Try it out: www.namestation.com

For businesses, holding a naming contest is an excellent marketing opportunity to engage potentially thousands of contestants.

Here are some of the major features in NameStation:

Naming Contests can be created to get name ideas for a specific purpose. Contests can be shared with friends or a private team, responses can be rated. Later on, holding an optional Voting Round with selected name ideas helps filter out the best candidates.

Businesses can create Public Contests and offer awards to get customers involved in the earliest stages of brand development.

Various types of Contests are tailored for finding domain name ideas, brand names, personal names or any other types of names. There is an option to create a Contest to post available domain names only.

Domain Name Search. A big part of NameStation is dedicated to finding available domains. Never a simple task, but there are a number of ways to produce name variations automatically that can save a lot of time.

In addition to generating random name ideas you can work your way towards finding niche keyword domains. Keywords or lists of words can be combined with over 140 preset wordlists in plural and singular forms, random dictionary words or relevant related words can be added .

The Conceptual Wordlists we’ve prepared contain words related to concepts – e.g. fast, secure, unique, dynamic, smart, strong, positive, dynamic, simple, useful. For instance, if you’re looking a name for an anti-virus product, you would use words that are related with security and strength – Castle, Vault, Lock, Wall, Guard etc.

The challenge we tried to tackle was anticipating and eliminating dead-end scenarios. When there are no results, you should always be able to elaborate and continue the domain search to ultimately find suitable alternatives.

Excellent available domain names can also be found in the hand-picked domain names catalogue.

In the core of all this is the fast bulk domain search engine that allows checking over 40 Top-Level-Domains.

Incentives. While there are many people who gladly help others without expecting to get anything in return, most could use a little extra motivation. For those spending time coming up with creative name ideas for you we award our users with Reputation Points, which are given according to the votes given to their name suggestions. Points are only given for submissions to Public Contests and for contributions to the Available Domains Catalogue.

Reaching certain levels unlocks benefits like access to additional features or free Premium subscriptions. There are also ways to get paid for good available domain name ideas.

Social Naming. Connect your Facebook account to interact with your friends and participate in their Shared Contests. Share private Contest links  in Facebook and Twitter. Your friends can help with names for anything – when you get a new pet, need a new screen name, role-play character name, start a band or discover a new planet.

Trending Names. We’re monitoring the Web for buzzwords or new product names. There are potentially thousands of domain names needed that relate to words like App, 3D, local, social or brands like iPad or Android. For such names we’ve created lists of names to choose from, which you can extend by adding your own Wordlists.

Some other enhancements worth noting are:

• Update Feeds
• Personalized Dashboard
• Name Lists
• Domain and Hosting Prices comparison
• RSS feeds
• Team accounts

Having a brandable and memorable name is the foundation for a successful venture; not having it could cost you an arm and a leg in marketing costs, but no-one still remembers it.

With more than 80 million domain names already registered, you would get a serious headache brainstorming for names and looking them up in the Whois database one-by-one, only to find that all the sensible ones are already taken. But you can be sure, that good domain names are still out there. Its just not very easy to find them.

For that reason we can recommend a tool that can save you a lot of valuable time – MakeWords Domain Search and Suggestions tool .

Algorithms and language rules in MakeWords deliver hundreds of new unique name ideas instantly. It may take a couple of minutes of getting used to it, but once you do, you’ll save hours naming for your future products or brands. We even have pages where you can find a name for your pet, baby, roleplay character.

For Screen Names check out our sister site SpinXO.com.

There are currently over 500 registrars have in the market for domain name registration services. We reviewed the registration prices of the industry leaders and compiled this rating chart, based on registration prices. Note that some of these companies offer a free domain with their web hosting plans. In those cases we have added some most important characteristics about those offers so you can get an adequate comparison.

The following are the yearly domain registration prices by the world’s leading registrars, ordered by the best price/value ratio:

$1.99 – First year registration, for new customers only
$9.99 – Regular domain registration price
Free Domain with Hosting ($11.95/m) – hosting includes 5 Gb disk space and 200Gb transfer

$7.95 – regular domain registration price
Free Domain with Hosting ($3.95/m) – hosting includes 50Gb storage space and 750Gb transfer

Free Domain with Hosting ($3.95/m) – hosting includes 50 Gb disk space and 999Gb transfer, free SSH

$7.95 – includes DNS manager, URL forwarding. Bulk pricing also available

$8.99 – regular domain registration price
Free Domain with Hosting ($9.99/m) – free domain name with purchase of netGURUS hosting package

$10.00 – regular domain registration price
Free Domain with Hosting ($7.96/m) – hosting includes 6 Gb disk space and 1000Gb transfer, ASP.NET

Free Domain with Hosting ($6.95/m) – hosting includes 3Gb storage space and 60Gb transfer
$12.95 – regular domain registration price

£1.99 – .co.uk domains only. free domain parking. Best price in the UK.
£8.99 – .com, .net, .org, .info, .eu domains

£7.95 – 2 years – this United Kingdom registrar also offers .info domains for £1.49 a year and .eu domains for £19.95/year. For US customers too.

Check back often for updates!

The new domain search system at www.makewords.com contains a variety of features that speed up your quest for unregistered domain names.

Acceli Web Solutions, a New York web development company, announced today the launch of its next generation domain name suggestion tool and search engine at www.makewords.com

Unregistered domains can now be easily found with several new methods, like the random phonetic word generator, using different language rules, synonym search, popular affixes and more.

At some point almost everyone needs to come up with a name for their startup business, personal website or blog, said Tauno Novek, Chief Operating Officer of Acceli. We faced the same question when we were looking for a name for our company. That’s when the idea about the domain name generator was conceived.

The domain search engine was developed using the new Microsoft.NET framework that takes advantage of the AJAX (shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) techniques of the web.

We’ve been running it for a while now and the results are astonishing. Within minutes the search engine returns 5 and 6 letter domain names that sound good, are brandable and memorable! Apparently there is still an infinite number of good names out there, its just a matter of finding them,  said Novek.

About Acceli Web Solutions

Based in New York, Acceli – www.acceli.com – is a privately owned web design and development company that uses the latest web technologies to build innovative and unique websites.

To learn more about the MakeWords Name Generator, please visit http://www.makewords.com

Sedo’ Domain Parking Program lets you earn money from your domain names without needing to develop your own site. Even better, Sedo’s statistics show that domains parked with Sedo are 5 times more likely to be sold!

Parking your domain is absolutely free. It is quick and easy to set your domains to forward to the Sedo listing page, and no hosting or programming knowledge is required.

Conveniently receive your monthly payments via Paypal once your earnings have reached only $20! If you do not have paypal we can send you an international wire transfer, anywhere in the world at no additional cost (earnings must reach €50 for wire transfer payments). The revenue per click varies on a domain by domain basis and can be up to 1.50 USD per click.

Sedo Domain Parking Program

Adidas from the name of the founder Adolf (Adi) Dassler.

Adobe from the name of the river Adobe Creek that ran behind the houses of founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke.

Akai technically it means red in Japanese, but the Japanese also use it to refer to the color of the rising sun, as seen on the flag of Japan.

Alfa Romeo the company was originally known as ALFA, an acronym for Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili. When Nicola Romeo bought ALFA in 1915, his surname was appended.

AltaVista Spanish for high view.

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos renamed the company Amazon (from the earlier name of Cadabra.com) after the worlds most voluminous river, the Amazon. He saw the potential for a larger volume of sales in an online (as opposed to a bricks and mortar) bookstore.

Apple for the favourite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs and/or for the time he worked at an apple orchard. Apple wanted to distance itself from the cold, unapproachable, complicated imagery created by other computer companies at the time which had names such as IBM, DEC, Cincom and Tesseract in order to get people to use them at home. They looked for a name that supported a brand positioning strategy that was to be perceived as simple, warm, human, approachable and different.
Note: Apple had to get approval from the Beatles Apple Corps to use the name Apple and paid a one-time royalty of $100,000 to McIntosh Laboratory, Inc., a maker of high-end audio equipment, to use the derivative name Macintosh (Mac).

Ask.com search engine formerly named after Jeeves, the gentlemans gentleman (valet, not butler) in P. G. Wodehouses series of books. Ask Jeeves was shortened to Ask in 2006.

Aston Martin from the Aston Hill races (near Aston Clinton) where the company was founded, and the surname of Lionel Martin, the companys founder.

Atari named from the board game Go. Atari is a Japanese word to describe a position where an opponents stones are in danger of being captured. It is similar, though not identical, to check in chess. The original games company was American but wanted a Japanese-sounding name.

more coming soon

You should be very careful about choosing a domain name that is memorable, scores quite well with search engine listings, has a trust factor attached to it, and commands a brand value. A domain name is quite important for your business correspondences and emails. A long one can cause problems in communication, especially if the domain name seems complex. Here are some tips in choosing a well-meaning domain name that captures the essence of your brand image or business:

1. Keyword oriented or a unique domain name? If your website is going to have a crucial role to play in your business, then it is important to have an adequately researched keyword incorporated within the brand name. Use the most searched-for term in search engine queries, within your domain name. Prior to launching your online business, you should do some research through website tools to find out which keywords register the most number of traffic during a month. For example, if you want to make a website based on advising people, you will find that the keyword help is normally typed in the search engine query window a lot more frequently than the word aid. If your domain name includes targeted keywords, than you will get higher rankings in the search engines like Google and Yahoo. You should bear in mind that, apart from having the targeted keyword in your domain name, you should also have keywords in other parts of your site as well.

2. Use a company name only if you are famous: That is right. If your company name overwhelms the basic product name, then by all means go for the company name as your domain name. For example, people normally use the term Xerox rather than photocopy and if you are Xerox, then you should go for Xerox as a domain name because of the sheer popularity of the brand name. This is usually not the case, so using a keyword-rich domain name is a better move for most people. To be on the right side of balancing your business well, you should buy a set of two domain names, one that represents your business/brand name, and another that represents keywords or key phrases.

3. Keep your domain name short: The shorter your domain name, the more memorable it is. If your domain name has an every-day lingo, the better it is! More often than not, you may find that a simple two-word domain name is already taken. The alternative in this case, is to put a hyphen (-) to your targeted keyword and then add the other word. SEO experts are of the belief that hyphenating two or more words makes a long domain name more search engine friendly. The flip side is that people do not tend to write words with hyphens naturally, and there is a chance that if someone has recommended your site to a friend, the friend may find himself going to a competitor’s site. So one has to understand and undergo a lot of study while choosing a domain name. After all, it is one prominent thing that can dictate the flow of your business. Also, you should avoid putting numbers like 4 instead of for in your domain name. It will only lead to confusion.

4. Dot.com only: If you intend to have a website for commercial or business reasons, then by all means go for a website which ends in extension .com. The domain name companies will market other options like .org, .us, .net, etc. However, by all means try stick to .com for better mass appeal.

5. Register similar domain names: If you believe that in the future you are going to have a huge amount of people visiting your website through word-of-mouth advertising, then you should consider registering similar domain names that direct to your main URL (e.g. www.datinginformation.com and www.datinginfo.com). There are cyber-squatters who register domain names in the hope that they will be selling them for a profit to someone who really needs that domain name. Before they do this, you should register the domain names if you think that such a possibility can occur.

6. Be patient: You should not choose a domain name in minutes merely just to get it done and over with. A hasty decision may cost you a lot. It is better to invest time in research and arrive at the right kind of domain name. You should also discuss the comprehensibility and usage of the domain name with friends, neighbors and well wishers to find how simple and commonplace it really is.

Start with Domain Name Search Here

Naming your business is one of the most important decisions you are facing when establishing a new company.

There’s a lot of room for creativity, but in order to have a truly unique, memorable and brandable name, you need to consider certain basics:

1. You need a distinctive name that characterizes what your business does
2. The name must be pronounceable, brandable and relatively short
3. You want a name that has an available .com domain

While the first two are a matter of brainstorming and consulting with your friends or colleagues, getting the third one right can be an impossibly difficult task to encounter. With more than 50 million .com domains registered today, you can spend hours looking them up in the Whois database one-by-one, only to find that all the sensible ones are already taken. Fortunately there are the domain name suggestion tools, like http://www.makewords.com/, that generate hundreds of name ideas instantly, and speeds up the domain name search process greatly.

Very often the names have nothing to do with the underlying business, or service, such as Kodak, Google, eBay. Remember, it’s the uniqueness of the name – you want to distinguish yourself from your competitors. Deep etymology is secondary compared to the uniqueness and brandability of the name.

Another way to decide on a domain name is to try to figure out what message you want to convey to people and combine a couple of short words together, that are easy to remember. Many small businesses prefer to use words that cleverly suggest qualities about the underlying product or service without describing them outright, such as Lending Tree for loans, Slenderella for diet food products, or The Body Shop for personal hygiene products. Such names can easily be generated with the MakeWords.com Popular Affixes or Synonym searches.

If you’ve found the perfect name for your business, you have to take the extra step to secure it by registering the domain name. Domain name registration is not something to be intimidated about. It is a straightforward process, where you just have to follow the step-by-step instructions given by your domain registration provider. All you need to know, is your contact information. No technical knowledge is required.

If you don’t know which domain name registrar to choose, take a look at our top domain registrars page. If you are unsure, go with a known registrar like Yahoo or GoDaddy.

Try it! http://www.makewords.com/ business name generator.

We have carefully selected hundreds of affixes that contain such words. You can easily combine these words with your own keywords to find available domains. Try it with the MakeWords name suggestions generator.

Naturally, it is much harder to find names with keywords like home, travel or pets. In such cases you have an option to:

• use synonyms
• check the insert a hyphen checkbox to produce names like home-abc.com or home-tips.com
• type in an optional Extra Prefix (like my or the) or Extra Suffix (s for plurals, d for past tense etc.) to get results like mytravelabc.com or petwins.com.

Since there are different words for different needs, we have sorted them to separate categories. The Positive Thinking category for example contains the names that are meant to provoke positive thoughts - like best, free, super, win. The Shopping category contains affixes usually used in e-commerce websites, like buy, savings, value, discounts and so on.

First, you have to choose a company that offers domain registration. There is a number of domain registrars out there, you’ll be safe with one of he big names like Yahoo, GoDaddy, 1 and 1 or Network Solutions. The price for a one year’s domain registration shouldn’t be more than $9. If it is, there is probably some extra services or a web hosting plan included.

This process can be different from site to site. It depends upon the site and how they are set up. Registering a domain name is a necessary process, an on-line contract that proves that the domain name is yours and no one else can use it. It is a set group of terms and conditions that you and all others must adhere to. Some sites take care of this for you and you are required to do nothing; while others require you to fill out a long and detailed form regarding the domain name registration.Generally it is a straightforward step-by-step process, where you just have to follow the instructions on screen. No technical knowledge is required, you only have to fill out your contact information. When you start building a web site, your web developer will know how to make your website appear at your domain name and will take care of it.

No technical knowledge is neededSometimes you may be asked for a Name Server. This is important if you are already using a web hosting service that is not your domain registrar. You can ask your tech people to contact that web host and find out what the name servers are, or you can register your domain with the default name servers. This information can always be changed later.

When you register a name, you need to decide for how long you wish to reserve it. Every domain name registrar, has a pricing chart. Note the longer you reserve your name upfront, the more you’ll save.

See what else is included in the price

Some providers may offer free extras with the domain registration. If they are primarily a web hosting provider, the domain name is part of a web hosting plan, which you are going to need if you are planning to get a website. Another popular feature is Private Registration, when you have an option to hide your registration information from potential spammers. This costs just a couple of bucks more, if you hate deleting tens of spam messages from your inbox every day, we suggest you take it.