The Best Tools for Your Company Name Search

Yesterday I wrote about picking a company name and some questions to ask yourself when you’re in that process. Whenever we have new a new product or concept we’re putting together, the two tools we use more than anything else are Domainr and Namechk. Both usually don’t wind up showing you what you’re hoping for, but they get your results quickly, which lets you hit lots of dead ends and move on quickly with your searches.

Domainr

It’s been out for a few years, but there still isn’t a better domain search tool out there. Domainr uses AJAX to search for the domain you entered as well as other variants it feels like suggesting. Get an idea what you want to search for, enter it, and a second later you’ll see if it’s available or not.

One other note about domains. Don’t be afraid to reach out to an owner of a domain if it’s not being used. I’ve done this several times and I’m always surprised at how low the prices wind up being.

Namechk

Namechk is sort of like the Domainr for social media. Just enter your company name and Namechk will scan all of the major social networks to see if it’s available.

Obviously Facebook and Twitter are the most important to get, but it’s also a good idea to lock down as many other accounts you can. Why get a YouTube account if you don’t plan on using it? It’s actually an SEO tactic and a way of creating inbound links to your site. Search for “37 Signals” in Google and you’ll see how they control every result for the first page of the results.

Both of these tools are great ways to get information quickly and hopefully cut down on the excessive amount of time searching for a name usually takes.