8 ms·

Show HN: Domain Wheel – Domain and company name generator

23 points by maldinii 9y ago

maldinii 9y ago
We have started the project during a hackaton here at Themeisle and just managed to launch a beta version for it. While before I was wondering why there aren't any good tools for this, soon I realise that is much more complex than I thought, for now we are using various existing APIs from Godaddy,DomainsBot and DataMuse with custom rules, exclusions and suggestions to make sure we deliver much better results. It seems that the only good solution for now and something we are working on is to integrate MTurk or microworkers and generate suggestions "on-the-fly", while building a nice database of data, I am passionated about ways that we can build a smart searh/suggestion engine "backed" by humans, will see how much it makes sense.
masukomi 9y ago
I entered "fancy pants" the initial block was all decent stuff you'd expect, and the response was quick. Yay. The "Check some carefully handpicked domains for you" section included Dogban.com, Guppyra.com, Cruzani.com and other completely unrelated or ridiculous things, which made my brain say "bullshit" "handpicked my ass" I would kill that section because it's a) totally useless to me and b) makes you look like liars because it is not "handpicked domains for you" it's... I dunno random crap you thought was neat? i dunno, but unless i was selling "no dogs allowed" signs (Dogban.com) everything there is just... ugh.
- maldinii 9y ago
  Hey! Thanks for feedback, we saw indeed that engagement isn't that great with the section and I didn't thought about the "handpicked" stuff. We started with some pretty much random generic domains there and are looking to build a database of handpicked stuff :)
- mratzloff 9y ago
  I'm going to register vivongm.com and kuehoral.com for my new startup about guttural choking noises!
danyim 9y ago
Broken on mobile. Tried a single word and it displayed a blank block of text.
- maldinii 9y ago
  is not mobile, but I noticed indeed a but when there are no results for a particular keyword.
sharemywin 9y ago
might want to let people register and save their favorite domain register. I use godaddy so it wouldn't apply to me but, something to think about.
- maldinii 9y ago
  good point, I thought that people tend to buy right away, however you might be right, it worth at least experimenting with a favourite function, probably can be done without requiring an account neither.
  - sharemywin 9y ago
    I was thinking it might be "reason" to collect their information for future updates.
superasn 9y ago
Looks good and suggestions are good. A little OT but what is your opinion on using the new TLDs like .win, .rocks, etc? Does that sound professional?
- maldinii 9y ago
  I chose to exclude those on purpose, I am not sure if people are that much interested in them, considering especially that some are quite expensive. I think however that some short ones like .win .rocks can be allowed. Particularly, I don't mind using such domains, we started for e.g revive.social and I don't see any problem with it
  - jmelloy 9y ago
    Should probably let the user decide, and you get an extra word thats not just .com.
borplk 9y ago
Is there an open way of accessing domain availability information?
- maldinii 9y ago
  not really, we are automatically showing only avaialable domains ( checking this against an API before displaying the results)
nicolaslem 9y ago
I've used a lot this kind of services for giving me inspiration. I have to admit that I'm a bit disappointed with this one, it feels... uninspired. For the example I tried it just appended unrelated words like "home" or "lunch" to my keywords. My personal favorite is http://www.panabee.com http://www.panabee.com as it plays with the phonetic of your keywords. It gives a lot of weird things but usually one or two are catchy names. Anyway, congratulation to OP for shipping something!
- maldinii 9y ago
  hey! Thanks for the honest feedback, we are trying to play with phoenetic and just show some keywords and not domains, we'll look into it :)
- sli 9y ago
  Yeah, it interprets "functional" in "functional programming" using the more general definition of just being, basically, not broken. Which, I get it, it's fine. I'm a bit disappointed in the narrowness of the returned results, but I also don't expect it to just know my intent, either. The site you linked gave me an amusing one that's really simple: unctionalprogramming. Reminds me of the word "unctuous."
  - maldinii 9y ago
    guessing intent it proven to be really complex topic, we can definetively ask questions and get user feedback to tweak the results once we have more data.
soared 9y ago
I was hoping this would identify TLDs that fit into the company name. Like a company named "Untame" with website of "unta.me"
- maldinii 9y ago
  is doing this sometimes, I think we need to tweak it a bit. Thanks!
Yetanfou 9y ago
Here's something I wrote just for this purpose a number of years ago. Yes, a CGI script, in BASH no less, producing an endless stream of domain names for your startup. https://gist.github.com/Yetangitu/83fc77acf3d381a32c40a8f89f7354a1 https://gist.github.com/Yetangitu/83fc77acf3d381a32c40a8f89f... It even tells you whether the generated names are still available in .com, .net and .info, feel free to add even more specious extensions here. Running it with a good-sized list of adjectives creates... well, just about the same nonsensical drivel as that which seems to be produced by many other similar tools. This one is free though... EssentialDuck AssuredPig BelovedFrog ProfitableMonkey FrontLizard ColorfulGator InfiniteDuck (what? No ...Fish names yet?) GrandFox (sorry, taken for .net and .com) VivaciousPig FunctionalPig (for all you Haskell hogs out there) SuperiorMonkey RegularMonkey (taken!) IllHippo StarryHound DiligentGator IncomparableDonkey ... Well, you get the drill. It is interesting to note that the list of taken domains seems to be smaller these days compared to when I made this thing, back in the heady days of dot.com.boom. Maybe folks have wizened up to the fact that all those nonsensical names started to look stale fresh out of the wrapper?
- maldinii 9y ago
  Thanks for the tip, will check this out!

23 points by maldinii 9y ago

We have started the project during a hackaton here at Themeisle and just managed to launch a beta version for it. While before I was wondering why there aren't any good tools for this, soon I realise that is much more complex than I thought, for now we are using various existing APIs from Godaddy,DomainsBot and DataMuse with custom rules, exclusions and suggestions to make sure we deliver much better results. It seems that the only good solution for now and something we are working on is to integrate MTurk or microworkers and generate suggestions "on-the-fly", while building a nice database of data, I am passionated about ways that we can build a smart searh/suggestion engine "backed" by humans, will see how much it makes sense.

masukomi 9y ago

I entered "fancy pants" the initial block was all decent stuff you'd expect, and the response was quick. Yay. The "Check some carefully handpicked domains for you" section included Dogban.com, Guppyra.com, Cruzani.com and other completely unrelated or ridiculous things, which made my brain say "bullshit" "handpicked my ass" I would kill that section because it's a) totally useless to me and b) makes you look like liars because it is not "handpicked domains for you" it's... I dunno random crap you thought was neat? i dunno, but unless i was selling "no dogs allowed" signs (Dogban.com) everything there is just... ugh.

maldinii 9y ago
Hey! Thanks for feedback, we saw indeed that engagement isn't that great with the section and I didn't thought about the "handpicked" stuff. We started with some pretty much random generic domains there and are looking to build a database of handpicked stuff :)
mratzloff 9y ago
I'm going to register vivongm.com and kuehoral.com for my new startup about guttural choking noises!

danyim 9y ago

Broken on mobile. Tried a single word and it displayed a blank block of text.

maldinii 9y ago
is not mobile, but I noticed indeed a but when there are no results for a particular keyword.

sharemywin 9y ago

might want to let people register and save their favorite domain register. I use godaddy so it wouldn't apply to me but, something to think about.

maldinii 9y ago
good point, I thought that people tend to buy right away, however you might be right, it worth at least experimenting with a favourite function, probably can be done without requiring an account neither.
- sharemywin 9y ago
  I was thinking it might be "reason" to collect their information for future updates.

superasn 9y ago

Looks good and suggestions are good. A little OT but what is your opinion on using the new TLDs like .win, .rocks, etc? Does that sound professional?

maldinii 9y ago
I chose to exclude those on purpose, I am not sure if people are that much interested in them, considering especially that some are quite expensive. I think however that some short ones like .win .rocks can be allowed. Particularly, I don't mind using such domains, we started for e.g revive.social and I don't see any problem with it
- jmelloy 9y ago
  Should probably let the user decide, and you get an extra word thats not just .com.

borplk 9y ago

Is there an open way of accessing domain availability information?

maldinii 9y ago
not really, we are automatically showing only avaialable domains ( checking this against an API before displaying the results)

nicolaslem 9y ago

I've used a lot this kind of services for giving me inspiration. I have to admit that I'm a bit disappointed with this one, it feels... uninspired. For the example I tried it just appended unrelated words like "home" or "lunch" to my keywords. My personal favorite is http://www.panabee.com http://www.panabee.com as it plays with the phonetic of your keywords. It gives a lot of weird things but usually one or two are catchy names. Anyway, congratulation to OP for shipping something!

maldinii 9y ago
hey! Thanks for the honest feedback, we are trying to play with phoenetic and just show some keywords and not domains, we'll look into it :)
sli 9y ago
Yeah, it interprets "functional" in "functional programming" using the more general definition of just being, basically, not broken. Which, I get it, it's fine. I'm a bit disappointed in the narrowness of the returned results, but I also don't expect it to just know my intent, either. The site you linked gave me an amusing one that's really simple: unctionalprogramming. Reminds me of the word "unctuous."
- maldinii 9y ago
  guessing intent it proven to be really complex topic, we can definetively ask questions and get user feedback to tweak the results once we have more data.

soared 9y ago

I was hoping this would identify TLDs that fit into the company name. Like a company named "Untame" with website of "unta.me"

maldinii 9y ago
is doing this sometimes, I think we need to tweak it a bit. Thanks!

Yetanfou 9y ago

Here's something I wrote just for this purpose a number of years ago. Yes, a CGI script, in BASH no less, producing an endless stream of domain names for your startup. https://gist.github.com/Yetangitu/83fc77acf3d381a32c40a8f89f7354a1 https://gist.github.com/Yetangitu/83fc77acf3d381a32c40a8f89f... It even tells you whether the generated names are still available in .com, .net and .info, feel free to add even more specious extensions here. Running it with a good-sized list of adjectives creates... well, just about the same nonsensical drivel as that which seems to be produced by many other similar tools. This one is free though... EssentialDuck AssuredPig BelovedFrog ProfitableMonkey FrontLizard ColorfulGator InfiniteDuck (what? No ...Fish names yet?) GrandFox (sorry, taken for .net and .com) VivaciousPig FunctionalPig (for all you Haskell hogs out there) SuperiorMonkey RegularMonkey (taken!) IllHippo StarryHound DiligentGator IncomparableDonkey ... Well, you get the drill. It is interesting to note that the list of taken domains seems to be smaller these days compared to when I made this thing, back in the heady days of dot.com.boom. Maybe folks have wizened up to the fact that all those nonsensical names started to look stale fresh out of the wrapper?

maldinii 9y ago
Thanks for the tip, will check this out!