

Rate My Startup: DomainPigeon.com - matt1
http://www.domainpigeon.com

======
matt1
The short of it: Domain Pigeon helps you find unregistered domain names for
your websites. Please let me know what you think.

The long of it: In March of last year I was in the process of writing some
poker software and trying to decide on a name for it. I wanted a good name and
also wanted to own the corresponding domain name so that people could easily
find it. I used Ajaxwhois, a great site that lets shows you the availability
of domain names as you type, and quickly got pulled in trying to find a good
domain. I would spend hours trying things like “pokerguru.com”,
“pokermaster.com”, “pokercalculator.com”, “pokerexpert.com”, and so on. After
a lot of time and energy later, I found “allinexpert.com”, which became the
name of the software.

Fast forward to about July. ALL IN Expert had just flopped and I was trying to
decide on a new project to work on. I had several ideas in mind and again, I
wanted a good domain name for whatever it wound up being. It was kind of sick:
I wound up going back to Ajaxwhois and using it as the tie breaker. If I could
find a good domain name for one project and not the other, that would be what
I worked on.

It was crazy. There's got to be a better way. I wrote a small piece of
software that played with various word combinations and displayed their
availability. Surprisingly, there are a lot of decent domains out there... you
just have to be patient enough or resourceful enough to find them.

Then it hit me: This is something other people could use too. I put the other
ideas on the back burner and started on this one.

Domain Pigeon, an eccentric but hopefully memorable name I discovered with the
same software, is intended to make finding unregistered domain names easier.
It has been my learn Rails/JavaScript/web development nights and weekends
project over the last few months. I hope you like it.

This is round two of its launch. Last week I posted a link to Philly on Rails,
a local group of Rails aficionados, and received a lot of great feedback. The
result is what you see today (hopefully, depending on how DreamHost does with
the traffic).

I've got a list of about two dozens features I intend to add over the coming
weeks, which will be modified and prioritized based on your feedback.

For me, Domain Pigeon has been as much about learning the process as it has
been about the releasing the product. On that note, all feedback, positive and
negative, is welcomed. I also keep a blog, mattmazur.com, where I write about
Domain Pigeon and its progress for anyone that is interested. I try to be as
transparent as possible, as that's the best way to get valuable feedback.

On a final note, a lot of the design decisions for Domain Pigeon were adapted
from feedback given to other people launching their sites on HackerNews and
for that, I owe you all a thank you.

Please let me know what you think.

~~~
dice
The name immediately made me think "So, what, it's going to shit all over my
site and be a general annoyance?" You need a better name :)

Bloodhounds come to mind.

~~~
matt1
Six months from now, I bet you're going to remember the name though :)

------
timf
I think the headline at the top is longer than necessary, too much of a
sentence.

So instead of:

" _We help you find an unregistered domain name for your website_ "

Maybe:

" _Find the best unregistered domains_ "

Or something else short and sweet?

Just a thought. Best of luck!

~~~
matt1
It's funny, I must have changed it about fifty times. It's amazing how many
variations you can get on the same phrase. For example:

\- "We help you find an unregistered domain name for your website"

\- "We help you find unregistered domain names for your websites"

\- "Find an unregistered domain name for your website"

\- "Find unregistered domain names for your websites"

\- "Find a great unregistered domain name for your site"

Etc etc. I think I'll get rid of the "We help you", as that was something I
was indecisive about.

Thanks --

~~~
falsestprophet
I would drop the "for you website" bit. It sounds a little 1994. What else
would they want the domain name for?

I too fell into that trap. One day I woke up and saw "best * on the Internet"
in my copy and hated myself all day.

~~~
matt1
I think keeping "for your website" makes it clearer for normal people.

~~~
falsestprophet
At the same time, "normal people" who don't know that domains are for websites
will not have a prayer of understanding what domainpidgin.com is about.

How do you expect these "normal people" to find domainpidgin in the first
place?

------
jwesley
I'm pretty big domain collector, and to be honest, I see no compelling reason
to use this service. Something like Freshdrop.net, which allows sorting by
numerous data types, searching, and the ability to get the jump on newly
expired domains is much more useful.

Of the 10 most popular domains, only 1 (campdeal.com) is moderately
attractive. I browsed through a bunch of the categories and most of them were
terrible. There is also no ability to search a keyword and have relevant names
appear.

I would be very interested in a service like this, but you will need much more
functionality to compete. I think you may have opened up for review before the
product was ready.

~~~
matt1
Thanks for the feedback and I understand your critiques.

The 10 most popular were only elevated to that level from people testing out
the site (all of those were on the front page when people were testing it). I
don't think they accurately reflect the best domains the site has. It should
as the site gets more traffic. Plus, eventually some will start to get
registered, which I'll highly prominently on the homepage. It needs time
though.

As far as releasing before it was ready, all I can say is that there's a lot
more I'm going to do, but wanted to get something out there to get feedback.
This is not a final product by any means; it's an iteration.

Edited to add: While Domain Pigeon may one day be popular with domain
collectors such as yourself, I'd consider it more successful if it becomes
popular with non-collectors. If you go to the site expecting to find domains
worth thousands of dollars, you'll likely be disappointed--most of those are
taken. My objective is to make a good place to go for people simply looking
for options.

~~~
jwesley
I think you should reconsider targeting more serious collectors. I personally
buy 5 or so domains per week, so that adds up to many more sales than the
average person who might buy 5 domains their entire life.

~~~
matt1
You might be right. I'll try to make it a great site for both audiences.

------
timf
You have some competition, how do you stand out? (like nameboy.com,
domainit.com, domainnamesuggest.com, domainsbot.com )

~~~
matt1
Eventually, do everything they do better (and more).

~~~
pclark
thats not an answer :P

why should I use your service over theirs?

~~~
matt1
Yeah, I know :D

Here's a start:

1) You don't have to type in any keywords, you can just browse and see what
you like. Soon I'll add the ability for people to generate lists based on
keywords similar to those other sites, but I wanted to get this out there.

2) Sometimes you don't know what type of domain you want. For example,
consider a domain like "posterous.com". That's not something any of those
other sites would likely show you based on your keywords. Domain Pigeon would.

3) You can quickly tell what's popular based on the shading, making
registration a kind of game. At the moment, the recently added list is mostly
white, but it will light up as more people visit the site. The top 10 will
change accordingly too.

4) Usability is valued and the site isn't littered with ads.

~~~
kaiserama
How do you make money?

~~~
matt1
Membership, affiliates, and maybe some quality ads. There's a lot of options
down the road depending on how things go.

------
sam_in_nyc
I hate to say this, but do you know who you are up against? Domain squatters
are the sleaziest web entrepreneurs known to man. You are basically making
their job much easier...

If this site gets _at all_ popular, domain squatters are going to scrape your
site for domains that have _any value whatsoever_ and register them. That's
how they operate. They are set up to register domain names quickly and
cheaply, and squeeze any profit from them at all.

For example, it used to be the case (might still be) that if you did a search
on GoDaddy.com for some domain, and did not register that domain within X
hours, GoDaddy would sell their searches to squatters which would then often
register the domain you just searched for. My guess is their whole process is
automated based on how long the domain is, which dictionary words it contains,
etc. Shitty, right?

You are a dream come true to them: more than just data on if the domain was
searched, but actually tracking non-registered domains' popularities... and
posting it for all the public to see! All it takes is one of these self
proclaimed "web real estate guru" assholes to come along and see your site has
decent domain names listed, and tell his programmer crony to scrape and
register them.

I see your only option being using images to display domain names, and
mangling up the URLs, to hopefully stifle anyone trying to scrape your site.
Then, if you have a lack of morals and want money really bad, you can sell a
feed of popular domains to squatters from some good money.

Good luck.

------
raju
This will be useful to a lot of us, I'm sure.

Just nitpicking here, but you have the words "Click a domain name to begin"
that shows up no matter what page I am on (including the registration page).
Feels a little out of context there...

Maybe its just me. Great job.. Wish you the best

~~~
matt1
Thanks and good point about the click message. It now only appears when the
user is within the domain controller.

------
davecardwell
A bit late in the day perhaps, but I had a couple of observations:

* Search should be above the fold. On my MacBook I have to scroll down to see the input field. Also on the results page I’d put a search box at the top, auto-focused (a la the Google homepage) so I can quickly perform another search.

* "You may have better luck with an account :)." - Why not tell me how many domains I could see if I did sign up instead? I’d be much more likely to fork over $14.95 if I knew what I was getting in advance.

------
popschedule
Just purchased 3 domain names, oisie.com (for the shape and look on paper),
sayideas.com (maybe a live video site, for idea sharing), idgeo.com (hmm,
maybe a tracking solution of some kind)

------
lallysingh
\- Put your price on the front page. I'm distrustful if you try to hide it.

\- Does the search do substrings? Auto-acronyming? regexs? Startup folks may
enjoy that.

\- You probably killed off the cream of your inventory crop by showing it here
first :-)

Also, perhaps do AB testing with $14.99 and $9.99. See if there's a
psychological barrier there. You may find the drop in price is compensated by
the increased conversion.

~~~
matt1
Very good observations.

\- I'm not sure what the best way to show the price is. I played with having
it big and bold on the registration page but couldn't get it to look right. In
an effort to learn how to do it better, I've been taking photos of price tags
at Walmart, the mall, etc and have got some good ideas in mind on how to make
it better. There's definitely an art to it...

\- The search does do substrings. No auto-acronyming (not sure what that is).
No regex, as I don't think most people would use it.

\- $14.99 vs $9.99... its tough. I figure I'll start higher and drop lower
eventually if it seems necessary. It's easier to lower your price than to
raise it.

\- Inventory... most people haven't scanned past the first few pages. I'll
need to find a way to make this easier.

------
petercooper
It must be kinda good, because I just bought one of the domains I just saw on
your front page - rollwall.com. Sure I can find a use for it :)

~~~
matt1
That's the nicest compliment the site could have received. Appreciate it --

~~~
matt1
Someone just got campdeal.com too :)

~~~
Keyframe
yeap, I got it! thanks mate :)

~~~
matt1
I realized after you grabbed this that the color calculations were also
including registered domains, which it shouldn't have been doing. I fixed that
so now that you grabbed campdeal, which was by far the most heavily clicked
domain, everything is a lot more colorful.

~~~
Keyframe
I think your site is great - could use some synonym heuristics to suggest
simillar domains and, ofcourse, an easy way to buy domain through you as a
reseller.

~~~
Keyframe
or it looks like I wasn't fast enough when I bought the domain even though I
was charged, weird. :D

------
johns
Search should be much more prominent. I have a set of product names with a
common keyword and I always am on the lookout for good domains with that
keyword. Search should be the first input box I see on the page, not tucked
away in the left sidebar below the fold.

~~~
matt1
When the site has 100K domains rather than 10K domains, I'll definitely make
it more prominent. Right now most search results will be 'No domains found'
which is why I don't want to showcase it too much.

Also, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I'll eventually add a feature
that finds unregistered domain names based on your keywords. Domain Pigeon
will go hunting for your domains and show you what's available. In time...

------
jollyjerry
I like the look. I thought that clicking on one of the domains felt a little
slow. After clicking and waiting, all the info I got was 'This domain is
available', with no further action items. Do you keep a blog or feed that we
can subscribe to for updates?

~~~
matt1
Thanks. No feed available yet and because of the way the site tracks
popularity, that may never be an option. At some point I will add the ability
to sort by specific dates and for people to "mark as read" domains for that
date, allowing you to make sure you're not looking over domains twice.

As for the speed, well, that's a function of DreamHost and Verisign... what
are you gonna do...

------
Alan_F
Put the search at the top, next to the sort. Put the login at the top. Five
letter 'sort' is a filter. Make the sorts reversible with a second click. Add
registry links for available sites. Good luck!

------
jpwagner
Users can "view" a domain name repeatedly to make it look more
popular...should assign 1 view per domain per ip

~~~
matt1
Yes, as someone who voted up "adenosineetriphosphate.com" figured out, that
can be done. I limited it to one view per unique IP address to avoid that
problem in the future. Thank you.

~~~
timf
Still riggable with a little effort (Tor re-login + BeautifulSoup script).

Does dicking with this affect anything important or is it more of a prank?

~~~
matt1
It's more of a prank, but, one I need to solve.

When shitty domains get voted up to the Top 10, people will see those and
infer the overall quality of the domains on the site. Worse, no one will ever
register those domains and they will sit on the Top 10 list forever, unless I
delete them manually. So I've got to figure out some way to make the Top 10
list accurately reflect which are the best domains. Currently I'm thinking
something along the lines of a popularity equation which uses time and clicks,
similar to what HN does with time and points.

Thoughts?

------
popschedule
I'm bookmarking this, love it!

~~~
popschedule
BTW, I use aplus.net to register all my domains. If you put a drop down box to
select the register that I would like to use, I think that would be very
convenient.

------
okeumeni
".com Checker:" must be a real pigeon; it ran forever it never came back.

------
pclark
how are you defining good?

one peeve: I can't copy and paste the domain name text.

campdeal.com is available? wow.

~~~
matt1
Yeah, good question.

There's a tradeoff between adding less domains but making them of a higher
quality and adding more domains but risking that some are of poor quality. At
first, I was religiously nixing the bad ones, but I realized it wasn't worth
the effort. Not only is it time consuming, but surprisingly, someone may
actually register it. You should see the list of registered domain names...
there's a lot of garbage out there :)

------
gamache
I will never use it. I take as my enemy any site which supports and enables
the crimes-against-humanity naming scheme of modern Internet startups!

~~~
matt1
What?

~~~
gamache
I mean that any site which helps some random social spreadsheeting startup
choose some dumb name like Oodlu or Uffli is NOT MY FRIEND.

(Thankfully for you and them, my friendship is not worth much in USD.)

~~~
matt1
My hope is that Domain Pigeon will give people options so that they don't have
to use names like Oodlu if they don't want to.

In a sense, we're on the same team :)

------
blurry
Quick pg, register hackerer.com!

------
point
Why are you not making money off the sale? For example by using a referral
code to a domain registration service?

~~~
matt1
It's in the works.

~~~
jorgem
It's a tough business selling the domain name ideas.

I make a buck or two on each sold domain at <http://HotNameList.com>. But it's
too easy for users to skip your link, or have an ad blocker etc. Then you get
nothing for the sale.

Site looks nice, though.

Good luck.

~~~
matt1
The tougher a market is the more you can make by doing it well, no?

------
TweedHeads
There are no more interesting domains left.

He who comes up with a solution to that problem will become filthy rich.

Time to drop the addressbar and use a wordbar with disambiguation?

Who is in charge of pushing the world forward?

~~~
donniefitz2
Sorry, I'm the guy in charge of pushing the world forward. I accidentally fell
asleep.

