Information below will surely help you, check it out.

1. Brainstorm names

Type a list. Keep in mind that the better the name the more likely it is to be taken or expensive (see step 6, valuation). [From Tim: a useful tool for looking at word combinations is Dot-o-mator.com.]

2. Initial sort

Go to Godaddy.com, upload your list using the “bulk upload” feature. If there are any domains that are not taken you will see them now. If you like any of the ones that are available, you just got lucky.

3. Hit the auctions

Domaintools has a good search that aggregates most of the auctions. Sedo is also a good place to search keywords. You can sometimes find a great name for a few hundred dollars here.

4. Shrink your list

Go to each domain, i.e. for “XYZ”, go to xyz.com. Break your list into four categories:

a. Real Business – Any names that are being used for a business should go to the bottom of your list. It is nearly impossible to get these. When we bought Trustme.com there was a business there, but it made things a lot harder and pricier.

b. Squatter/Investor Pages – Used to monetize the location. They are typically easy to figure out as they are just links to other sites for lead generation. These sites are almost always for sale, so this is a good page to see. PhoneTag.com had one of these when I found it.

c. Construction Pages – This usually means either of two things. Someone is about to put up a business at this site or an amateur registered the page and forgot about it or is holding it. I have had decent success in names that have these pages up.

d. Dead Pages – Nothing comes up, does not mean it is available. It’s hard to draw any conclusions from these names, other than that the owner is not making money off of it. Nobel.com was a dead page. I found the owner, a large insurance company, convinced them that they should give us the name (we had Nobelcom.com) and, surprisingly, they did. In contacting the company, I figured a CEO or high-level person will hold me over the barrel for money and a low level person will not have the authority, so I went to a VP level in the IT area. My company was NobelCom.com, and I pleaded on a human level that they would be helping a young entrepreneurial company. It worked. For the VP to do the paperwork to sell the domain was harder than just giving it to us. Part luck, part skill. That domain is probably worth north of $50,000.

5. Contact the owners

First you need to confirm that you can not only locate but also communicate with the owner. For Grid.com it took me over a month to find the owners.

a. See if the contact details are listed on the site. Many sites have a contact US or “this domain may be for sale” link. I have found that my success rate is higher when these messages exist on the site. Also use the internet archive to look at old pages and contact details.

b. If you cannot find it on the site then use the “who is” directory (I like domaintools.com for this).

i. About 30-40% of the time the real domain owner’s info comes up.
ii. The rest of the time it is either dead info or private. For the private stuff if you send an email to the private address it should in theory get to the owner. In practice I have found this rarely works.
iii. If standard “who is” does not work, try using the historical “who is” (domaintools.com offers this)

6. Contact the owner and ask if the domain is for sale. DON’T MAKE AN OFFER.

a. Contact directly – If you are a student, first-time entrepreneur, or someone whom I would find no Google results for, then contact the people directly. If you have documented success, then don’t contact people directly, as the price will be based on your status. With Grid.com I had such a hard time finding the owner that during my investigation I accidentally emailed the owner with my real details. This mistake probably raised my price by well over $50,000.

b. Hiding your info -

i. Cheap way – register a gmail/yahoo address with something like joe1234@gmail.com. Sign the email Joe (no last name) and don’t give any personal info out. You might look like a scammer so it lowers your chance of contact.

ii. Pricey way –

Option 1: Use a service. There are a few services that allow you to mask who you are to contact the owners, godaddy.com, networksolutions.com, etc, offer this. I have tried these services and have had zero success.

Option 2: Use a small law firm or PR firm which has a website. Make sure that if you looked them up, you would think they are just above the poverty line on the business food chain. This is the best way that I have found. This service should cost between $100 and $300. To find these firms, I usually ask friends for referrals or just go to someone local (every town has a small law firm). It allows the seller to see that they are being contacted by someone real and it does not jack up the price. This is how I got PhoneTag.com, Trustme.com, as well as a few others.
Source(s): http://www.fourhourworkweek.co...

4 months ago

Here are some quick tips:

++Never Use a Company Offering Free Domain Registration
++Register In Your Own Country For Fast Dispute Resolution
++Always Register Your Domain Yourself
++Pay (a Little) Extra For Quality
++Don’t Share Your Registrar Password . . . with Anyone
Source(s): http://www.subhub.com/articles...

4 months ago

I mentioned something similar to another question regarding the key factor to choose/search a name (especially for domainers) :
my basic rules

1. No numbers
2. No dashes
3. No gimmicks/argo unless you target a new brand
4. Nothing more than 14 chars (my max is 12 chars)
5. Tell it outloud to see if it can be pronounced easily, don't mix consonants
6. Don't trust your ears, walk based on real data
7. Make your research before you buy one
8. Target one sector at a time

There are a lot of places that you can register a domain name, but one of my personal favorites is http://www.tucktail.com/.

3 months ago