Finding the perfect domain name

.com was once the most coveted of top-level domains (TLDs). For some, that might still be the case. To me, however, much more cool, fun — and often actually available to register¹ — are the spate of generic TLDs (gTLDs) that started appearing in the 2010s: .club, .guru, .dev, .buzz, .press, .band and .store, among many others.

When coming up with a domain name for your latest venture, the possibilties now seem endless. Even if a .com is still available,² there’s probably something more eye-catching and a better fit for your project out there.

gTLDs can have their own tone, ranging from the irreverent (.fail and .lol) to the functional (.plumbing and .florist) to the apparently inexplicable (.ooo and .xyz), and they seem to have become somewhat more visiable of late. For example, the advice columnist and podcast host Dan Savage’s domain is now savage.love,³ and I’ve just seen freetesting.hiv in an Instagram ad.⁴ The former GoCompare.com (quite well known in the UK owing to their annoying TV ads) has gone for a full rebrand as Go.Compare, with the idea being that ‘searching’ for it on any device will take the user directly to the website rather than an intermediary search engine.

The project I’ve been working on for the past couple of years is a website with a bunch of jazz piano tips and tricks. In the process of thinking about what I should call it, I jotted down some ideas. I thought I’d publish them here as a blog post, along with comments on their suitability. I’m not sure whether the list provides much in the way of insight into how to best go about choosing the ‘perfect’ domain name, but I present it here nonetheless for anyone looking for inspiration.

(These are the domains in the order I jotted them down in my notes file. You can mostly interchange ‘jazz’, ‘jazzkeys’ and ‘jazztoolkit’, as it took some time before I settled on which variant I liked best.)

• jazz.wtf
  I like this. It’s irreverent. Reflects the state of feeling overwhelmed when learning a complex subject like jazz. Maybe a bit sweary for some people, though.
• jazz.clinic
  Nice. It might suggest that the website is some kind of a workshop, which it’s not. Maybe a bit too grand also: I don’t feel in a position to put on a ‘clinic’ in jazz piano. And aren’t clinics more things that drummers do?
• jazz.tips
  Like it. Short. Doesn’t suggest something too all-encompassing.
• jazztoolkit.fyi
  I like the informality of the ‘.fyi’ domain. Reflects the approach I’m taking. ‘Toolkit’ feels like it reflects what the site will be: a bunch of techniques and approaches to playing jazz piano.
• jazzpiano.how
  Cool domain, but .how suggests too grand a scope. The site will be a collection of tips, examples etc.; not a soup-to-nuts course in how to play jazz piano. I’m not sure even the most accomplished jazz piano player would be so arrogant as to think they know the ‘how’: making music is an individual, and often mysterious, thing.
• jazz.fyi
  Nice. However, I’m leaning towards focusing on just jazz piano and not jazz in general (though a lot of stuff can also be applied to other instruments). Domain is already registered so I’d need to look into making an offer.
• jazz.fail
  Like jazz.wtf, this is irreverent, and I like it; but maybe a bit negative sounding.
• jazzpiano.tools
  Goes well with the ‘toolkit’ framing.
• jazzkeys.tools
  Fine. I prefer ‘keys’ to ’piano’. It’s more informal, and I’m recording a lot of the examples on an electric piano anyway.
• jazztoolkit.online
  OK, I guess. There are better TLDs than .online.
• jazztoolkit.help
  Cool TLD that reflects what I want to achieve with the site.
• jazztoolk.it
  Too clever. Difficult to verbally convey to others. Not a huge fan of using country-level TLDs for purposes other than those for which they’re intended.
• jazz.help
  Fine, but at ~£100 it’s a bit expensive.⁵
• jazztoolkit.app
  I like the .app TLD, and the site does have app-like functionality; but it might confuse non-tech people as it’s a web app, which I don’t think means much to non-tech punters.
• 🌟 jazzkeys.fyi
  OK, this is perfect. Suggests an informal, non-prescriptivist approach: “Here’s what works for me; if it’s of use to you, then great.” Also rolls off the tongue. JazzKeys.fyi it is!

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