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).

Ever bought an existing domain and wondered which websites it held before? I recently stumbled across a nice little online tool which can help you find out what was on the domain in previous years. This tool is called the WayBack Machine and is actually a part of the Internet Archive (a non profit organization created in order to record the “history” of the entire internet). Although the purpose of the WayBack Machine is mostly academic it could actually be a pretty useful tool for domain buyers looking to invest in an existing domain.

Here is an interesting example: the domain hybrid.com is currently offered for sale on Sedo for $990,000. Using WHOIS you can trace back the creation date of the domain way back to 1992, but much more interestingly using the WayBack Machine you can view some of the websites which used this domain starting back in 1996.

When you consider buying a top domain like hybrid.com the importance of knowing everything about your potential purchase is clear (nobody spends these sums of money without doing a proper research). But even when considering to purchase an existing domain for far less it might be a good idea to check the domain “history”. After all you would not like to find out by chance that your new religious website is sitting on a domain which used to hold an adult site or that your charity organization was once a home for illegal internet gambling.

There might be another reason for using the WayBack Machine. If you are considering buying an expired domain it might be a good idea to check its history. Why? Because you might find that in the past it hosted an online business. Some people used this knowledge to create a similar website on the same domain which could help them draw in more traffic, improve their search engine ranking and eventually make them more money.

I am going to continue using the WayBack Machine and report any interesting findings as I go along.