Naming ideas, and what to do with them

How to choose a domain name for a business: the criteria that matter, .com vs new extensions, trademark screening, the radio test, and a shortlist process.

Porkbun vs GoDaddy on the numbers both publish: $11.08 against a $22.99 .com renewal, what the $0.01 first year really costs, and which one is worth it.

Shopify domain registrar options compared: what buying inside the Shopify admin costs, the paid plan it requires, and where else to register a store domain.

The domain name is one part of a URL: the piece between the https:// and the first slash. Every component named, plus which single part you actually pay for.

Google Domains was sold to Squarespace on September 7, 2023 and migration ended July 10, 2024. What broke, what renewals cost now, and where to buy instead.

How to check a domain's history before you buy it: registration record, past content, Google penalty risk, backlinks, blocklists and trademarks. Seven checks.

GoDaddy domain backorders are gone: new credits stopped August 8, 2024 and the service closed October 7, 2025. What replaced it and how to backorder now.

How much should you offer for a domain name? Real aftermarket price data, how to set your ceiling before you write, and what an opening number should be.

Should you buy every domain extension to protect a brand? What defensive registration really costs over ten years, which ones are worth it, and when to buy the wide set.

What is a premium domain, and why do some cost thousands every year while others cost thousands once? Registry premium vs aftermarket, and how to judge an asking price.

If a domain expires can you buy it? Yes, but not straight away. Expiry auctions open around day 26, then 30 days redemption, 5 days pending delete, then a drop.

Names for coffee shops as six patterns rather than a list of five hundred, with the four checks that decide which cafe name ideas actually survive.

LLC name ideas as patterns rather than lists, plus the three registers an LLC name has to clear and the order that saves the most time.

Domain name ideas for a website, as twelve formulas with the point at which each one breaks, plus what to do when the .com you wanted is already taken.

Website name ideas are easy to generate and hard to decide between. Five passes that cut two hundred candidates to one without losing a week to it.

How to choose a domain name without a rebrand two years later: seven checks in the order that fails candidates fastest, and the one that has to come second.

Shopify puts a .com at around $16 a year and states the renewal matches it. Wix publishes $13.35 for a first year .co and $30.95 to renew. Compared with figures.

Porkbun publishes $11.08 for a .com and charges the same to register, renew and transfer. Namecheap renews higher and blocks price checks, so we publish ranges.

Squarespace states $20 a year for a common domain and requires a site plan to buy one at all. GoDaddy renews around $19 to $22 and bills privacy separately.

Namecheap vs GoDaddy on what matters after checkout: renewal price, WHOIS privacy, transfer friction and upsells, plus where Porkbun and Cloudflare beat both.

A nonprofit runs .org and Verisign runs .com. The real differences: price cap rules, 12 million registrations against 163.6 million, and what your audience assumes.

Verisign runs both .com and .net, so the real differences are price cap rules, 163.6 million registrations against 12.4 million, and what people type by habit.

The .io domain meaning explained: .io is the country code TLD for the British Indian Ocean Territory, read as input and output. What it costs and the real risk.

The .ai domain country is Anguilla, a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. What that means for a US company, the real risk, and how Google treats .ai.

Domain name value comes from four measurable things and one that is not measurable at all. How to read an estimate, and the gap between a valuation and a sale.

Domain appraisal tools compared: GoDaddy GoValue, Estibot, NameBio and marketplace estimates, plus what GoDaddy actually publishes about accuracy.

Domain renewal runs $11 to $83 a year depending on the extension, and it is rarely the price you paid in year one. The real numbers, and why they rose in 2026.

Cybersquatting explained: when a UDRP domain name dispute actually wins, what WIPO filing fees cost, and why buying the domain is often faster and cheaper.

Domain vs hosting explained plainly. The domain is your address, hosting stores the files. What each costs, whether you need both, and how they connect.

How to find my domain registrar in under a minute with ICANN's free lookup, what to do when the record names a reseller, and why nameservers are not the answer.

How to sell a domain name: get a realistic valuation, pick a marketplace or auction, negotiate offers, use escrow and transfer safely. NameBest lists nothing.

A random domain name generator and an AI naming tool fail in opposite directions. What each one is good at, and why the availability check has to be a constraint.