
Lean Domain Search Now Checks the Availability of 2,000 Domain Names per Search - llambda
http://leandomainsearch.com/2000
======
blakeperdue
Can you link to anyone besides GoDaddy? I'm sure you've noticed the many
reasons around the tubes lately on why not to use them.

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matt1
GoDaddy is the default because it's what most people use.

You can change it by clicking 'change your preferred registrar' link below the
red button on the confirmation dialog.

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johnfn
Just because GoDaddy is what most people use doesn't mean it's what most
people _should_ use. On top of all the SOPA nonsense, GoDaddy has remarkably
sexist and degrading ads. I'd encourage you to set the default registrar to be
a different registrar by default - maybe Namecheap?

~~~
matt1
There's a huge drop off in affiliate revenue from GoDaddy to the next most
popular registrar. Making Namecheap default would inconvenience most the users
and cause a substantial drop in my revenue.

I appreciate where you're coming from, but I'm not sure the pros of switching
outweigh the cons.

~~~
rhizome
So, it's not really that most people use GD, but that they offer the highest
affiliate rates.

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kanamekun
Wow, this is an amazing service! Somehow I missed this the first time it was
posted, but I'll definitely use this for all my domain hunting in the future.

I'm curious: how did you pick the "other keywords commonly found in domain
names"?

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matt1
1) Get ahold of a zone file listing all the registered .com domain names

2) Pick five common words

3) Scan the zone file, noting which registered domain names start and end with
one of those common words.

4) Now parse those results and pick the words that are joined with them to
form domain names (ie, the prefixes and suffixes)

5) Scan the zone file, noting how many domain names start or end with those
prefixes/suffixes

6) Filter that list for the ones that occur > n times

7) Randomize the resulting list of prefixes and suffixes so it's not sorted by
popularity

8) Add 100 per week

~~~
kanamekun
Very cool, and a clever algorithm!

I've been playing with the site, and the sheer number of results can be a bit
overwhelming. It might be neat to help address that by grouping together the
suggested domains into categories of roots?

For example, there could be Places roots, filled with roots like hub, spot,
-ocity, etc. There could be Frugal roots, with roots like cheap, cheapo,
bargain, steal, etc. There could Newspaper roots, which add words like
Observer, Times, Post, Chronicle, etc. to the users input. Other users could
also create their own Roots, and share them... it'd be a great way to
encourage community and create stickiness. If I have my 100 favorite Roots
categories saved to your site, I'm much more likely to continue to use it to
hunt for new domains.

When I search for a keyword, the results could be displayed in conceptual
groupings (i.e. the different Roots categories)... that would help me quickly
scan the results.

Just a thought... feel free to use or disregard. I'll definitely be using your
site in the meantime!

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matt1
This is a really excellent idea.

If you (or anyone reading this) is interested in categorizing the 2,000
modifiers like this suggests, please drop me a note: matt@leandomainsearch.com
-- I'd be more than happy to compensate you for your effort.

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kanamekun
I'd be glad to take a pass at it! Will drop you an email...

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draggnar
I like how it returns so many options, but they are a bit hard to read with
the green. I did a couple searches and never came across non-green listings,
so why the colors? I still prefer the way bustaname.com is set up, although it
seems to be getting dated now. Their weak point is recommendations I wouldn't
have thought of, which seems to be the strong point of leandomainsearch.

~~~
duck
I agree... the green is hard to scan. Also, it would be nice to know what the
"default" sort order represents. Seems more random than sorted. :)

~~~
matt1
I actually A/B tested the impact of a light vs a dark design on the number of
searches folks made and the difference was negligible [1]. Agreed through that
the default order is something that can be optimized and tested going forward.

[1] [http://www.mattmazur.com/2012/02/ab-testing-a-light-vs-
dark-...](http://www.mattmazur.com/2012/02/ab-testing-a-light-vs-dark-design-
on-lean-domain-search/)

~~~
joelrunyon
Love the site, but I'd agree that white on black is hard to read (and so is
the green).

A toggle option to change the color scheme (since they convert about the same)
would be really cool.

That said, it's your project - do what you want with it! Keep up the good
work.

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unreal37
This is a great service. I've already registered a domain using it, and will
do some more today. Congrats! I hope you make $1 million!

~~~
matt1
Thanks. Me too :)

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toddnessa
When I was searching for a domain name for my startup idea, it became very
evident to me rather quickly that a number of domain squatters have used the
dictionary to snap up domain names. Let me first say that I really don't have
an issue with someone purchasing a domain that goes along with an idea that
they do intend to use at some reasonable future time. However, I do have an
issue with those who search the dictionary for every possible domain name that
someone with an idea might want to later use in order to later profit off of
you and your idea. To combat this, I found myself having to come up with a
creative variation of what I initially wanted to use in order to register a
domain. In the end, I feel it benefited my creativity and led to a really
catchy name. It is nice to now be aware of a tool that can help someone facing
this process and hope that it falls only in the right hands.

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stefanobernardi
<http://www.domainsbot.com> checks way more than 10,000 for every search,
doing semantic matching. They have been doing it for years. I'm sorry but I'm
failing to see how this is cooler other than the fancy colors.

~~~
mikejarema
Cooler, maybe.

But the fact that LDS employs a strategy that consistently results in catchy-
sounding, hyphen-free and available domains does differentiate it.

Not to knock domainsbot.com, they do have killer matching algos under the hood
(as you mentioned), I don't believe they have false-positives (rarely if at
all) and they bring in aftermarket domains to results, but from a starting
point like "game", I only get 2 suggestions in the .com namespace (no hyphens,
permit related keywords, suffixes and prefixes).

LDS on the other hand brings back 54 domains. I'm not saying all of them are
gold, but I would certainly consider "gamegroovy.com" for a gaming related
site.

This is likely the case for many other popular / high-value keywords, eg.
cloud.

I think that branding is an exercise that requires a lot of creativity
supported by a range of tools. LDS is very strong in its techniques.

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hornbaker
I use LDS often, but it'd be considerably more useful to me if you relaxed the
requirements on the root search to allow fewer than 3 characters and allow
numbers. Is there a technical reason why you don't allow short or number-
containing searches?

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matt1
Yep, there's a technical reason for it. I'll work on a resolution for it and
make a post here and on the mailing list when its available.

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jcc80
I've used this tool but not yet purchased any of the favorites I saved. I knew
a few domains I wanted to buy so went to LDS and opened up the link to the
registrar from there so hopefully credit was given (can't freeload).

Only thing I'd change so far is maybe moving the search bar slightly higher on
front page, make it and the button bigger and putting light grey text in the
search box. But, you've probably thought of all of that already, just my
personal style. Anyways, this has been my go to tool for searching for domains
since I found it here a month or so ago. Thanks for building!

~~~
matt1
Glad you like it -- I built it to solve one of my own major pain points: it's
very hard and time consuming finding quality available domain names for the
products I build.

As far as the search bar positioning, I'll play around with it and see if an
A/B test or two indicates it has an impact. Appreciate the recommendation.

~~~
bostonpete
Though I understand the idea, I'm not too familiar with how A/B tests are
performed in practice. I would've assumed you'd need a lot of data to get
statistically significant results. Is the volume of data that you need to
achieve that statistical significance well-understood and do you actually have
the traffic to collect that amount of data? (I guess I imagined that it would
require huge amounts of data.)

~~~
matt1
Hey Pete. The duration of the A/B test depends on several factors. I recommend
checking out this calculator on Visual Website Optimizer to get a feel for how
many you need:

<http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/ab-split-test-duration/>

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boolean
Excellent timing! I just spent my last 2 hours searching for a name and 2
minutes after clicking your site, I found one and bought it. Thank you matt1!

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lbo
I get a large number of false-positives and, interestingly enough, even more
false positives for the same search term when searching from my iPhone.

As I click on them all, they stop appearing again, but this is quite an
annoying experience. Do you default-to-available if your query to WHOIS times
out and nobody has clicked to check that link before?

~~~
matt1
Hey, I actually figured out a way to fix this and will implement the change
within the next several days. False positives should drop from around 10% to
around 1% within two weeks.

~~~
lbo
Awesome. Otherwise the site is excellent.

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j45
Very cool, nice to see you have continued to develop the service.

Have you had any thoughts about how you might insulate domain squatters from
simply showing up and buying every short domain for common searches?

Also, regarding switching default search registrars... considered making this
a paid service? Would help with my question above too.

~~~
matt1
There's nothing stopping squatters from registering these domain names other
than the fact they would have to register so many. That's part of the beauty
of it.

Re: making it a paid service -- how would you charge?

~~~
j45
I think adding a barrier of having to login would at least get rid of the
automated searchers/scrapers that want to register all short domains in a
profitable domain niche.

Limiting numbers of searches, depth of searches in free/no account vs having
an account and/paying?

I'm not advocating for making it a paid service - squatters will probably pay
too for a good service, my wishes for LDS are that it stays relevant in search
quality and results for a long time and it can't be usurped by a few people
with money -- most of who are squatters.

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wildmXranat
Very neat service. Do you plan on adding other commission links , ie: not
GoDaddy ?

~~~
matt1
Thanks -- you can change the preferred registrar by clicking the 'change your
preferred registrar' link below the red registration button.

~~~
scoopr
Perhaps the "Register Now With" button could be a drop-down for the
registrars, the changing a preferred registrar feels like an extra needless
step.

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JeffJenkins
I love lean domain search. I found (almost _) metainbox.com there, which was
an awesome name for my app.

_ (I actually missed it and stumbled upon it on my own, but I went back and it
was there. There are just so many options!)

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joelrunyon
Is there a character limit of the domains we can search for? (seemed to me to
be 20?).

I know there's a huge dropoff in competition when domains start to get long,
but there are a few times it would be nice to have.

~~~
matt1
Your search query must contain at least three letters; there is no max.

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hfz
Great service!

Feature request: allow us to add parameters to your url for sorting and
start/end with options, instead of just the q present right now, so it can be
more flexibly bookmarked and linked.

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RecursiveLoop
One great feature would be a price comparison between various registrars. I
know that might eat into your affiliate revenues.

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twelvedigits
Since I always want my app name to match the .com, I rely on this site. Keep
up the great work.

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icode
When I type in "day" i get:

"Oops, Lean Domain Search's search algorithm failed with this search term."

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matt1
Thanks -- I track these errors and fix them within a day or two. It's a side-
effect of how the search works. Over time the number of results that throw
this error should drop close to zero.

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webbruce
This is absolutely awesome. I've had it bookmarked since it was first on HN

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gravitronic
I have seen LDS on HN a few times now.

I know generally the HN effect causes a lot of traffic when the post is active
but very little increase in average traffic if you remove the days when a post
is on HN frontpage.

What's your traffic look like on weeks without a HN post compared to weeks
with a HN post?

~~~
matt1
Traffic is less on weeks when it's not featured on HN :)

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monkeygus
maybe its me, but i find it hard to scan across three columns to find a name
that pops. perhaps just have the results in a single column? i already found a
name i like though, so thanks!

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nirvana
I don't know why the earlier link was killed... but this is a useful service,
and frankly, I think much more relevant to startups than all the political
links and partisan anti-Apple stuff that gets posted to the front page.

~~~
matt1
Thanks -- I had someone proofread the post earlier and he mentioned that I
didn't have enough sexy numbers. Like, why would I post a graph showing the
average search duration had doubled? Why even bring it up?

I responded that I wasn't trying to sell to TechCrunch here -- this is the
data I have, some of it good (2,000 results!) and some of it not (average
number of searches has not increased). It's issues like these that I think
about when I'm trying (sometimes unsuccessfully) to fall asleep at night. And
I'm guessing it's similar not-always-sexy-world-conquoring issues that keep
most other startup founders up at night too.

