The Domain
Name List and How to Find A Good URL
Ownership Search
Choosing a good handle for your
Internet presence may seem simple. Looks can
be deceiving; still, it's not all that
difficult if you remember a few important points. Also,
it helps to have access to a good domain name list.
Here are the things to remember:
First, it should be memorable. Making
your domain name unique is of course a given,
but unique doesn't equal memorable. After all, who
wants to have their web content at
56YttP181Wqz.com?
Unique, yes. Memorable? Not likely.
Your choice should be descriptive .Starting a retail gem
business? bigshinyrocks.com is available. Shorter is better,
if you can manage it.
You can try bigrocks.com or
shinyrocks.com (both are available at the time of this
writing). Short, descriptive, catchy... it's like writing a
pop song, only more so. You need to do an ownership search
to see what's available.
This is the tricky part, and you have
to have this figured out fairly early on. You don't want to
knock yourself out spending hours or days settling on a
decision, only to find out that it's already taken. That's
where the domain name list comes in handy.
There's a fairly straightforward
method of finding out whether your website hopeful is taken
or not. Hit the website at http://whois.net and type in
your proposed URL. If it comes up as being registered,
you're out of luck and will have to come up with something
else. This function provides you with negative feedback; no
news is good news.
However, there is also a function on
whois.net that can provide you with a list of available
domain names based on a keyword you provide. Just enter your
keyword in the field titled "List of deleted domain names"
and hit the Go! button, and presto... the site will present
you with a list with names that had been previously
registered, but which have been allowed to lapse.
All of the domains in the list will be
available for registration. There's one caveat, however: The
list only includes websites that were previously registered.
You can still invent a completely
fresh new domain name that has never been registered, and it
won't show up on the list. Therefore, use both of the tools
at whois.net to your advantage.
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