10 Best Free Domain Name Search Tools to Check If It’s Taken

Domain name is probably one of the most prominent things you’d consider in starting an online business, whether a website, blog, or SaaS business.

In fact, buying and selling domain names for profit has become a business for many. In our previous article on the best website marketplaces to buy and sell websites with domain names, you learned the value of a Top Level Domain (TLD).

But what if you want to start from scratch and buy a new domain? How do you know if someone has not taken it and the domain name is available to purchase?

In this post, you will find nine domain name search tools. Many of them are instant domain name checkers. Using a bulk domain name checker, you can explore the domain name availability across many TLDs such as .com, .net, .org, .ai, .co.uk, and .me.

Without wasting your valuable time, let’s check how you can determine if a domain is registered or not.

Recommend: How to Find Low Competitive Keywords for SEO

10 Best Free Domain Name Search Tools to Check Availability of Any Domain

The tools listed here are not in a particular order. Feel free to try several and let me know what you think is the best one to check available domain names in the comments below.

#1: Domainr – Only ICANN-Accredited domain name search provider

Domainr is the only ICANN-accredited domain status API provider that supports TLDs and gTLDs. As of the time this article was written, Domainr tracks 1757 top-level domains, including 179 IDN TLDs.

#2: Godaddy – Look up and register domains

Godaddy is one of the domain registrars. Also, you can use other services like NameCheap, PorkBun, CloudFlare, and Google Domains to search for the availability of a domain name. Be aware that some of those services only support a fraction of TLDs (Top-Level Domains).

Features in Godaddy domain name search tools:

Ability to filter out different types of domain names.
Can choose a variety of domain name extensions. Ex: .tips, .photo, .club
Filter available domain names as the price and length.
Domain Name suggestions.
Find domains in the Godaddy Auction.

Also, there is a Bulk Domain Search tool in Godaddy itself. You can use that domain lookup tool to find the availability of more than one domain name at one time.

#3: Instant Domain Search – Check whether your favorite domain name is registered

Instantdomainsearch.com is another very popular domain name checker tool. It not only provides the stats about the registration of any domain name but also suggests related match domain names.

It allows you to check a domain name’s availability and generate domain ideas.

#4: Long Tail Pro – Harvest domain names for niche blogs

Long Tail Pro is a cloud-based Search engine marketing tool like Semrush. With that, you can do lots of things, such as keyword research, analyzing competitors, finding available domain names, or checking domain availability.

Using Long Tail Pro, you can find high-volume but low-competitive keyword domain names that Google Keyword Planner hides. It suits well for niche marketing or niche blogging. You can find good domain names that someone has not yet registered.

Click Here to Sign up for Long Tail Pro.

#5: NameWink — Find a Business name with a TLD

NameWink is a different kind of tool. It checks not only the availability of the domain but also the business name to register, social media pages, and more.

If you are struggling to come up with brand domain name ideas and their availability, give NameWink.com a try.

Scratchpad by NameWink.com is another instant domain name checker. It will check the availability of .com, .co, and .io domains.

#6: ScrapeBox – Fast and Efficient Domain Checking Software

If you are looking for a software-based domain name availability tool, be it ScrapeBox. In fact, Scrapebox is a powerhouse when it comes to SEO. With the Domain name availability checker module, you can check domain name availability fast for multiple TLDs.

ScrapeBox is an excellent toolkit for you, especially if you are doing tons of SEO-related activities. Check them out here, and let us know what you like about them in the comments below.

#7: Domain Typer – A Powerful Domain Search Tool

Domain Typer has a few tools to do a domain name search. You can use this domain-checking tool to buy a country-specific domain such as .in (for India) and co.uk (for the United Kingdom).

At the bottom of the Domain Typer search result page, you can see a section called ‘Domain Hacks”. It’s very useful if you want to increase the brand awareness of your business.

You can try these domains on your URL shrinking service to emphasize the brand entity, like ClickMagick and Replug. Ex: reut.rs ti.me,

Many popular brands such as KISSmetrics, Search Engine Land, Mashable, and Techcrunch have built their URL shortening service using these domain extensions. Ex: kiss.ly, mash.to

To find whether your country-specific domain is available or not, use ‘Domain Typer.’

#8: Expired Domains – Find Expired Domains

This is one of the best ways to search for the best and hottest domain names. Not only will expired domain names have good page ranks, domain authorities, and quality backlinks, but search engines will also rank them higher whenever they start publishing quality articles consistently because they are old domains.

Actually, there are millions of deleted or expired domains on the internet. They are very good for search engine optimization prospects because you don’t need to rebuild their reputation, backlinks, etc.

Just take a look at this screenshot. These domains expired on 10-10-2014.

Have you noticed highlighted domains’ Page Rank, External backlinks, and the first found to date from Archive.org?

Just look at the Athusia.com domain. It has 3 Google Page Rank and 14,800 backlinks and was registered in 2006. You know how much time and effort you have to devote to gain those 14,000 backlinks. Here’s the Athusia.com website’s backlink profile.

There are tons of expired or deleted domains like ‘Athusia.’ You need to find those domains and purchase them as soon as possible. Eventually, they could become your millionaire online business.

Just go to expireddomains.net and put your keyword into the search box. Then, find expired domains. Use Semrush to check its backlink profile, keyword profile, and other vital metrics, such as Semrush traffic rank.

Related:- How to use Semrush to grow your Blog

#9: Flippa – Largest Domain Name Marketplace

What would you do if you had a perfect domain name and couldn’t control it anymore? Yes, you would sell it.

You can find thousands of quality websites/domains through Flippa. Many of these domains have a good reputation. You can check their monthly traffic volume, earnings (Adsense, affiliate revenue, Stripe, or any other income stream), and net profits.

If you want a quality domain, try domains on Flippa. Go to the Flippa website and enter your target keyword to find available domain-scanning categories. You would find lots of domains that dominate the Google search engine, just like iStockphoto.com. (You can’t buy that domain now)

#10: Google – World’s Largest Domain Information Database

You know very well about Google — no need to explain its dominance. Googlebot is a very diligent web spider. I will show you how to search for available domains using the Google search engine.

Head over your browser to Google.com. Use this search query to determine whether Googlebot indexes that domain. Alternatively, you can also use Bing or Yahoo search engines. But I recommend using Google to find not yet registered domains because Google crawls new websites faster than other search engines.

site:exampledomain.com

The above search query will find a .com domain if Google already indexes it. Here’s what I was going to explain to you.

You can see that Google has already indexed the Labnol.org domain. That means the Labnol.org domain is registered. Here’s another one…

… Now, look at this Google result page.

Google didn’t find a domain called volleyballtrainingtips.com in their search index. So, I will go to this domain to ensure it’s not registered. Here’s what I see.

Google Chrome informs me that “This site can’t be reached.” Which means it should not be taken by someone.

You can find available top-level domains such as .com, .net, and .org and search for more custom domain extensions such as .ly, .com.au, .lk, .in, .pk, .cn, etc.

You don’t need to go through other tools to check the domain name availability. Just using one search query, you can find the domain name availability.

The downside of using the Google search engine to find available domain names is that domain owners may block Googlebot from indexing the website. So that you do NOT see the domain name in Google SERP, therefore, you must use another domain name search tool to check available domains.

Conclusion on Domain Name Checkers

Choosing the right domain name for your online business is very crucial.

Rather than regretting your domain name selection later, research the internet for a better brand for your business, website, blog, startup, side project, or app.

So make sure you use these Domain name search tools to craft the domain name for your following project.

So, what other domain search tools do you use to look up domain name availability? Could you share them in the comments? I will add them to this list as soon as I receive your comments.