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Ask HN: Domain name searching

18 points by phd_student ↗ HN
Is there anyway I can specify a regex and get back results for domain names that match the regex?

Say I want to know what has been taken for nano*.com, I'd prefer to not have to manually try them out.

Thanks!

16 comments

[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 37.4 ms ] thread
markbao
Try https://domize.com/ — Power Search, which lets you specify vowels/consonants/alpha/numbers, endings, prepositions, verbs, synonyms, or load a list of domains from a URL to a text file. Plus it's lightning fast. Not exactly regex, but it's quite powerful. My favourite domain searcher.
arien
I agree, it's amazing. I found some awesome domains with it.
kevinelliott
This is really an excellent service. I need to start using it more, instead of defaulting to my ISP, or manually whois'ing all the various domain+TLDs.

Also, Nomina on the iPhone kicks royal ass. Great way to scope out branding while on the road. Checks major domains, USPTO for trademarks, Yellow Pages, Google, the dictionary (words in dictionary for branding are good right?), Library of Congress, Thomas guide, D&B, iPhone App Store, etc. I have no affiliation to the company that make this iPhone app, but I just love it.

-Kevin

trapper
I use bustaname, its brilliant.
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tdavis
Not to be "that guy", but that isn't really a regular expression unless you are searching for nan.com, nano.com, nanoo.com, etc. I think you want:

  ^nano\w+\.com$
viggity
Not to be "that guy", but the word character class includes underscores, which is not valid in a domain name. What you would really want is

    ^nano[a-z0-9-]+[a-z0-9]+.com$
The first character class includes the hyphen, the second does not, because you can't start or end a domain with a hyphen.
viggity
on further thought, it doesn't matter than it will match underscores, because the list of domains shouldn't have any underscores in them, but you would still want to look for underscores (maybe)

    ^nano[\w-]+\w+.com$
tdavis
Unless the service was in the habit of selling impossible domain names, it shouldn't matter ;)

I intentionally left out the hyphen because it isn't a very desirable character.

ratsbane
That regexp would allow a hyphen as the first character. How about this (still assuming .com is the only permitted TLD): [a-z0-9][a-z0-9-]*[a-z0-9].com$
satyajit
The unsettling feeling I get when doing a domainname search with any of these folks is: they keep a log of domainnames that are being searched. If something is being searched upon a lot, they themselves prolly will go and buy it. And later sell it to you for a premium price! I would rather do a whois search from Mac/Linux/Unix) commandline.
philjr
I've experienced that firsthand unfortunately. My advice? If you search for a domain you like that's free and find it, don't sit on it, buy it :/