What Can I Do If My Desired Domain Name is Already Taken?

With billions of websites online it is very possible that a domain name that you want is already taken. It is never guaranteed that your business or domain idea is unique enough to not be available for you. Domain names are usually $10 a year so someone can come along and scoop up a number of random domains and resell them at a premium price... and when I say premium, I mean thousands of dollars.

There are a few ways you can still get a great domain name for business or personal needs if your domain name has already been taken. Let's consider the following scenario:

Your business is Joe Blow's Trucking Company. You want a website for your trucking business, but the domain you wanted www.joeblowtrucking.com has been taken. The first thing you can do is choose an alternative extension. So even though www.joeblowtrucking.com is taken, www.joeblowtrucking.net may be available. There is also a recently added extension called .biz which is made specifically for businesses, so you may want to consider www.joeblowtrucking.biz. Most alternative extensions for .com don't cost much extra to obtain.

Let's say every extension using joeblowtrucking has been taken... then what do you do? Let's consider alternative names using the names that are in the business entity. Let's see... we have JOE... BLOW... TRUCKING... and COMPANY. With those words in mind here are some possible combinations:

jbtrucking.com

joeblow.com

jbt.com

joeblowtruckingcompany.com

joe-blow-trucking.com

joe-blow.com

jowblowcompany.com

jbtco.com

joeblowtruck.com

jblowtrucking.com

As you can see, just from those four words I was able to generate ten alternatives to www.joeblowtrucking.com, and these were just the .com extensions. You still have the options of .org, .net, and .biz to check if none of those .com ideas were available. Are you starting to see how you can make this work? It may take a little bit of brainstorming on your part but there are always viable options that you can use.

Okay, so let's go to the extreme case... you've tried all ten of those, plus the alternative extensions and you STILL haven't found anything available. Stranger things have happened, right? All is not lost. At that point we have to steer away (no pun intended) from the company name and perhaps look into working the company logo or company slogan.

Let's say the slogan of Joe Blow Trucking Company is, "our prices drive the competition away" or something like that. Hey, I know it's a little corny, but work with me here! Let's see what we can come up with based on the slogan. Keep in mind you can still utilize the words in your company name.

joeblowdriveaway.com

joeblowkeeptrucking.com

jblowpricetrucking.com

joeblowridewithus.com

ridewithjoeblowtrucking.com

joebloweighteenwheelers.com

jbriders.com

Sure, we hope that one of the former options is available, but I wanted to show you how far you could actually brainstorm this thing. If all else seems to fail, keep trying combinations that make sense and that would be easy for someone to find or search out. Your domain name should be ideally as short as possible and easy to remember.

Also keep in mind whatever domain you choose, you'll be stuck with that domain name as the extension of your email addresses as well. So in this example, let's say the domain name we chose was joeblowkeeptrucking.com... your email addresses would be in the format of somebody@joeblowkeeptrucking.com. Not very appealing is it? These are the things you must consider when choosing a domain name.

If need be, get a cup of coffee, sit down at checkdomain.com and see what might be available to you. If you find yourself running into a lot of dead ends, take a break; come back to it later with a fresh mind and another cup of coffee.

Here's hoping you find a domain name that's short and easy to remember!