Just pick something that won't get you sued and move forward with what matters.

At best, this is premature optimization. If and when the project is wildly successful, you can change the name should it really matter.

In the average case, "good domain name" is a means to invent an non-problem to work on so as to avoid working on the hard problem.

What I mean is that the time it takes to read this comment is more time than should be devoted to finding a domain name for a project that doesn't have the financial wherewithal to outsource the problem to branding experts and purchase whatever domain the experts recommend.

Good luck.

thank you, i really like this comment.

I like .net, I think it's underrated and the domains usually undervalued relative to other TLDs.

true.... 20 odd years ago, i actually preferred .net over .com

Also, it's a good ol' classic that I use for my primary domain, too. Apparently, it is used since January 1st 1985 and supposedly the oldest registered domain is nordu.net.

Same here!

Personally, I wouldn't register any TLD that costs over $20/year for a side project.

consider prefixes and suffixes to your desired name

getSAAS.com

SAASapp.com

consider plural or singular to your desired name

also ask ChatGPT if you don’t mind the data mining, theyre not going to register your project

I’ve done that with domain names and monetized a viral campaign in a week, i didnt pick a brand name until i had the domain name

but I’m probably not your target audience and I would never need an email from you to close a sale but I see

.io, .dev, .xyz, .wtf, .finance employed alot. if you do those, still register a .com for the transactional emails

"saas" is a good example of a name where you could have "issues" conversationally. For example, if you are not in a tech circle. I run saashub(.com), and quite often have to explain "saas with double 'a'" or "saas like software as a service"

good points, thanks!

Only tangentially related, I'd warn against .icu, .xyz, .tk, .online, and if you aren't doing business in these regions, domains associated with russia, ukraine, china, singapore, taiwan, bangladesh, zimbawe, and south africa. Many problem sites have been hosted on these domains, and blocking them is such an effective mitigation strategy it's surprisingly common.

It can be difficult to for example send emails from these tlds, and firewalls may block your site as harmful, search engines will ignore you or penalize your ranking, etc.

I'm curious what you, or HN generally, thinks about .lol.

that's in the NO, don't use .lol group. Unless is something very straight to the point.

thank you

I've used .org and .net with success.

Used .app recently. I prefer this to .io, .so, etc. People are familiar with the term app. Not so mysterious.

All have ranked fine by Google.

Simple opinionated answer: .io and .so

A decade ago .io meant you were trendy and in tech, now it means you’re in tech.

Today .so means you’re trendy and in tech.

I was surprised by the sudden tech boom at the Horn of Africa.

notion started the .so trend didnt they? follow up question.... why? whats 'so' short for?

Shared object, it’s the traditional extension of dynamically likeable c++ libs.

thanks didnt know that, was thinking SOftware

It's short for Somalia. I don't think Notion has ever said why they chose it, though?

As far as I know, yes. Namecheap markets it as being short for software, or social.

There are now many new tlds of which one might fit the subject domain of your project/saas/tool. Though specifically targeted at it/tech people, I created an informational site using .info and a colleague created one to help people with a difficult aspect using .help

.net

Or the tld of your country if possible (e.g., .de for Germany, .fr for France, etc.)

Haven’t seen it mentioned yet but .app appeals to me more than something like .io these days (it at least seems like a safer TLD than the latter).

thank you.

to me that indicates that its an app available on the play or app store, not a website.

I like .app too. I think of a web app when I see it. Did anyone mention .co? That seems really close to .com and it's even shorter and seems pretty legit. Any more details on the project? maybe we can help come up with a cool name? good luck!

.cloud is an option too if appropriate.

its a very good extension, but i really dont like long tld's i prefer 2 or 3 char max. but as pointed out in other comments... it shouldnt matter at all at this stage.

I like .orgs.

I feel they convey a sense of trustworthiness and they're being slept on by commercial projects.

Name or hyphenated-name dot org or dot space if usage terms match?

.io is problematic: https://ict.io/en/the-dark-side-of-the-io-extension/

and .af domains have to be shariah compliant

me and the Taliban not caring about what .af has been reappropriated for

It genuinely doesn't matter anymore. All mine lately have been .xyz you can get them for like $1 a year from porkbun.com.

I just looked at .xyz on Porkbun. It's $9.92/year (with $2.04 for the first year).

yeah, a big plus if porkbun sells it as thats where i got most other domains