How to check if a domain name is available for registration?

Finding a good available domain to register for your site is usually a pain in the butt.

If you ever try searching for one, you’ll quickly come to the realization that all good domains are taken.

But don’t give up. With a little creativity and patience you’ll quickly find the next best thing.

All you have to do after you find it, is take some action and spend about an hour to make a website.

I usually buy all my domains and hosting in HawkHost.com, but in the following screenshots I’m going to demonstrate how to find available domains in namecheap.com, which I also use a lot and recommend as domain registrar.

By the way, I don’t recommend namecheap’s hosting at all, as I’ve had bad experience with it.

What are the steps to find a free (available) domain?

After you visit their home page you can type the desired domain in their search bar, either with an extension or not.

Extensions like .com, .net, .org, etc are called TLDs (Top Level Domain).

So, if you search for “mywebsitename” or “mywebsitename.com“:

Namecheap will come back with a list of TLDs for the domain you entered, indicating if they are available for registration or not:

In the results you can see that the mywebsitename.com is taken, but there are many other options available for you to register, like mywebsitename.net.

But are they any good?

Short answer: generally no.

Which TLD (.com, .net, .org, .info, .co, etc) should I get?

Most times you should aim to get the .com version of your domain.

Alternatively .net and .org are quite common and acceptable.

Other than those three, I wouldn’t personally get anything else, unless it’s for a very specific reason.

People are used to adding a .com at the end of every domain, so by having the .com it’s easier to build a brand.

Also, you wouldn’t want to build a site around mywebsitename.net when mywebsitename.com is already running by someone else. This could even lead to potential lawsuits.

Tips on good domain names

You can also read some tips about good domain names in my guide on how to make a website for beginners.

Please share, it really helps me write more free guides:

Hi. My name is George and I’m a 44-year-old software engineer, which is another way to say programmer.

I’ve been building websites since the dawn of the internet (that's a bit more than 20 years), and I've helped hundreds of people build theirs, either for free or as part of my job.

I got tired of having to teach these same things every time someone asked me how to do it, so I decided to write this stuff here for anyone to see, like this detailed guide on how to create your own website for free.