Domain registrations close in on 200 million, what this means for the consumer

Verisign has recently reported that TLD registrations are closing in on the 200 million mark. There’s no denying it — this number is huge. It can also be intimidating for the average consumer to hear this. With 200 million domain names registered there can’t possibly be any good ones left. Wrong.

Just about every day we spend listening on Twitter we hear people say how surprised they are at how many good domain names are still available. You just have to start being creative. If you’re not necessarily the creative type, there are tools out there to help you. Take our Domain Suggestion Tool for example. You can type in a set of keywords and not only get related suggestions back, but also suggestions based on popular Google keyword searches. Trust me, you can spend hours using this tool and coming across great names that you weren’t even thinking of, I certainly have.

Another thing to consider is the increasing popularity of alternative extensions and ccTLDs. While sprouticus.com may not be available (something I’ve pouted about for years), sproutic.us is and that’s almost as good, at least in my case. Nowadays more and more people are starting to do the same. For instance, check out Claim.io and Flavors.me, two recently launched services that are embracing alternative extensions.

Some other great extensions that are starting to become really popular are .MOBI and .TV. If you’re looking to cater specifically to mobile devices, a .MOBI domain is the way to go. If you’re doing video at all, .TV is perfect — just check out Name.com’s very own Beer Fridays! Now these are just a few examples, but there are a whole slew of extensions that you can choose from to suit either your personal or business needs. It’s not just about .COM and .NET anymore.

So the moral of the story is not to get discouraged that there are a bazillion domain names being registered out there. There’s still some good names to be found, and great names are dropping all the time. You just have to know where to look.