When I brainstorm for domain names, I use several sites like NameBoy.com, Whois.sc, PCNames.com and Domainsbot.com. With these I can search for available names that include search terms I specify, or names generated using synonyms and related words. I also use search terms to look through expiring names at SnapNames.com and GoDaddy.com’s Domain Aftermarket.

But, I’ve got another tool that just started using that offers up many more potential names for me. The site is called DeletedDomains.com. When I first ordered one month of the service at $14.99, I used it to just look for names that were currently going through the expiration process. If I saw one I really wanted, I then went over to SnapNames.com and backordered it. At that time, while I was just starting to learn the domain game and confusingly bouncing around from site to site, I didn’t see more value in it than using other sites that let me check on expiring or existing domains.

But this last weekend I realized I was up for auto-renewal soon so I thought I’d check it out one more time before canceling. I spent more time on it, and consequently found a fantastic use for it I had not noticed before. Not only does it list expiring names with the search term in it, but it also includes names that have already expired and are deleted–in other words, readily available names.

Why is this different than the other sites that generate suggestions for available names? Well, the other sites use exact matches, synonyms and related words to compile a list of their suggestions. DeletedDomains.com will list actual names that include your search term that people previously felt had warranted a registration. These include many, many names that the other sites algorithms simply don’t come up with.

For example, two of the dozen or so names I found and purchased yesterday were LiveOffGrid.com and Robotants.com. As far as I can remember, the other programs did not suggest them to me. I’d been wanting a decent .com name with “OffGrid” in it and although LiveOffGrid.com is three words, it’s still short and meaningful. If you look at my list of domain names you can see that I’m a big believer in the future of robots; I had never thought of making up the word Robotants. But, it’s a cool name.

You see, the great thing about using DeletedDomains.com is that it lets me capitalize on the creativity of others who have let their domains expire and delete. No backorders, no auctions. I simply go to my registrar and buy it. Of course, I use all the tools at my disposal, but I’ll always go for not having to pay an extra fee when I can help it.

Technorati Tags: domain, domain name, expired domain, grid, robot, GoDaddy, internet, robot

Here’s a very important decision just handed down, as written up at CircleID.com:

Jerry Falwell Critic Can Keep Domain Name, Appeals Court Says
Aug 25, 2005
Source: CircleID Legal Issues
By Paul Alan Levy

I want to call your attention to a very important Internet free speech decision, perhaps the most significant of our domain name cases from the past several years. In Lamparello v. Falwell, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held today that the use of the domain name www.fallwell.com for a web site devoted to denouncing the views of Rev. Jerry Falwell about homosexuality neither infringes Falwell’s trademark in his name nor constitutes “cybersquatting.” The court chose not to address the issue of whether the non-commercial character of our client’s web site was sufficient to excuse it from the coverage of the trademark laws, because it was so clear that his web site did not create any likelihood of confusion about whether Falwell sponsored it. The court ruled that, where the web site is clear about being adverse to the interests of the trademark holder, the fact that the domain name for the web site resembles the trademark is not a reason to find infringement, because the domain name must be considered in the context of the web site.

The decision is important for two other reasons. First, it is a decision by the same court that ruled against the web site operator in the “People Eating Tasty Animals” case, PETA v Doughney. There, the operator of a web site at www.peta.org (now accessible at www.mtd.com/tasty) was found guilty of both infringement and cybersquatting. It has always been my feeling that the case turned on the fact that Doughney was plainly trying to hit PETA up for a payment for the domain name, but the case has been widely if incorrectly cited in briefs as standing for the proposition that a domain name in the form www.trademark.com was impermissible for a gripe site. That the same court that issued PETA has now made clear this construction of its opinion was erroneous - and Judge Michael, a member of the panel in Falwell, was also one of the judges in PETA - could well signal the end of the line for lawsuits of this kind.

Second, this opinion contains some welcome skepticism about the doctrine of “initial interest confusion,” a trademark law analysis that some courts have deployed rather carelessly over the past several years to find trademark infringement even though there was no consumer confusion about whether a product or service was sponsored by a trademark holder. Trademark law has always protected against only a substantial likelihood of confusion by the reasonable consumer, and not against “temporary confusion” or confusion caused wholly by consumer carelessness. In some of the early Internet infringement cases, there was some tendency to “baby” consumers by assuming that Internet users are stupid and that domain names can easily mislead them way from the web sites of trademark holders. By holding that “initial interest confusion” is not present here, in part because of flaws in the doctrine and in part because it does not apply to non-commercial criticism anyway, the court has written a decision that may play an important role in the development of trademark law apart from the issue of domain names and the Internet.

Read full story

Technorati Tags: falwell, jerry falwell, fallwell, domain, domain name, trademark

I’m going to put together a page on the site with resources and tools that are helpful to domain investors like you and I. I’m talking about sites that help brainstorm names, keyword research tools, whois lookups, software products, etc. I’m interested in your suggestions for both categories and for sites and software. Please post them in a comment below.

Thanks!

Technorati Tags: domain, domain name, keyword, brainstorm

Yesterday, I heard rumors that Google was about to announce their own Instant Messaging system. Last night some bloggers said they thought it would be called Google Talk. I jumped on the web and started brainstorming for names that would apply to this new product, if that was going to actually be the name. The problem I was up against was that Google Talk is already two words, and adding a third word really devalues the name. It’s not so bad with this product name because the two words are both part of the product name, but most names I came up with were sounding like too much of a mouthful.

Then, a great idea for a name came to me–GoogleTalkers.com. I grabbed it, along with the .org and .net. Just two words! But, what does it mean? Well, it very clearly represents the community of people who use Google Talk. It’s particularly well-suited for a community discussion forum about the product. Consider the GoogleTalkForum (tried to buy, but was taken), or GoogleTalkers–which sounds better? The singular term–GoogleTalker.com–was taken, but that doesn’t work as well the plural. That’s more appropriate for a individual (the talker) blogging about Google.

I like this name. No, I really like this name. I was so satisfied after getting it that stopped looking for anything else.

If you’re interested, here is the Google Talk page, and here is the link to the announcement on Google Blog.

By the way, when Google says “talk,” they literally mean talk. In addition to Instant Messaging, you can use a microphone and hold a conversation with others using microphones.

Technorati Tags: domain, domain name, Google, GoogleTalk, Google Talk, IM

After entering a couple dozen domain names to my Afternic.com portfolio, I was thinking it sure was going to take a long time to get all of them listed. Then, luckily, I realized there is a function to upload the information from a spreadsheet. Man, was that ever a timesaver! I already had my names in an Excel spreadsheet, so I just had to move some things around and add some information here and there, but with copy and pasting I was able to breeze through the 200+ listings in just a few hours. There’s also a download feature, so even if I make some manual changes to my listings online, I can then download a new, current copy of the comma-delimited file to my computer.

Having it all in a spreadsheet also made it easy for me to create a list of my domains that I could put up on this blog. If you are interested in seeing all my (good and not-so-good) names and promise not to laugh at some, you can go to the “My Domains” link in the next column. You’ll see that I’m obviously I’m a bit obsessed about a couple areas of interest–solar and robotics. The other large group of political names were purchased before I starting really thinking about domains, and some of my names show it .

Technorati Tags: domains, domain names, afternic

In my last blog entry I confessed to my name buying addiction and said I would try to stop buying so many names. Yesterday I bought 30 more. LOL! But, there were great, unregistered names and I just had to buy them.

But I partially blame a new domain name idea generating site that I just found–a great, no INCREDIBLE, domain name idea generation site. I just stumbled upon it last week and now use it every time I get an idea. It’s called DomainsBot.com. Until DomainsBot, I’d been mostly using Nameboy.com. That’s a very good site, but I’m more impressed with DomainsBot.com.

The free DomainsBot.com site is packed with useful options, but it is simple and intuitive to use. You simply begin by submitting the words that describe the concept of what you’re looking for, and watch the suggestions fly in. And when I say “fly in,” that’s pretty accurate–this site is fast. In addition to the generated names list, which I’ll get into more, you can also add any name to your cart that you wish to buy, and when you’re done, choose the registrar or vendor of your choice. It also lets you add your names to your DomainsBot portfolio to collect and manage them, make a wish list, and look at the stats of your domain name collection. Even if you decide to use the portfolio system, DomainsBot does not collect any of your personal information, requiring only your email address and password.

When you bring up DomainsBot, it will ask you for the keywords that you wish to use. You can choose to filter your results list by .com, .net, .org, .info, .and biz extensions, and by status of For Sale, Expiring, and Available. Clicking “Search” will then produce a list of domain name ideas, with a rank for each name for a relative value compared to other names on the list. The list is created from the keywords you provided, and synonyms for those keywords

But the real power of DomainsBot is in the way it lets you manage the synonyms that it uses. When you generate a list, it also provides a box on the page showing you the synonyms it is using for each keyword, and gives you the ability to edit those synonyms and update the results! You can remove synonyms that don’t apply to your concept, change synonyms, and add new synonyms. Then, click “update results” and watch the new list of names almost instantaneously pops up. Every change you make is recorded by their system to make it more powerful every time you use it. Your personal synonym changes are retained for the length of your DomainsBot session, and over time the changes you make will be reflected in the results everyone sees.

The list is sorted by the names’ Overall Rank. The DomainsBot system uses a variety of factors to determine the ranking. Understand that the ranking is relative, comparing each result to of the other results in the search. A few of the criteria used to determine the ranking of the results are (not necessarily in this order):

• Strength of the synonyms in the results (how many stars).
• Length (shorter is better)
• Whether the form of the word changed, for example if your original search term was pluralized
• Whether it has hyphens
• Whether a prefix or suffix was added
• The popularity of the top-level domain (a .com will rank higher than a .org)
• The number of times the result appears in different TLDs (among those they handle)
• The popularity of the keywords in the zone file

You can review some of the factors for each name in the list by clicking the gray arrow in the far right column. This will expand the row for that name with a series of progress bars and rankings for Overall Rank, Saturation, Relevance, Popularity and Relative Value of the extension.

There are also columns to denote the domain name’s Status and Action. Status is either Available, Expiring or For Sale. Action is Buy (if Available), Bid (if registered) or Backorder (if expiring).

If you select Buy, Bid or Backorder, it will display a small box on the right of the page that asks if you want to perform those actions now, or if you wish to save them to your portfolio, categorized under Names to Buy, Names to Bid On and Names to Backorder. If you wish to buy a name now, it will produce a list of registrars through which you can purchase, with reviews and ratings by members. If choose to go ahead and bid on a registered name, you can choose from the sites on which the name is listed (like Afternic or Sedo). If you choose to Backorder, you can select from SnapNames and Pool.com; I don’t know if there are others that might pop up for domain names other than those I tested. If simply choose to put the names into you portfolio, you can come back at a later time to perform any of these three actions, or to remove any of the names.

I appreciate DomainBot’s ease of use, simplicity, speed and brainstorming power. This is the best synonym-based name generation program I’ve seen yet.

Technorati Tags: domain, domain name, domainsbot, internet, brainstorming

Is there a DomainNamesaholic organization? If there is, I think I need to call it. LOL! This domain game is so damn addicting!

I wonder if all domain rookies go through the phase I’m going through right now, or if it is just my compulsive personality at it again. I find myself each morning running through the listings of expiring names over at GoDaddy’s Domain Name AfterMarket, and sometimes at SnapNames. I tell myself I’m not going to do it each morning, and concentrate on my “real” investments in the stock market…but then my fingers develop a mind of their own, finding their way to the sites and paging through the lists. And, throughout the day, I find myself constantly running over to the computer with a new name idea to check on. I’ve got a pad and pen in my car and by my bed now so I don’t lose the ideas. My wife and kids must think I’ve gone nuts. Well, actually, my wife is used to me getting a spur-of-the-moment idea and then going full throttle on it. Oops, I’ve done it again should have been my song.

For example, I can’t remember what I was doing yesterday when the word “Hacks” popped in my head, but I ran to the computer right away. I knew there was a GoogleHacks.com, a FireFoxHacks.com, a MamboHacks.com, a TivoHacks and others, but what if some other ones were not taken? So I looked around and I was able to find and register MozillaHacks.com, IEHacks.com, ThunderbirdHacks.com, WordPressHacks.com, SolarHacks.com, and BloggerHacks.com. I guess that was a good day’s work, wasn’t it (I’m interested in your opinion)? I hope it was, because I get lots of ideas everyday, and that can translate to a lot of money spent.

I’ve been buying an average of about five names a day. I’m trying to slow down, by becoming more discerning in my buys as I learn more. I’m sure some of the names I bought in my excitement are not going to be profitable. I’m attempting to convince my wife that my latest obsession will make us some money in the end.

What are your stories of obsession? Please feel free to submit a comment.

Technorati Tags: domain, domain name, hacks, mozilla, thunderbird, wordpress, blogger, solar

I may just be a Domain Rookie, but I can see that the U.S. is being really stupid in bowing to pressure from those who oppose the XXX TLD. Religious groups are worried about an “online Red Light District” on the web that would “legitimize pornography on the internet.” What nuts! The internet is already filled with pornography; at least .XXX might give parents a chance to block those sites from browsers if we could eventually get most porn sites to this TLD.

Really, religious groups, think through this analogy: would you rather have sex-industry businesses mingled right into your neighborhood, or would you rather segregate them in their own “red light district” where it would not bother you (unless you were to sneak down there). I know, you’d rather not have them at all. That’s just not going to happen. Get real.

ICANN delays porn-only internet domain
ElectricNews.net

The dot-xxx domain name, which is designed for adult content such as pornography sites, was scheduled for introduction by the end of 2005. If the domain was approved, ICM Registry will be responsible for administering the domain name and it would effectively segregate porn sites into an online “red light district.” However there are no plans as yet to make it compulsory for adult sites to register the new top-level domain name.

Technorati Tags: domain, domain name, XXX, internet

So, what domain names to buy? I’ve got about 170 names now, but I’d say I wasted my money on about a quarter of them—some from years back when I didn’t even make an attempt to understand domain names, and some from this last few weeks as I purchased some in my excitement without fully understanding the market. I’m somewhat more educated today, but have a long, long way to go.

There are a two main things I’ve been experimenting with so far.

Up and Coming Technologies: I’m a technology nut and read a lot on emerging technologies. I’ve chosen a few areas that will have many commercial applications, and a wide interest among consumers. Then, I look for relatively short cool, made-up words, or two-word combinations of real words. Of course, I ‘ll take a real one word domain name but that is hard to find. I’m sticking with .com’s, but will take .info, .biz and .us on some one word names.

I found a great web site for helping me create/brainstorm for new two-word names. It’s called NameBoy.com. You can enter one or two seed words and it will generate pages of names, and it tells you which TLDs are taken for that name. It seems pretty up-to-date, but last night I noticed a batch of .info and .us names were indicated as available and were really not.

Pronounceable, Brandable Short Names: I’ve also been looking for and buying short (4-7 letters) .com names that mean nothing, but just sound too good phonetically. Looking at the names of hi-tech and internet companies today tells me there is a definite interest in this. The shorter the name is, the more I like it. I’m looking for words that are both easily spellable and easily pronounceable. Before I buy one, I take a look at the U.S. Trademark database to make sure I’m not buying a trademarked word. I’m not finding many 4-letter names of course, but I’m finding 5-letter names like arubo.com and doxxo.com (I know, conventional wisdom say’s X’s .are bad, but I like the way this name looks and sounds.)

How do I find them? I’ve found an incredible program I purchased called Domain Name Pro from Mozzle.com (see, there’s a cool 6-letter made up name now!). One of the many features of this program is the ability to create a “pattern” for a domain name. You can specify the length of the name and what types of characters should be in each character position. For example, the pattern “dVCos” will create a list of all domains (of the TLD’s you’ve selected) that begin with the letter “d”, followed by any vowel, followed by any consonant, followed by the letter “o” and ending with the letter “s”. Very useful! Columns to the right of each domain name tell you if the domain name is available, expiration date if registered, the popularity, effectiveness and more.

I also check out expiring names at SnapNames.com and GoDaddy’s Domain Name Aftermarket. You’ve got to be very particular at SnapNames since it’ll cost you a minimum of $60, but it’s only $10, plus a one year renewal at the Domain Name Aftermarket. I’ve picked up some decent names at both.

Technorati Tags: domain, domain name, investing, godaddy, website, internet

In the late 80’s and early 90’s, I owned a publishing company dealing with the IBM AS/400 computer. About ten, twelve years ago, I was creating our first web site and realized I could acquire the available domain name “AS400.com”. It turned out I did not need it and quickly and easily sold it to IBM for an extraordinarily good amount of money. But, I was so busy running/selling my business at the time it did not occur to me that I should do more of this name buying and selling. Duh! What an idiot I now see I was. I could have been sitting on millions of dollars of domain names right now.

During the last ten years, I didn’t really give much thought to investing in domain names, and now it seems everyone is in the game. But, still, I want in too.

I have had some success with a few web sites in the past, and in the process picked up a few dozen domain names I’ve been holding on to. But a few weeks ago the bug really bit me when I had a conversation with a very successful young domain investor. I was fascinated by the subject and pounded the the poor fellow with innumerable questions. Now, two weeks later, I about about 100 names richer (poorer?). Hopefully I don’t have more money than smarts. I know a few were dumb, but I’m learning. I’ll be telling you more about what I’ve been buying in future posts.

But there is one thing that I want to mention in this post that I think was a smart decision. Now, remember, I’m a rookie, so maybe it just seemed smart to me–I don’t know. But, the important thing is that I feel more secure having done what I did. Let me tell you about it.

I had my 50 or so names registered at a small affiliate domain registrar I had picked many years ago for its low prices. Since I was about to register some more names, I decided to give some thought to if the current registrar was the right long-term registrar for me. After all, if I had hundreds or thousands of names down the road, would I really want to have to go through the work of transferring them all later if I so desired? Not really. I wanted to pick the registrar I’d be married to now.

I also thought of something else: what if my registrar went out of business and I was forced to leave them? That was a scary thought so I asked my new domain friend about this. He told me that if they were to go under, it could possibly become difficult to renew a domain name when the time came up. The domain names would have to be “unlocked” before I could initiate a transfer and I might have problems with a new registrar denying my request to unlock them, insisting I use the original registrar for this. If it really became a problem, I just might have to say hello to an Intellectual Property attorney.

Regardless, even if the process were to go relatively smoothly, it’s the last thing I’d want to deal with, with hundreds of names or more! So, I decided I would go with a very large registrar and not ever have to worry about this situation. An added benefit is that I would gain a much better Domain Management system than the very slim one I had with the current registrar.

After looking around, I chose GoDaddy.com. No, it wasn’t because of the SuperBowl ad. It’s just that they are VERY BIG and their tools suit me. Are there other better, very large registrars? I don’t know–quite possibly. But, GoDaddy works for me and I sleep much better at night now knowing the domains I add each day can stay with them safe and sound for a long, long time. I don’t have time for problems.

Technorati Tags: domain, domain name, registrar, godaddy, investing, website, internet