

Ask HN : Is the world out of good domain names?  - rukshn

Are there any good domain names out there that one can get? Is it ok to use an uncommon domain name?<p>I've got a four letter .me domain name that some say good and others say bad. I've tried so many domain name generators and couldn't find a good domain name, and the good ones are already taken.<p>Are we out of good domain names? Is it good for startups to use uncommon domain names? What's your take on this?
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csaba
I think for english speakers the .rs suffix can be interesting (e.g. love.rs -
already taken, but hey). In my opinion uncommon domain names are ok, because
nowdays you don't have to remember the full domain name to find the site what
you are looking for.

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rukshn
Yes nowadays most of the startups have wired domain names, sometimes even
confusing with pokemon characters <http://evilbrainjono.net/pages/startup-or-
pokemon.py>

But when it comes to Google and searching isn't it true that awkward domain
names will not get better search results?

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csaba
No, I don't think so. Google is clever enough to recognize your title tag
along with your domain name. Of course it is little harder to be the first
result for a search, but that's because new domains tend to be that way. And
if you make enough money you can always buy the .com counterparts.

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williamldennis
It depends whether you're doing a consumer facing site, a personal site, or a
b2b site. Consumer sites tend to be better off with .com's. Personal sites and
b2b have a little more wiggle room because you tend to link to them directly
(as opposed to search). SEO is really what is comes down to though, if someone
spells your company name (or how they think it's spelled) into google, will
you appear at the top of the list?

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rukshn
But are there any .com domains out there that are good? buying owned domains
from owners tend to cost lots of money.

There are some short .com domain names that are free but they are most of the
time awkward and can't be easily remembered by users

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bakli
Here is my trick, I usually take two words of different languages and append
them to one each other. For example, I bought the domain polldaal.com . Poll
means a poll in english and daal means respond to in hindi. These kind of
domains are very easy to find and you can shoot for good SEO keywords too.

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helen842000
Nope, not at all. I've found lots of really good .com domains in the last few
months.

Short _used_ to be the name of the game, now it just needs to be memorable.
Don't restrict yourself to 4 or 5 letter domains. I usually find great .com
around 8-11 characters as it gives you chance to be inventive, combine words
to be unique.

If you want me to come up with a few shoot me a mail - I'm my username at
gmail.com

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dragonbonheur
Given how the US government can and has shut down .com .net .info sites having
a 'conventional' domain name can also be a liability. You can be creative and
buy domains that people can remember with the .er .ly .es or other suffixes.
There are still options out there.

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rukshn
Thanks yes will look in to that, however most of the sites that do well are
.com websites isn't it?

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dragonbonheur
That isn't the only thing that matters. There are a lot of factors that can
get a website on top of search results. Taking advantage of those factors is
what Search Engine Optimization is all about.

