How to Choose a Domain Name: Six Checks Before You Register

The name follows from the niche. The free idea check lists your direct competitors, so you can pick a name that stands apart from theirs.

What a domain name is and what you actually buy

Take the address https://blog.example.com/path apart from the left:

Two companies stand behind every name. A registry runs one extension, such as .com, and keeps the master list of names under it. A registrar is the company you pay: it submits your registration to the registry, and you deal only with the registrar.

You buy a registration that runs for a fixed term. ICANN puts it this way: «You cannot buy a domain name forever. However, you can continually renew its registration (before the registration period expires) to maintain control over it.»¹

A domain is also separate from hosting. You can register a name with no website behind it and later point it at whichever host runs the site.

Step 1: Write names that pass the rules

A name passes when a stranger hears it once and types it correctly. Run each candidate through five rules.

1. Say it once, they type it right. «RainReady» passes. «4SeasonGutters» fails, because the listener has to ask whether it is the digit or the word.
2. No hyphens or digits unless the brand already has them. A label cannot start or end with a hyphen². A hyphen in the middle is legal, but people drop it when they say the name out loud, and the traffic goes to the version without it.
3. No dropped vowels. «Guttrwise» gets typed as «gutterwise», which may belong to someone else.
4. Not built from your direct competitors’ words. If four rivals are called «Something Gutters», a fifth one reads as part of the crowd.
5. Within the length limit. A label can hold up to 63 characters, drawn from letters and digits plus the hyphen². Our working target is 15 characters or fewer before the extension (assumption: an editorial target; no registry sets it).

Also read the name as one run of lowercase letters with no spaces. «expertsexchange» splits two ways, and a customer sees the wrong split first.

On brand means the name either says what you do or gives people one image to remember you by. A name generator gives you candidates. The five rules decide which of them survive.

Step 2: Pick the extension

Pick .com if your customers are in the US and your best name is free in .com at the standard price. Choose a country code if you sell only inside that country. Choose a newer extension only if you would pay its renewal for years and customers in your niche already read it as normal.

The extension is the top-level domain (TLD), the last label of the name, and you pick it from the list that ICANN maintains¹². Generic TLDs such as .com, .org and .net set no conditions on who registers. Country codes such as .us or .fr can require a tie to that country, and .gov and .edu are reserved for government and education¹². Subdomains such as blog.example.com cost nothing extra: you add them in DNS once you hold the name.

Typical annual prices in 2026 are $10–20 for .com, $12–20 for .net, $10–18 for .org, $25–35 for .co, $35–60 for .io and $80–120 for .ai⁴. Assumption: if renewals stay at those rates, five years cost $50–100 for .com and $400–600 for .ai.

Step 3: Clear the trademark

Search every finalist in the USPTO trademark search before you pay for anything. It covers registered marks and pending and abandoned applications, and it is free⁵. Search the exact words first, then their look-alike and sound-alike spellings. A live mark for the same kind of service is a stop.

The risk is concrete. Under the UDRP, a trademark holder can have a domain transferred or canceled when it was registered and is being used in bad faith⁶. A name that copies a rival’s mark to catch its customers is the standard case. You would lose the domain and whatever you spent building a brand on it.

The free search is a first screen. If you plan to file a federal trademark of your own, a trademark attorney reads the results before you file.

Step 4: Check availability and read the result

To check availability, open any ICANN-accredited registrar’s site and type the full name, extension included, into its domain search box, for example rainready.com. The result shows whether you can register it today and at what price. If the box accepts a list, paste your whole shortlist at once. Run the same search in every extension you would accept, and write down each price before you compare.

Premium deserves a second look. A registry premium domain may renew at a premium price set by the registry, so the high price can repeat every year⁷.

For a taken name, ICANN’s Registration Data Lookup returns the current registration data through RDAP⁸. It shows who holds a name and through which registrar. It does not tell you whether a name is free to register; the registrar’s search does that. Since GDPR took effect in May 2018, registries and registrars have hidden most personal registrant data from public output⁹, so you will often see the registrar but not the person.

When the name you want is taken, you have four real options:

1. Another extension, after it passes steps 2 and 3.
2. A modifier word, such as a place or a verb: «rainreadyseattle», «getrainready».
3. The aftermarket, where the holder lists the name for sale. Treat the listing price as the first year and check the renewal.
4. Contacting the holder through the registrar’s contact route.

A hyphenated or misspelled copy of a taken name is no fix. Customers who remember the name type the original.

Step 5: Compare the multi-year price

Compare candidates and registrars on one number, the total over the years you plan to keep the name:

Total over N years = first-year price + renewal price × (N − 1) + paid add-ons per year × N

Here is the arithmetic for five years. Assumption: Registrar A charges $2 for the first year, then $22 a year to renew, plus $10 a year for privacy. Assumption: Registrar B charges $15 every year, privacy included. In our example, A costs 2 + 22 × 4 + 10 × 5 = $140. In our example, B costs 15 + 15 × 4 + 0 = $75.

A «free» domain bundled with a website plan is a first-year price of zero. The renewal still enters the formula, along with the plan you must keep to get the free year.

Ask whether privacy is included or billed every year. Because most personal data is already restricted in public output⁹, a separate paid privacy line adds less than it used to.

Step 6: Buy the domain name and keep it

1. Buy it at the registrar where step 5 found the best multi-year total: add the name to the cart, set it up as below and pay. You hold a registration for a term, not the name forever.
2. Open the registrar account with two-factor authentication.
3. Use an account email that is not on the new domain. If the domain lapses, its email stops working, and the renewal notices stop reaching you too.
4. Enter accurate registrant contacts: the registrar sends every notice there.
5. Point the name servers: keep the registrar’s DNS or enter your host’s, so the site and the email resolve.
6. Pick the term: most extensions take one to ten years at a time¹³, and a longer term fixes today’s price.
7. Turn on auto-renew with a card that will still be valid at renewal.
8. Turn on the transfer lock and privacy if they are included.

A missed renewal is the easy way to lose a name. Under ICANN’s Expired Registration Recovery Policy, the registrar must interrupt the domain’s DNS for at least the last eight days during which you can still renew it after expiration. After deletion, gTLD registries must offer a further 30-day Redemption Grace Period¹⁰. Treat those windows as a rescue route. Plan to renew on time.

Example: naming a gutter cleaning service on Seattle’s Eastside

In our example, built by our method, the idea under check is: «Gutter cleaning and gutter guard installation service in Seattle’s Eastside suburbs: homeowners booking fall and spring cleanings online before the rains»^ex. The check returned the verdict «Worth building»^ex with a score of 66^ex, after 17 search queries^ex across 31 sources^ex. Naming starts only after the idea holds.

The check does not score domain names. It supplies the inputs for steps 1 and 2: the niche and its direct competitors, plus the demand data. It found 10 direct competitors (example by our method)^ex. The top five by visibility share:

All five shares are examples by our method. Four of the five names carry the word «Gutter», and the two leaders together hold 44 % (example by our method, 22 + 22)^exex. «Gutter» is the crowd’s word. A new name built on it sits next to the leaders in every list a homeowner scans.

The check also flags the leader directly: «Gu-Wi Gutters and Windows already offers about 60% of this service, so a new entrant may struggle to win Eastside homeowners on the core offer alone» (example by our method)^ex. A name that echoes «Gu-Wi» invites the comparison you are likely to lose.

The keyword-domain instinct fails on data, too. The demand source in this check is «none» (example by our method)^ex, and the risk list says: «There is no search-volume data, so the size of demand in the Eastside suburbs is unknown» (example by our method)^ex. A domain stuffed with «Eastside gutter cleaning» buys no measured demand. Google’s 2012 exact-match domain update cut the ranking of low-quality sites on such domains¹¹.

Three illustrative candidates through the five rules:

RainReady still has to clear steps 3 to 6. We looked its .com names up in Verisign’s RDAP on October 16, 2026: rainready.com has been registered since 2005¹⁵, and getrainready.com and rainreadyhome.com are taken too. rainreadyeastside.com had no record, so it goes to a registrar’s search for a price, then to the USPTO search, then to the five-year formula.

Check your idea for free

FAQ

Sources

1. icann.org, 10/02/2026
2. rfc-editor.org, 08/13/2026
3. godaddy.com, 10/13/2026
4. domains.squarespace.com, 07/22/2026
5. bitlaw.com, 10/13/2026
6. cyber.harvard.edu, 10/02/2026
7. support.enom.com, 10/01/2026
8. lookup.icann.org, 10/07/2026
9. itp.cdn.icann.org, 08/19/2025
10. icann.org, 02/21/2024
11. seroundtable.com, 09/29/2012
12. developer.mozilla.org, 10/16/2026
13. domain.com, 10/16/2026
14. cloudflare.com, 10/16/2026
15. rdap.verisign.com, 10/16/2026