2026-09-25

Naming your dev tool: the 9 checks I run before I buy a domain

A practical pre-purchase checklist for developers buying a domain: phonetic tests, trademark search, RDAP + Wayback history checks, TLD risk, escrow mechanics, and a script to vet a whole shortlist.

You will write a thousand lines of code this week, and none of them will cost you as much as the name on the front door.

I buy and sell domain names for a living, and most of the bad decisions I see are made in the five minutes between "I like it" and "add to cart". Here is the checklist I actually run on my own shortlist, with the commands.

1. Say it out loud on a call

Type it and it looks fine. Say it to someone on a support call and it collapses: focusflow becomes "focus-flow or foci-sflow?"

Run the double-clarification test: dictate the name to a stranger (or your phone's voice memo). If they need two clarifications, the name will cost you support hours forever.

Watch for phone-collisions too: m/n and b/p/v are the classic killers on bad lines. And check the name doesn't spell something unfortunate when read aloud the other way round.

2. Count the characters

Under 12 characters is comfortable. Under 9 is memorable. Past 15, people start typing a search query instead of your address — and once they search, you are competing with whoever pays for ads on your own name.

Also count the keystrokes: hyphens and digits both fail the "say it once, type it once" test. acme-hq-2.com is a forwarding address, not a brand.

3. Clear the trademark before you clear the credit card

This is the check most developers skip, and it is the one that can force a rename six months in — after you have printed stickers.

• USPTO Trademark Search — search the word itself, then the word in the relevant class (class 9 for software, class 42 for SaaS).
• EUIPO and your national registry if you sell there.
• Common-law rights: a company with no registration but established use can still send a cease-and-desist. Search the name plus "inc", plus Crunchbase, plus Product Hunt.

A domain purchase is not a trademark licence. Escrow protects your money, not your legal position.

4. Check what the domain was before you owned it

A domain with history is either an asset or a scar. Two commands cover most of it.

# 1. Is it registered? (RDAP is the modern whois — for .com/.net)
curl -s https://rdap.verisign.com/com/v1/domain/yourname.com | head -40

# 2. When was it first archived? (a long history = check it carefully)
curl -s "http://archive.org/wayback/available?url=yourname.com"

Then look for the scars:

# Live redirect chain — where does it send visitors today?
curl -sIL http://yourname.com | grep -iE '^(HTTP|location)'

# Mail records — a domain that was used for spam usually has a story
curl -s "https://dns.google/resolve?name=yourname.com&type=TXT" | python -m json.tool

What you are screening for: an adult or gambling past, a redirect farm, dozens of throwaway subdomains in passive DNS, or an existing Google penalty. A clean domain with no history is the safest starting point — and often the cheapest to rank.

5. Decide whether you need an exact match

Two schools, and both are right in different situations:

Exact-match names are a shortcut to intent. Brandable names are an option on the future. Buying an exact-match name when your roadmap is a multi-product platform is how founders end up with a payments domain and a product that does seven other things.

6. Understand the TLD you are buying, not just the word

• .com — the default. If your buyer audience is non-technical, treat anything else as a downgrade they will not read past.
• .io / .ai / .dev / .sh — credible for developer audiences, and priced as such. Some are ccTLDs (.io is a country code, .ai is Anguilla), which means the registry is a third party with its own pricing and policies. .ai registrations are typically two-year terms, so budget accordingly.
• Cheap TLD traps — a $2 first year that renews at $90 is a subscription, not a purchase. Always check the renewal price before you commit, and the transfer-out fee.

7. Sanity-check the price against reality

There is no official price for a domain. There is a list price, and there are comps. Ask three questions:

1. What does the seller's buy-now page say? (Instant price beats a negotiation if you value your week.)
2. What have similar names actually sold for? Published sales reports are the only real comps — a 4-figure sale of a similar name justifies a 4-figure ask.
3. What is the cost of the alternative? If a rebrand after launch costs 40 hours of engineering plus new collateral, a $2,000 name is cheap and a $20,000 name may not be.

If the name has a buy-now option and the price is inside your "this saves more than it costs" band, buy it. Founder time is the most expensive input in any startup.

8. Buy through escrow, and know your transfer route

• Escrow (Escrow.com, or a marketplace's own escrow) is non-negotiable for anything above a few hundred dollars. The seller should be comfortable with it — a seller who insists on a direct wire is a red flag.
• Transfer vs push: a registrar push moves the domain inside the same registrar (minutes, no lock). A transfer moves it between registrars and triggers a 60-day ICANN transfer lock from the moment it lands in your account. If you are launching next week, ask which one you are getting.
• Check the auth code (EPP) works and that the domain is not locked for another reason. And confirm the WHOIS email on record actually receives mail — a stale contact is the most common cause of a stuck transfer.

9. Vet the whole shortlist in one pass

Never evaluate names one at a time — you will fall in love with the second one and stop looking. Score them side by side:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# quick availability screen for a shortlist (RDAP, no rate-limit games)
for d in "$@"; do
  tld="${d##*.}"
  code=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' "https://rdap.verisign.com/${tld}/v1/domain/${d}")
  if [ "$code" = "404" ]; then state="AVAILABLE"; else state="taken"; fi
  len=${#d}
  printf '%-28s %-10s %s chars\n' "$d" "$state" "$len"
done

Then keep the ones that pass sections 1–3, and only price-shopped names that survive. A shortlist of three good names beats a spreadsheet of forty.

The short version

1. Say it, twice, to a stranger.
2. Count characters and keystrokes.
3. Search the trademark before you search for a discount code.
4. Check RDAP + Wayback + redirect history.
5. Match the type of name to the type of business.
6. Read the renewal price, not the first-year price.
7. Compare to real comps, not your feelings.
8. Use escrow, and know if you are getting a push or a transfer.
9. Score the shortlist, then buy once.

I run a portfolio of 154 names — exact-match, brandable and geo — each with a buy-now price and same-day escrow transfer. If you are naming something and want to skip the search phase: dnwai.com/d. Questions about a specific name or a transfer in progress are welcome at elhagmousab@gmail.com.