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How to Find The Perfect Domain Name for Your Business – with Brad Pineau

If you have a new business, product or service that you need to name, most likely you will need a domain name to go with it. But with over 200 million domain names registered to date, the one you brainstormed in five minutes has most likely been reserved by someone else.

You’re in luck. Technologist Brad Pineau has recently launched a free domain name discovery service. DomainHole.com not only helps you determine if your domain name ideas are available, but will spin you some new names, generate some off-the-wall suggestions, and check recently expired or soon-to-expire domain names for a match.

In this interview with DomainHole’s founder, I ask Brad for a little background on his new business. Then he demonstrates in detail how to use the online software tool most effectively. In addition, domain investors will receive a few tips that may help them find great soon-to-expire domain names a little more easily. After you’ve watched it, let me know what you think and ask Brad questions in the comments below.

(Because we were recording video and dekstop using two separate programs, we taxed our computer processor. You may notice that the sound and video are not synced at times in this interview. Our apologies for the inconvenience.)

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About Brad Pineau

Brad Pineau, DomainHole

Brad Pineau is the chief technology officer of Timeless Technologies, a full service website design and software development agency based in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada.

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DomainTools is the recognized leader in domain name intelligence, providing a powerful set of research and monitoring tools built on the industry’s freshest data. DomainTools offers the most comprehensive collection of domain name ownership records in the world. Over 1 million members rely on DomainTools to protect and grow the value of their web sites, their domain names and their intellectual property on a daily basis.

David E. Weslow, Attorney at Law – provides legal representation for clients ranging from individuals to Fortune 500 companies in relation to domain name transactions and disputes, trademark and copyright claims, and web hosting and content liability issues. A former software and web developer, he regularly assists clients with cutting-edge issues involving law and technology.

SEOConsultant.com provides the SEO advice you need to take your developed domain name from page 2 (or worse) to the first page of organic search results on Google or Bing. Ask questions and receive answers within 24 hours. Build long-term value – and generate monthly EFT paychecks from Google – by search engine optimizing your domain name websites.

Brad Pineau Interview Key Take-Aways

  • DomainHole.com will remain free to users of the service; revenue will be generated to support operations and development from domain registrations through affiliates.
  • Domain name check process: 1) Instant Availability Check, 2) Name Spinner, 3) Expired Domain Search, then 4) Name Generator (for a Web 2.0-like name).
  • Every day, 60,000-70,000 .com, .net and .org domain names expire and become available. DomainHole stores and indexes these domain names.
  • With DomainHole’s Expired Domain Search, you can search back in time for domains that have expired or forward in time for soon-to-expire domains that you might want to watch in auction.
  • Some of Brad’s favorite expired domain name searches for investors: 1) select one word and next 5 days and look at upcoming expirations (will need to use a third-party backorder service like NameJet.com, Go Daddy Auctions or SnapNames.com), 2) clear all boxes and enter 4 for number of characters to see LLLL domains expiring soon, 3) clear all boxes and enter 2 for number of words and 7 or 8 for characters to look for short, two-word domains expiring soon.
  • In development at DomainHole: 1) Bulk Domain Checker, 2) Domain Alert, 3) Super Discovery (Name Spinner and Expired Domain Search at one time), 4) searches emailed daily.

Brad Pineau Interview Raw Transcript

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https://www.domainsherpa.com/brad-pineau-domainhole-interview

Today’s DomainSherpa interview is sponsored by the following companies:

First, where do you go to research domain name availability, look-up current and historical WHOIS information, and find domain name sales history? Ever wonder which other websites use the same hosting resources you do? DomainTools.com provides a complete picture of a domain name – from research to monitoring – and is trusted by more than 1 million members around the world. Did I mention they’ll monitor domain names for you for free? Check them out: DomainTools.com.

Second, do you have a domain name or website legal issue that you need help with? David Weslow provides legal representation for clients ranging from individuals to Fortune 500 companies in domain name transactions – whether they’re disputes, trademark and copyright claims, or web hosting and content liability issues. As a former software and web developer, David understands your needs and goals. Whether it’s a cease and desist letter, a UDRP case, or buying or selling one or more domain names, contact David Weslow at NewMediaIPLaw.com.

Finally, you know that being on page 1 — the first page of results — of a major search engine like Google or Bing can drive exponentially more traffic than being on page 2 (or worse). if you’re a domain developer and in need of immediate, free advice to get your website to the top of the organic search results, will you go check out SEOConsultant.com? You heard me right: SEOConsultant.com.

Here’s your program.

Michael: Hey everyone, my name is Michael Cyger. I’m the publisher of DomainSherpa.com, the Domain Name Authority. Today we have something special. Instead of our Monday typical article that is written out in text we are going to do a video interview with the Chief Technology Officer of a new software program that has recently been launched. Joining us is Brad Pineau. Brad is the Chief Technology Officer of Timeless Technologies. A full service website design and software development agency based in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. Brad welcome to the show. Let’s get right into it!

Brad the name of your software is called DomainHole. How did you come up with the name DomainHole?

Brad: Well we built the first tool, the Expired Domain Search a few years ago and you know at that time we needed to find a lot of keywords specific domain names for some affiliate marketing that we were doing. At that time you know there was a few options available justdrop.com, deleteddomains.com. But, you know those are paid services that didn’t give us the flexibility we wanted. So, we built the tool for our internal use and you know we want to take it off our development server put it up on its own live server, still for our internal use but you know we wanted to find a domain for it. So the first few days I would search for a dropped domain with the keyword domain in it. Domain is actually a very crowded space in the domain world. So domainhole.com is the first one that came up that I can of liked. So I grabbed that. For the first little bit that was the code name for the project. DomainHole. When we decide to launch the site publically we took another look at the domain you know came up with more options and we actually just in honor of the code name DomainHole we decide to keep to like that. So some people hate it some people love it. I personally love it myself. It’s very brandable, it’s easy to spell. It’s short and there it is.

Michael: These are good reasons to pick a domain name so that is fantastic. And so you built DomainHole out of a need that you had as a business that you said for affiliate marketing and you have multiple areas of the DomainHole service. You have the expired DomainHole search, and you have a Name Spinner, you have an Instant Availability Check. Were these all areas you had a need for and that is why you develop them?

Brad: Yes I mean searching for expired domain names is great now but you know often times you don’t find something so we develop these other tools to seek help aid the task of finding domains. So over the years we built these tools separately and then we decided these are all great, they go well together. So we decided to launch them all together as a package that you see now as DomainHole.

Michael: Great and you recently – your services currently in beta mode, beta operation which means that you done your alpha testing. You have people use it, you work out most of the bugs and now it is in beta. Which means it is live for people to use but there may still be an errant bug every now and then. Is that correct?

Brad: That is right. I mean the services, especially the expired domain search, is very extensive on the data base and the server backend. We wanted to make sure that we could scale properly. And throughout the beta we’ve done a lot of optimizations that we have found that we wouldn’t have found otherwise. And we think the server is pretty stable now so we decided to open it up to everyone. So anyone can get on right now.

Michael: Excellent and who do you think would be your target user for DomainHole?

Brad: Well I think that anyone who is looking for a domain could find the site useful. I think specifically any sort of domain investors or people in the affiliate marketing world, people who would register a dozen or a hundred domains per year, I think they would find the most use out of it. Because they are the ones who are looking for specific keyword domain names.

Michael: Okay tell me a little bit affiliate marketers. How might they use the system? And why would they want to register so many domain names?

Brad: Well let’s say they are signed up with Commission Junction as an example. They find a product that they want to promote related to cars. They might want to put up a dozen or two dozen sites with the keyword car in the domain name. The car market it pretty crowded as well. So using the Expired Domain Search or the other tools they could easily find some domain names available with the word car in it.

Michael: Got it. So let’s talk a little bit about the data. You said that you have an extensive data base of expired domain names. Where do you get this data from and how big is the data?

Brad: We have a couple different sources actually that we are getting expired domain data from. The reason we are using a couple different ones is because we want to make sure that we are getting everything and that it is accurate. You know making sure that it is going to scale properly. Every day about 60-70,000 domains expire. So every day we compile that new list, import it to the data base and make it searchable, do some optimizations on the data so it is nice and fast. And we are able to look right now five to six days in the future. So hopefully in time we are going to look even further, even a month ahead, but for now it is just five days into the future.

Michael: And is this every single domain name available? .Com, .net, .tv, .cc, .io?

Brad: Right now it is just .com, .net and .org. But it is on our to-do list to cover all the other TLDs.

Michael: So every single night you are downloading 60-70,000 domain names, .com, .net and .org and you import them into your data base, you clean it up and then they are available for people to search again.

Brad: That is right.

Michael: Your tool right now of yours appears completely free. There is a log in system. Is that required more to use your tool and will you charge in the future?

Brad: There is no plans to charge for the site. The log in that you see there is useful for if you want to ‘star’ some domains or set them as favorites. So throughout all the tools on the site if there is a domain that you see that you think you like you can hit that little heart icon and it sets it as a favorite and you can go back at any time and look at your list of favorites. As I said we plan on keeping it free.

Where we do make money is on the affiliate commission. So if someone finds a domain that they like and they click on the domain and choose Go Daddy for example as their registrar we would make 20% off of the registration fee. So that is how we make our profit.

Michael: Excellent. And are you making a profit right now off the tool?

Brad: We are. We are making a modest profit. It is looking good so far.

Michael: Excellent so that is great that you are going to keep it free through affiliate links. So there are a host of other websites out there that allow people to search against expired domains or check for availability or generate ideas for names based on keywords. Why should people use DomainHole?

Brad: Well a couple of reasons. Number one we package the tools up as together as a suite of tools. So you can quickly go from one tool to the other. As I mentioned at any point you can ‘star’ a domain name or set it as your favorite so you can refer back to it. Each of our tools does have unique characteristics.

For example, the Expired Domain Search we give a lot of flexibility as to the type of searching you want to do. Let’s say you want to find a list of expired domains that have two words in it or three words. You can even search for one word domain names. So like dictionary.com domain names type things. There is Domain Spinner. We have some unique word lists. The Instant Availability Check. We are working on covering all the TLDs like the country code specific ones. So that would be a nice place to sort of search for all of the country codes. And then the Name Generator. It is just pretty cool for finding some brandable domain names.

Michael: So you have got a lot of tools all packaged in one place.

Brad: Yes.

Michael: Let’s run through a couple of examples. I live up here in Seattle. We’ve got a vibrant text startup community up here. Lots of companies. Well we’ve got Microsoft up here of course, Amazon, it seems like every startup conference I go to in the Seattle scene somebody from one of these large corporations has an idea. They are just looking to figure out how to start it up. Do a proof of concept to try and find some customers. But of course one of the most important parts is actually naming your company. And a lot of people make the mistake of naming their company and forming an LLC or incorporating without having a domain name. So it is important to make sure that you have a domain name that matches your company so that customers aren’t confused. so oftentimes a startup will need to find a domain name as one of their first steps. Once they have actually some up with the idea for their business and they have customers in mind and have done a proof of concept.

So let’s take a completely hypothetical scenario here. There is a company in Seattle. Let’s call it a comments system for blogs that allows new organization system for blog comments. So it’s not just the regular tier blog comments. It allows reordering of discussions. it allows the best discussions to float up to the top. It also allows people to pull in comments from other blogs, from Twitter, from Facebook. You know it brings everything together whenever you post an article. Let’s call it that. So the key word is discussion. Where this hypothetical company is allowing a much broader discussion and allowing people to discuss things where they want instead of forcing them to come to the site. It brings it all together. Alright so how would I use your tool?

Brad: Okay the first thing you might do is go to the Instant Availability Check. So what this tool does is as you type a domain name into the info box it will instantly check if that domain is available and various TLDs. So you can quickly see if it is available. If you had some domain names in mind that would be a good place to start. You type each one and you see if it is available. You might have some other ideas, you type it in and you check real quick if it is available.

Michael: So I typed in discussion into your Instant Availability Check. I saw the little Ajaxy spinning wheel over here and it came back and tells us discussion .com is taken. That is what the red with the line through it means?

Brad: That is right.

Michael: Okay so the .org is taken, the .net is – everything is taken except for .cm if I was in – where is that? I don’t even know. And the .bz. So this domain name unless I was looking for a domain name hack doesn’t look like it would be a good one for us.

Brad: Not surprising it is taken.

Michael: So let’s say I wanted to sort of copy disqus (that company). If I type in disqussion it looks like the .com is taken but I can go with the .org, the .net, .me, .mobi, pretty much everything else except for the .com is available. So I can’t seem to find anything with any of the words let’s say, Brad I’m looking for currently available for hand registration. So what is my next step?

Brad: Let’s try the Name Spinner next.

Michael: I’m sorry. So I’m going to go up here to the top and go to Name Spinner and click that…

Brad: So the way the Name Spinner works is you put in your keyword (so in this case discussion). You choose from the dropdown what word list you want to use. I like to use the word list Funny Words a lot because it brings back some unique results.

Michael: Okay so we have got animals, basic words, buildings & places, business nouns, business verbs, technology terms, boy name and girl name, medical terms. Actually you have got a wide list here. Financial terms, oh, you suggested funny words. So we will select that.

Brad: Sure and then from there the rest of the defaults are good. You want to add the word to the ends. You don’t want to include hyphens and you want the .com so you just hit Spin It right there.

Michael: Alright let me hit Spin It.

Brad: And what it is going to do is it is going to combine your keyword with the keyword list and it is also going to do a bulk availability check right on the spot. So you can see which ones are available right away.

Michael: Alright so it came back with a long list here. discussionalgebraic.com is currently available. Discussionannoying, discussionbaboon.com, and bahah, bold, banana, barnacle, discussionbauble.com, beaver, beef, befuddle. So basically somebody would look through the entire list to see if anything strikes their fancy.

Brad: Sure, yes.

Michael: I like discussionblip but I see a red heart here. What does that heart do for me again?

Brad: If you click that it will set it as a favorite. So you can come back to it at any time and sort of review which ones you have selected.

Michael: Okay so I click that it tells me that I need a DomainHole account and then I can log in, or register and do that.

Brad: Right. You can actually login or register on the spot without losing your spot on the pay page. It handles it via Ajax. So you don’t lose your spot.

Michael: Fantastic. So I have got one that I like so far. I’m still scrolling down, down, down, down, down. So basically – and it looks like one of the ideas that your system came up with discussionlog.com is not available. So the way your system works is you have a bunch of keywords in a file. You pair up my keyword with your keywords. You check the availability and then you put the ones that are available at the top of the list and the ones that aren’t at the bottom.

Brad: Right.

Michael: Okay, yes I like discussionlog.com. It’s too bad that that one is taken. But luckily discussionpickle.com is available. So that could be another good one. I may heart that. Okay so I’ve gone through this list and I found a couple that I think would be useful. But I’m not positive. What other options do I have?

Brad: Next you could try the Expired Domain search. So if you want to jump there. Essentially you can type in your keyword discussion. We are going to leave .com selected there as a TLD. We’ve defaulted the Number of Words box to 2 because we find that that brings back the best list of keyword specific domain names. So your keyword and something else .com.

Michael: Okay.

Brad: So once you run it like that.

Michael: Okay let me search. Now Brad and I haven’t done any searches or prep for this beforehand. So let’s see if it comes back. It did come back with some. Seminarydiscussion.com, I don’t think that would be a good fit for my startups. Surgicaldiscussion.com and theologydiscussion.com. Alright if anybody it looking for these domain names they are coming up for expiration.

Brad: Right so that search was in the last seven day. You could search for the last 60 days and go back even further. Or you could select the next five days. So these are domains that haven’t expired yet but if you see something that you like you could backorder it as an example.

Michael: Let’s do that. Let’s do the next five days and see if it comes back with anything. Dreamdiscussions.com.

Brad: That’s not bad.

Michael: That’s not bad. You know it could be your dream service that you have been looking for. Dreamdicussions – a nice brandable domain name. So let’s say I like this one Brad. It is expiring tomorrow. What do these other icons do here?

Brad: So if you see something that you like there is a little gear icon beside the heart. If you click that what it is going to do is it is going to check and see if that domain is aged. So as an example if it exists in Google, Yahoo, Bing, Alexa or if it is an old internet archive. And a common belief is that an aged domain is more valuable in terms of search engine optimizations. So if you are looking for something for your affiliate marketing you might want to grab something that is aged. So that is just a quick way of seeing if the domain has value.

Michael: Or maybe if you are looking to resell it if it has aged then it might have more value also than one that is just hand registered today.

Brad: That is right. And in the Availability column there we show if the .net or .org is available. So if your .com is available but the .net or .org are not available then that is kind of a red flag to you to say that this .com is pretty valuable because somebody has the .org and .net so you should grab it.

Michael: Okay so in domain aged right here it say “None”. Does that mean that it is not aged or what does that mean exactly?

Brad: That means that it didn’t find the record in the internet way back archive.

Michael: Okay so that means that it couldn’t find an active website on this domain name.

Brad: That is right.

Michael: And Alexa “None” that means that it couldn’t find any – what does that mean? That Alexa says “None”?

Brad: Alexa is basically the Alexa score in Alexa.com. So if it says none then that means that Alexa hasn’t seen it before.

Michael: And the Google, Yahoo and Bing pages means that it has no indexed pages in those three different search engines?

Brad: That is right.

Michael: Okay now with Yahoo it’s actually powered by Bing nowadays isn’t it?

Brad: It is, yes.

Michael: So how would those differ?

Brad: I guess we report it and it might not differ. This was developed a couple of years ago so we left it in just in case there – the indexes were bringing back different results. But I would say moving forward those are probably going to match.

Michael: So I may actually heart this one as one of the ones that I like and it will show it to me in my account. Let’s say that I want to expand it to three words. Let me go ahead and change Number of Words to three or less. And let’s see if that comes back with anything more interesting here. Fortuneminddiscussions.com and creditcarddiscussion.com. That might be an interesting one if you were a domain investor and you wanted to have a discussion site around credit cards.

Brad: That’s right.

Michael: And so which have you found more useful? To search for the next five days going forward or to search back in time?

Brad: I always search back in time. I mean you get more results back. A lot of time if you find something good that hasn’t expired yet, someone is going to backorder it and then you are in a bidding war with them. So I like to look for what we are sure is available so I don’t have to worry about competing with anyone else. So I usually go back 60 days and if it is available we know we can grab it.

Michael: Okay so I’m running a 60 day search right now. That means things have expired 60 days. They may have gone to auction if the registrar that they were registered at is partnered with an auction company. So when it comes back with these results might there be some of these websites that are not available?

Brad: That is correct so you have to either check the – click on the check link to see if it is available or click on the gear icon and it will tell you if it is available or not.

Michael: I see discussionarea.com expired last month. I clicked on it and it looks like the .com is not available. So that means that it expired and somebody else renewed it?

Brad: That’s right.

Michael: Okay that is too bad that was a good one. Smartdicussion there is a nice one. So I can click on the gear next to it or I can come over here and click on the check. Oh the check only checks on the .com, .net, .org.

Brad: That’s right. It’s a little bit faster.

Michael: Okay I’m going to run all of them. Smartdiscussion, boy look at that. Everything is available on smartdiscussion and it doesn’t have any aging or links in it but that’s another great domain name. So I clicked the heart on that one and add that to my list. If I wanted to talk about the discussion service being a leap in technology over at Current Options I might name it discussionleap. So I ran the check on that one and that one is available as well.

Brad: There you go.

Michael: Discussionportal, discussionpropell. That might be a nice one, let’s check that one out. No listings but the .com is available as well. Alright so we found some great options in the expired domain names. Which means somebody else had that great idea for a domain name. Registered it, but then couldn’t do anything with it. These are more brandable domain names rather than keyword rich domain names. So I can understand why somebody might let them expire. So fantastic options there. What other tools do you have here that we haven’t gone over?

Brad: Well if you can’t find anything based off of your keyword you could always come up with sort of a what we call a Web 2.0 name. Which is something completely unique and completely brandable and that is where the Name Generator comes in. So if you want to jump there. Essentially you choose how many characters you want to have in your domain name. If you go less than six chances are it is already taken. So six is a good spot to start. You choose your TLD so .com is usually a good place to start. You hit Generate. And what it is going to do is based off the mathematical algorithm called Mark Off Chains (which is essentially where we take a large chunk of text, we programmatically scan the text, look for combinations of characters and based off the probability that two characters are going to be next to each other in the English word, we can generate some English pronounceable domain names). So some of them are good, some of them aren’t so good. We are still kind of working on the right cut off point for when it becomes pronounceable. But there are some good options there.

Michael: Okay so I see duet.com, I see dalure.com (spelling 26:14), tsoten. I’m looking for something like a odio or what are some other domain names that have been made up in the past. Of course there is Flickr and Twitter (well Twitter is a real word), but Flickr is a real work they just are missing some letters. Dweldaway, edinall. Have you ever found any good names through here Brad?

Brad: I have found a couple. My favorite was sluce.com. S-L-U-C-E.com. I grabbed that a couple years ago. I have found some other ones. There’s puma and a couple others that I grabs awhile ago.

Michael: Augie.com.

Brad: And if there is nothing that you like you just hit the Generate button again and it will bring up a whole new list. And you just keep hitting Generate until you see something that you like.

Michael: Thirpie.com. So these are names where they mean nothing. They are not in the dictionary and somebody wants to come up with something completely brand new because they don’t want to spend money on registering a domain name that – you know most domain names have been reserved. They don’t want to pay money, they just want to hand register a domain name say at Go Daddy for $8, or One in One for Free with a hosting account and so these are some good options.

Brad: That’s right.

Michael: And we can see that down here some of the names that your algorithm came up with have actually been reserved.

Brad: It puts into perspective exactly how many domains are being registered. Even those crazy ones that mean nothing somebody has already grabbed.

Michael: Yes, votrick.com. That is amazing. And so we can generate it again and it will actually come up with a completely different set of domain names.

Brad: That’s right. Every time it comes up with a new list. So if you see something that you think you like make sure that you favorite it.

Michael: Wow. And it’s not just enough to favorite it. Somebody likes it most likely somebody else might come across it as well. So if they really like it it might be worth an $8 investment for a year to hold onto it.

Brad: That’s right.

Michael: Well this is fantastic. Do you want to run through one more example?

Brad: That sort of covers the four tools that we have available right now. We are actually in development of three more at the moment and we have plans for even more after that if you want me to discuss those real quick.

Michael: Yes, what are the three that you have coming up?

Brad: We have a Bulk Domain Checker. It sounds pretty simple. It’s essentially it is a box where you can paste in a list of words that you either generated yourself in excel or something. You pasted them over and you chose what TLDs that you want. And it will search your list of words with each TLD and it will do a bulk availability check right on the spot for you. So it is pretty simple but it is a tool that a lot of people have been asking for so we thought that we might as well make it available.

We are making a Domain Alert tool. So let’s say that there is a domain that you like but it is registered. You can actually set up a domain alert and every night we will monitor that domain for you and if something ever changes, if it becomes available, if someone renews it, we will let you know through email. So if you see something you like you might want to set a notification for it.

Then our flagship product that we are working on next is sort of like a Super Discovery tool. Essentially it is going to be tool that you put in a keyword. We will do a Name Spin and an Expired Domain Search on it. We will also provide suggestions based off the source entries. For example if you put in the word video we might suggest film or movie and do some Name Spins and Expired Domain Searches on that. So it is sort of like a discovery tool. So that is what we have in Development right now.

Michael: Great and what is the timeline for those three tools that you just talked about?

Brad: The Bulk Domain Checker and the Domain Alerts, we actually hope to have out next week. The Super Discovery tool we are still sort of designing how that looks and works so no e.t. on that one yet.

Michael: And speaking of design the design of the DomainHole website is very easy to use. Everything is very clear and your designer should be commended for doing such a fantastic job on this.

Brad: That’s right it’s a beautiful site. The whole site was designed using CSS standards. I believe it is the blueprint CSS kits. So it’s professionally done and it’s beautiful.

Michael: Excellent and even when you allow email notifications of domains changing the service will continue to be free and you will be funding it through the affiliate links through the registrars?

Brad: That’s the plan. We are going to keep it free and we don’t plan on ever putting any ads on it. So we want to keep it nice and simple and clean.

Michael: So a lot of our readers are startup entrepreneurs or technologists and they are very worried about domain registrars watching what they are doing. You know if I go to Go Daddy and I search for a name I’m worried that Go Daddy is watching it. How do you, when I come to your site if I use your Bulk Domain check next week or I use the regular domain check this week how do I know that some of the registrars aren’t monitoring what I am doing?

Brad: To be honest that is still a possibility with what we are doing. We are signed up with several different apis for checking availability. And we are trying to decide which one to go with. Really there is no easy way around that problem. One solution that some people use is just doing DNS checks. And that is not perfect because sometimes people register domain names and they don’t set up DNS for it so you come up with false positives. So it is something that we are thinking about. How to solve that problem. We just haven’t solved it yet.

Michael: Okay great. So the other part of our audience are domain investors. These are people who typically maybe using one of the tools that you have mentioned in the past that charge for it. A domain investor would they mainly only be concerned with your Expired Domain Search or might they use everything as well?

Brad: Well the Expired Domain Search is certainly a great place to start. Just as an example, if you want to jump back over there for a second, a couple of very popular searches that I do personally every day. If you in Number of Words if you just put one and you leave the keyword blank and leave the .com as the TLD selected and you run that, basically you are going to come back with one word dictionary domains that are available. So as you know one word domains are pretty profitable. So that is a good place to start.

Michael: Yes paginates.com there is a great one word domain. And that expired on May 17. It looks like it was actually indexed by Alexa or they have a record of it.

Brad: Now a lot of these will be picked up pretty quick. So the best way to use the one word tool is probably to go to the Next 5 Days. Then if you see something that you like to actually use the backorder service. That way you can better your chances of grabbing that.

Michael: I see, today is the 23rd, so tomorrow anthropogenics.com is expiring. Now I have been looking for this domain for a long time. I’m not even sure what it means to be honest with you. But it is expiring tomorrow. How do I even know how to register this? Or how to backorder it?

Brad: Actually in the update that we are going to push out next week we are going to have a little pop up that will allow you to choose some options. So your options are you can either create a Domain Alert for it so it will tell you if it ever becomes available again. We’ll provide links to some popular backorder services. As well we will provide a link to some domain procurement services. you pay someone to sort of help you contact the person and see if they are willing to sell it and things like that. So expect that next week.

Michael: Great. So the way I understand it if Network Solutions, for example, is the registrar of nubbin.com (there’s a great domain name, nubbin.com) they are partnered with I think Namejet.com as the auction house. So when a domain name expires if somebody has a bid on it they get first dibs on the expired domain name. So some auction houses are actually better for putting in a backorder. Is that correct from your understanding?

Brad: That is correct depending on who was the original registrar it will go to a different auction house. I think Go Daddy actually has its own internal one now. Where it goes to the Go Daddy auction and then as you said Networksolutions.com was the Namepro and Namejets are.

Michael: And so will you help me figure out where I should put my backorder if I want nubbin.com?

Brad: Yes that is the plan. Depending on who the registrar is we will send you to the correct location.

Michael: Awesome and if I actually make the purchase through that auction house will you get an affiliate commission of that?

Brad: Actually we won’t. If it goes to Go Daddy we will but some of the others we won’t. But we want to make the service useful so we will provide the link anyway and we will send you to the right spot.

Michael: Great. Well I’d love to have these one word domain names emailed to me every single day. Do you think that will be an option coming up in the future?

Brad: It is definitely on the to-do list.

Michael: What other favorite searches do you have that you perform?

Brad: Another one that I like to do is if you take out the number of words and you leave that blank and you put number of characters as four and you check off the .com, .net and .org. Then it is going to look for very short domain names that are coming up. Which again are very profitable.

Michael: Yes definitely. Bfwf.net, bzza.com, bjkc,com. And if people want to know which letters are better than other letters we have got a couple interviews on Domain Sherpa about that. The Ron Jackson, publisher of dnjournal.com, talks about his domain names, his three and four letter domain names so we have a short synopsis of which ones are better on his interview. So you can go take a look at those. So this is great. I can actually do three letter domain names which are even more desirable than four letter domain names.

Brad: That’s right.

Michael: I’ll try that one and see what it comes back with. No domains found over the next five days, but that is a great search nonetheless.

Brad: Yes. Another quick search to do that I do as well I put in 2 for Number of Words and then for Number of Characters I’ll put it on seven or an eight. And that will bring back a number of short two word domain names. That might be good.

Michael: S I did that and we can see acetrade.com. I took out all the .nets and .orgs because I’m a .com guy. addgive, addlayer, afacet, agilpics (that could be a nice brandable name for a company starting up managing pictures.

Brad: Yes there is dropdown up top where you can sort it by. And you can sort it by number of characters and then do the search. You are going to have your nice short ones at the very top of the list.

Michael: Sort by Domain Names, so that is alphabetical I take it.

Brad: Yes.

Michael: Number of Characters, Number of Words. So I do Number of Characters. Run the search again. Great. Anox, asub. That is a great little trick to use on DomainHole as well. Any others Brad. You’re giving away all your secrets here.

Brad: That’s all I plan to share right now anyway.

Michael: Well this has been a wonderful tutorial going over your entire service. I recommend people come here and they register first here in the upper right hand corner. So that when you do your searches you will be able to heart the ones that you like and then you will be able to come back to those. Anything else you would like to share about DomainHole, Brad?

Brad: No I think we covered pretty much everything. We are really excited about this product. We are very passionate about it. We’re very proud of the products. So I’m taking a lot of my own time to sort of push this to get it to as much eyeballs as we can because it is something that we are very proud of. So I’m very excited to have this interview with you today.

Michael: Excellent! Well I appreciate you taking the time out of your schedule to walk us through the tool. It’s been fantastic. And I’m looking forward to sharing it next week in Seattle with some startup entrepreneurs that are going to be going through a sort of a boot camp on domain names with me. And it is a great tool for helping entrepreneurs find what they are looking for as well as domain investors find some gems in the Expired Searches. So thank you so much for taking a few minutes to go over your new tool with us.

Brad: Not a problem. Thank you so much.

Michael: Thank you all for watching. Bye bye.

Watch the full video at:
https://www.domainsherpa.com/brad-pineau-domainhole-interview

[Photo credit: Brad Pineau]

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17 Responses to “How to Find The Perfect Domain Name for Your Business – with Brad Pineau”

  1. Eric Jenkins says:

    Michael…….

    Another great interview. DomainHole is an outstanding tool and it’s FREE….wow.

    Mr. Pineau thank you, thank you, thank you.

    Eric Jenkins

  2. Ricardo Main says:

    Thank you, domain buyers, pros and beginners, will definitely find this info useful and profitable. You can purchase domains from different sources as long as they are reliable.

  3. Love domainhole.com, used it dozens of times to find and register names.

  4. Brian says:

    Awesome interview, awesome tool. I used this tool for the first time, found an usuable name real fast. thanks, brian douglas

    1. Brian says:

      Followup, sold 3 domain names found using Domainhole. Thanks, to all incredible guests on Domainsherpa, too many to list. brian

  5. DRASK says:

    Excellent tool. Keep up the good work.

  6. Very Informative.

  7. TJ Arwin says:

    Brad seems like a really nice guy, and trustworthy. This industry needs more people like him. Congrats on a cool tool.

    Michael, great find and interview.

    1. Brad Pineau says:

      @TJ Arwin – you can always trust a Canadian. =)

  8. Mark says:

    Love the interviews, Along with TheDomains.com this is one the blogs I read every morning with my coffee.

    While watching your video, I signed up for an account at domainhole.com and tried out a couple of queries.

    Much to my amusement, one of the domains mentioned in this interview, I had picked up with a BO this weekend. Although I found it using my own tools, I will definitely be using DomainHole.com in the future.

    Thanks,

    Mark

    1. Thanks, Mark, for your kind words.

      That’s too funny that you picked up that domain! I totally ad-libbed the domain names mentioned in the show. :)

  9. Chuckie says:

    Love the tips for domainers, although I hate that he’s telling all of my competition!

    When will the email alerts be available, Brad? That will be a killer feature addition.

    Michael, congrats on another great interview…er, more of a tutorial. In any case, well done.

    1. Brad Pineau says:

      @Chuckie – The Domain Alerts tool went live this weekend!

      1. Chuckie says:

        Very cool. I love startup guys — they work 10x as fast as other people.

        @Brad — when will the nightly emails be ready for searches? I assume they will run after you update your database with the nightly import?

    2. Thanks, Chuckie. Glad you found the interview useful.

  10. Mari says:

    Great tool – I heard about it previosly but didnt realize the power it had. Great interview.

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