Don’t let everyone convince you that all of the good domains are already taken. Here are a list of webtools to help you manage your mission of buying the next million dollar domain name.
Bust A Name lets you mash up a series of words and shows you a set of available domains. In case you don’t know how to use web forms, Ryan has made a video nice little video demo for you.
Domain Scrub looks for typos and misspelled domain names. Most of the time these domains are baits for the bad typer. Smart companies buy out all the typos in their name before anyone else does.
Domain hacks lets you find a domain that combines domain labels, especially the top-level domain (TLD), to spell out the full “name” or title of the domain, making a kind of pun, for example del.icio.us
MakeWords.com has advanced query features that allow you to refine your domain query for starting with, ending with, max letters, language rules random names and more.
Just Dropped is a domain search of recently dropped domain names, good for recycling/salvaging old domain names.
Psychic Whois, Instant Domain Search and PC Names. don’t suggest anything, but do give you instant availability for domain names as you type.
Domain Tools offers a great suggestion tool for finding the right domain name, and also has a keyword based search tool with lots of options to narrow down your results.
squURL has a nice search interface and shows some simple suggestions as well.
DomainIt has a domain suggestion service to give you a large list of suggestions.
DomainsBot gives you an inline ajax auto complete feature for searching domain names.
Nameboy is another tool for using keywords to find domains
Yahoo domain search provides similar options in your search results.
Uwhois is a nice tool to search all Generic Top Level Domains and most Country Code TLDs.
Bemmu.com lists expired domains with indications of Wikipedia, part of speech, delete days, Google trends and more.
3LA lists Three Letter expired domain names, dyyo lists Four letter expired domain names, and 5 Letter lists 5 letter domain names.
Split It! visually shows you how your domain name string will be split. Use this to avoid getting an accidentally funny domain name.
Is your creative side running dry? Try these tools for some magic
To come up with new words try Dislexicon
Word Mixer Enter 5 words and get 2-3 syllable results.
Word Finer for crossword pattern matching.
RhymeZone gives you rhymes and synonyms of any word.
Dot-o-mator is a tool for mixing letters and to make up your own words and make up a nifty Web 2.0 domain name.
WordConstructor is great for generating a random name, brand, or domain name.
A word of caution
Don’t get your idea stollen! Don’t search for your domain name until you are ready to register it. More companies are now selling their domain search records to people in trying to make money in lucrative ways. Read this article on domain tasting to find out more.