ZebraDomain.com

There are plenty of free online tools which can help you choose a good domain name – here are five (more to come later on).

Nameboy – my favorite domain name search tool. Nameboy is a very simple and easy to use tool. Just type up one word or two and the online tool will quickly display several pages (typically between 2-3) of combinations and variations of available (and unavailable domain names). One of the greatest features of nameboy is its simple way of showing which of the chosen domain name TLDs are free (it is currently checking .com, .net, .org, info, .biz, .tv). On the downside nameboy isn’t very configurable and besides typing in one or two words a user hav e very little control over the results however compared to many other online tools, this one is defiantly a victory of simplicity over features.

Domainsbot – this interesting utility checks the availability of names “on the fly”. As you type a domain name the utility checks for availability in six common TLDs. When you press enter the system displays several pages of potential options. Domainsbot is highly configurable and a user can chose to include in the displayed results only certain TLDs, hyphens, numbers, bad words and even words in several languages. Domainsbot can also show domains which are expired or for sale (the ones I found where for sale on Sedo).

Makewords – this multi-utility has lots of potential. The website actually includes 7 different domain name tools: Name Generator, Themes, Spinner, Dictionary, Randomizer, Bulk Phrases, Blender. Each of these has a different twist. For example Themes (which I found fairly useful combines your keywords with preset wordlists). Not all the results I got using makewords were good (obviously) however some had very little to do with what I was looking for making me wonder if this utility doesn’t need a bit more work.

Bustaname – one of the most advanced domain name generators around. A user types in a number of words and the utility checks for all sorts of combinations (2-3 words long). It is also possible to set prefix and suffix, hyphen combinations as well as some more interested futures such as pluralize and even dropping the last vowel. Maybe the most unique feature (although I am not sure how actually useful it might be) is to save the search to the user’s computer for future review).

Domaintools – one of the most famous domain name related websites. It includes many useful utilities including a Typo Generator, reverse IP search, Domain Monitor, Whois etc. Domaintools also has a fairly basic domain suggestion application quite similar to nameboy. The drawback is that it only displays 20 results (members can get 80 more).