How To Search for Available .com Domain Names Easily?

Searching for an available .com name today can be time consuming, frustrating and perhaps very costly. While there are many other TLDs (Top Level Domains, e.g. .net, .org, etc.), hands down, the .com is still the most procured extension. The popularity of .com domain names are such that there are “people” involved in the business of domaining (buying and selling domain names for a profit). There are also those that practice “cyber squatting”, which makes it even more difficult to find an available domain name.

Domain names are important and in some cases may define right there and there as to what your site is all about. I’m not talking about “bestdogtrainingsite.???” or “whateveryourmoneykeywordis.???” where many people use it for search engine optimization purposes, but rather, to be memorable, easily remembered, among other things. Obviously, finding an available good and popular termed domain name may still be complicated, but with the right tool, things may just be a tad easier.

Now, you all know that there are gazillion domain search tools out there. Some are good and some are not so good. I personally make use of such tools, but many to be frank, fall short of helping me to find what I need, specially when it comes to “providing suggestions.

How To Find .com Domain Names the Simple Way?

OK, this may be a bit far fetched, but I have stumbled upon a domain search tool that you should seriously consider using while searching for that .com name of your dreams. LeanDomainSearch.com (LDS) is my new found favorite, and in a while you’ll figure out why.

First, let me get two things out of the way. This is not a paid post and no special treatment has been given to me to talk about it. I simply like the tool and want to share it with you.

And second, you may ask a lot of questions about who LDS is. Fair enough. LDS is a project started by Matt Mazur. Recently, and this is the reason why I stumbled upon it, Lean Domain Search has been acquired by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com! Automattic, I believe requires no introduction, and I don’t know about you, but if they bought LDS, I’m thinking because its good. Let’s find out.

What is Lean Domain Search?

LDS is a domain name generator that helps you find great available domain names for your websites. Their goal is to eliminate the hassle and expense of finding a domain name.

How Does It Work?

Its quite easy actually. From their homepage, all you have to do is type a “term” and let the tool do its magic.

Here’s an example searching for SEO. Obviously it could be anything, even your own name, brand, any word, etc..

In an instant you are returned with several suggestions. In this case, searching for a domain name with the term “SEO” returned over 1100 available names.

From there, you can do all sorts of things like, sorting them alphabetically, show the ones that “start” or “end” with the term you selected, etc. Clicking on a name reveals that it is available and gives you the option of registering it directly from them (that’s optional of course). BTW, it also tells you if the twitter handle is still available. Cool!

LDS also provides plenty of other interesting features and information. For example, it allows you to mark as favorite any amount of names, which you can copy to your clipboard and paste it on Word, note pad, etc., for later use.

It also has an interesting list of the most popular terms based on domain count. 10K to be exact. You can find about how its calculated and more about the list here.

Downside?

The one thing that I did not like about the tool is that it only returns available .com domain names. While many people are happy with that, I may also have the need to know if the same domains are available in other extensions (e.g. net, .org).  One reason for that is to be able to secure a domain name against possible misuse by other people or simply put, a name could be available in a different extension that I may be happy to use. Unless I am mistaken, that’s one downside of the tool were I hope Automattic will soon enough rectify. For now, I will have to use another tool in combination with LDS.

That’s it! So next time you are looking for a domain name and can’t seem to find the right one, before you quit or spend lots of money to buy from “other” sources, give LDS a try. It may help a great deal.

What do you think of this tool? Do you think this can help you solve your problems when finding domain names for you, or for your clients?