meaning "#1" and is used by sticking it after a basic keyword by webmasters looking for a keyword name. These are weak names and I can't even think if one popular site with "1" as a prefix or suffix. |
| "101" is used to convey a beginner's tutorials site. poker101.com is an example. |
| "247" means "24 hours/day. 7 days/week." It is a trendy way of meaning "all the time" - flashgames247.com and 247computerrepair.com both work very well. |
| Random number. Like 4templates.com. 43 Things is a good one. This is will get more popular as all-letter domains get bought up. |
"Abbreviation/keyword" combination
This is when you take 2 keywords and abbreviate the first one. Good examples of this are:
JDate.com, which is a Jewish dating site, or
CPanel.com which is short for "control panel". Another example which is popular (which I'm not a big fan of) is
WUnderground.com, which is "Weather Underground".
"i" or "e" prefix
This is where you stick in the popular prefix of "i" and "e" before a keyword to give your name an internet connotation. Examples of this are:
iTunes.com,
iPoker.com,
eHarmony.com,
eTrade.com,
eHorse.com. and
iFeminists.net. These are generally very effective but this is a common strategy and these names tend to not be available these days.
"Prefix/keyword" combination
This is where you put a letter or two before a keyword. This is similar to the last section except the prefix doesn't actually mean anthing. This can be tricky because it means you can come up with a very short and catchy name but you have to be able to brand it well so that you don't just come off as trying too hard to get a short domain name. The best example of this was
ofoto.com.
A piece of advice here is that if you can't brand it well then it only works when the prefix is relevant to the site. An example: you want to start a poker site with a short keyword domain with the word "poker" in it. You do a domain search and see that "etpoker.com" is the only one available. It is short and easy to remember. But what does it actually mean? What does it communicate to your users and potential users? How does it identify your site? Overall, I would say don't take it. Find something more relevant. The name "etpoker.com" is not relevant to anything you are doing - unless you are making something like "Eastern Tennessee Poker", then it is a great name. You can see these kinds of names, like "qksex.com" all the time on Ebay and Sedo trying to be sold for more than they are worth. The reason they are always trying to be sold is because the people who bought them thought they were worth a lot because they had a very valuable keyword in them but it ends up no one wants them.
Copying another site's name
This sometimes works but you have to be careful to make sure you have your own identity.
AskJolene.com is a site that is basically the Google of porn where you can search for pics and videos by keyword. The name seems inspired by
AskJeeves.com which was a search engine. I think AskJolene is a good choice for a name and I think this site has huge prospects. An example of a horrendous way of copying a site's name are the sites that copied
friendster.com, a social networking site. The "-ster" suffix at the end of the word "friend" was copied by so many social networking sites making a pathetic attempt to pickyback on friendsters success. Look at all these:
collegester.com,
foodsters.com,
Jewster.com,
schoolster.com,
christianster.com,
catster.com,
dogster.com. The worst example is a site called
hamsterster.com. Say that name out loud and you'll see how ridiculous it is. An interesting thing about the friendster copying was that the only site I can think of with a "-ster" suffix which created it's own identity was
feedster.com (a site that has automatic feeds for websites) which was not a social networking site.
Parody names
These are names that make fun of established things or phrases. These are great for humor sites. A few good examples are:
BreakfastOfLosers.com, a personal blog, and
engrish.com, is a site which shows examples of incorrect English which shows up in Japanese ads.
Alternative spellings - phonetic spelling
This is where you spell your domain name so that is sounds exactly the same as a popular word but it is spelled differently. Be careful when you do this because sometimes it will be hard to build a unique identity for the site. If you wanted to make a web site about movies I wouldn't recommend going out and buying movees.com - even it if were available. When you tell people what your web site address is you will have to spell it out each time and there is too much of a chance they will remember the wrong name later when they go to the site. It is also hard to uniquely brand these alternative spellings of basic-sounding names. Two examples that work well are
phun.org and
digg.com which both use very short words that are easy to remember and have cool, hip connotations. This trend came about because the correct words were always unavailable so webmasters started to switch a letter so they could have a short domain name. This is how Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg, came up with the name - because dig.com was taken. The best way to execute this strategy is to choose a variation of a popular keyword that is already relevant to your site.
Alternative spellings - missing vowel
The other alternative spelling strategy is to create a phonetic spelling by subtracting a vowel out of it. Some examples of this strategy are
frappr.com and
flickr.com. Expect this underutilized strategy to become more popular. The same advice I stated in the section above applies to these ones too.
At first I thought the alternative spelling domain names were hacky. It was apparent that the webmasters were deliberately taking a name that wasn't their first choice and also thought the wrong spelling sounded cool. I thought the wrong spelling sounded kind of stupid. It reminded me of the way teenagers needlessly mangle the spelling of a word just to sound cool. But as some of these sites have become popular I have changed my mind. Most of the alternative spelling sites are part of the Web 2.0 trend so I interpret their wrong spelling as having a counter-culture kind of attitude - kind of the way I would always start a sentence off with the word "and" just to piss off my English teachers in college.
Alternative spellings using numbers
This means using a number that sounds like the letter, or group of letters it replaces. A decent example is
k8tie.net (warning: porn site). Katie.net is such a basic valuable domain name and would cost too much to buy that replacing that one letter is a good way to get a short domain. Plus, being a girl's domain means it looks cute. An example of a bad name would be cre8tive.com. When you tell someone the name the site do you really want to say "My site is creative.com, oh but the 'a' is an eight". This name not only lacks the uniqueness needed to be highly brandable, but isn't even a legitimate keyword domain. And if this is a business it looks unprofessional.
Repeating a keyword more than once
This is when you take a keyword and put it in the name more than once. This is usually a result of someone who was looking specifically for a good keyword domain and couldn't find one so they just stuck the keyword in the title 2 or 3 times. An example of a keyword appearing two times would be
CarsCars.com, An example of having the keyword in the title 3 times would be the common variations like
carscarsandmorecars.com and
pokerpokerandmorepoker.com. This is a bad strategy. These generic names have no brand identitity or imagination.
"Keyword + Generic Word" combinations
This is when you take a keyword and stick a generic word after it. Most of the time the generic word is at the end but there are some that go at the beginning. Many times these are used for forum sites, but not always. This is basically another way of getting a keyword domain. Here are some examples generic words that go after the keyword:
| | Central - IPOcentral.com, harmony-central.com, Jobcentral.com. |
| | Chat - christianchat.com, djchat.com, franchise-chat.com. |
| | Club - parentingclub.com, theromanceclub.com, surveyclub.com |
| | Community - cruise-community.com, cigarcommunity.com |
| | Connection - clipartconnection.com, lyricsconnection.com, macconnection.com |
| | House - electronichouse.com, domainhouse.com. |
| | Hub - quizhub.com, bloghub.com, investorshub.com, travelhub.com |
| | Joint - urbanjoint.com, thepizzajoint.com. |
| | Junction - donationjunction.com, drumjunction.com, coursejunction.com. |
| | Life - outdoorlife.com, veggielife.com. |
| | Loft - music-loft.com/, yoga-loft.com, thebabyloft.com. |
| | Net - skinet.com, medicinenet.com, jedinet.com. |
| | Now - cinemanow.com, aviationnow.com |
| | Online - boston-online.com, babiesonline.com, queenonline.com. |
| | Pages - racepages.com, wine-pages.com. |
| | Place - resume-place.com, petplace.com, healthyplace.com. |
| | Place - thebookplace.com, bandwidthplace.com. |
| | Project - payphone-project.com, tornadoproject.com. |
| | Rants - celebrityrants.com, travel-rants.com, daily-rants.com. |
| | Report - pollingreport.com, innovations-report.com, gamingreport.com. |
| | Review - technologyreview.com, audioreview.com, jazzreview.com. |
| | Scene - , boxingscene.com, dj-scene.com. |
| | Shack - laughshack.com, scaleshack.com, imageshack.com |
| | Spot - employmentspot.com, fun-spot.com, libraryspot.com. |
| | Talk - cartalk.com, dvdtalk.com, profootballtalk.com |
| | Underground - democraticUnderground.com, comedyunderground.com. |
| | Vault - phonevault.com/, salesvault.com, . |
| | Wire - bookwire.com, indiewire.com, satirewire.com. |
| | Zone - bowlingzone.com, mountainzone.com, TheAdminZone.com |
"Generic Word + Keyword" combinations
Here are some examples generic words that go before the keyword:
"Keyword/Branding" Hybrids
"Keyword/Branding" hybrid names have a keyword in the name followed by another word. This is similar to the category above except that the word that goes along with the keyword is a little more targeted and less generic so the domain name will sound unique. An example would be
VocabVitamins.com. This is a cute name that conveys the purpose of the site.
Acronyms
This is a 3 or 4-letter abreviation for a longer name. There are 676 combinations of 2-letter domains, 17,576 3-letter domains, and 456,976 4-letter domains per TLD (not including numbers in the name). A 4-letter domain will not be available if it is also a word but 4-letter domains that are not words are sometimes available. One of the most popular names is
imdb.com, Internet Movie Database, another example is
wayn.com, a social-networking travel site named WhereAreYouNow.
