How to ‘Hack’ Domains to Spell Out ANY Domain You Want
Sometime’s you need an exact phrase as a domain name and as we all know, domains are not as wildly available as they once were. Even if you want to register a .ME domain name, chances are that a phrase or name you’re thinking of is already registered. What to do? Hack it!
No, I don’t mean go Mitnick on the owner of a domain or use a gimmick to transfer it over to yourself. The domain you want is not available so if you’re not going to offer to buy it, you need to hack it in another way – a legal way!
Bult-in Google’s AngularJS by Berlin-based developer Jan Brennenstuhl, DomainHack.Me is an “unconventional” domain name tool that combines domain names in such a way to produce the phrase, brand, name or meaning you want – as a viable domain name.
How Do You ‘Hack’ a Domain?
DomainHack.Me does look a bit “hackery” but it’s basically a tool that will take the word you put into it and then spell it out as a combination of the domain name, the domain extension, a subdirectory of a file and potentially a file name. Lets say that we want to register a domain name that needs to spell out “domainme” because we’re the .ME domain name registry. Some fast typing inside DomainHack.Me reveals that except for Domain.me (Duh) we could use the Morrocan do.ma/inme or the Dominican xxx.do/mainme. Or maybe the Anquillan dom.ai/nme.
So, it does work and it does give you a number of (cute, but unpractical) choices. Unfortunately, as you can see from the suggestions, DomainHack.Me doesn’t show if a domain is registered or available, a fairly obvious need when you are registering domain names. I better waste your and my time clicking on links I can’t register.
This also leads to DomainHack.Me not linking to a register. On one level I’d like an option to be able to register the domain with one click, but on the other DomainHack.Me’s creators are wise to assume that you probably have your preferred provider of domain names.
What About SEO?
What about it? Kidding, while all the suggestions that DomainHack.me gives you can prove useful, the truth is that they are not the most optimal solution when creating a serious web projects. Your users just won’t remember a complex combination such as anydo.ma/inname as “Any Domain Name”, when they usually browse websites with such practical names as Facebook.com or Domain.Me. Even DomainHack.Me itself doesn’t use its own suggestions such as domainha.ck, instead opting for the far more usable DomainHack.Me
As far as positioning on search engines go, Google’s Matt Cutts has said that the world’s largest search engine will be de-emphasising the importance of keywords in domain names, stating in 2011:
We have looked at the rankings and weights that we give to keyword domains and some people have complained that we’re giving a little too much weight for keywords in domains. And so we have been thinking about adjusting that mix a little bit and sort of turning the knob down within the algorithm so that given two different domains, it wouldn’t necessarily help you as much to have a domain with a bunch of keywords in it.
What this means is that keywords in domain names and extensions by itself don’t matter as much for ranking, so combining words in the manner DomainHack.Me does, is fine. But is there a point?
The .Me/thod in the Mad.ne/ss
That doesn’t mean that DomainHack.Me isn’t useful for a particular kind of project. While you may be wary of using it as your main domain name, I can easily see marketing agencies using these domains for campaigns or you using it as a gimmick to fool a friend.
An obvious use would also be for a URL shortening service, since the point of those is to be as short as possible. D.mm/e anyone? Inserting URLs in both offline and online advertising is commonplace these days and DomainHack.Me will give you a unique way of giving your, well whatever, a unique web address without resorting to URL shortening services and short codes.
