.io domains with 3 letters remaining | Hacker News Reader

.io domains with 3 letters remaining

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27 pointsmike_tan46 comments

I wrote this simple python script w/ dictionary file to check free .io domains based on ~18,000 basic words: https://gist.github.com/russellbeattie/4982393 It uses the fact that nic.io's whois response is fast and simple.

Here is the output as of 05/10/13 1:07 AM (Pacific).

https://gist.github.com/nodesocket/5553079

How hard would it be to make your python script spawn multiple whois lookups? Waiting on a single takes forever.

Amazed how many good names are still available. Looking to do a real-estate startup? How about:

    crib.io (available)

Pokemon startup?

    mew.io (available)

"The application has been received. Now awaiting payment authorization."

That didn't take long.

I was amazed that nag.io was still available. I snatched it!

Here you go: https://gist.github.com/russellbeattie/5553420 It queues up the words and then has 10 processes check the domains. But it won't do much for you, as whois.nic.io barfs after a short while from too many connections.

Whois is one of the easiest things to implement...this is a kludge. Just use threads and native whois lookups :). Here is a quick example - could use some error handling though - http://pastebin.com/haXNQ55W

Nice.

Related, I noticed that sex.io showed up high in your list. For anyone considering registering the domain, think twice:

No .IO domain may be used, directly or indirectly, for any purpose that is sexual or pornographic or that is against the statutory laws of any Nation. In the event of NIC.IO being advised by any party that a specific site breaches this condition then NIC.IO reserves the right to immediately deactivate the offending registration. The applicant may seek the reinstatement of any suspended domain name by seeking a determination by an Arbitrator appointed by the World Intellectual Property organisation.

The above is from the nic.io allocation rules [1].

[1] https://www.nic.io/rules.html - Section 6

for any purpose that is ... or against the statutory laws of any Nation

Well, that covers quite a bit...

It does. And it should be a legitimate concern for any startup that is hoping to rely strictly on a .io domain. The story of the vb.ly link shortener - and their seized domain - is worth reading:

http://techyum.com/2010/10/official-vb-ly-link-shortener-sei...

I hate to be that guy who posts this sort of comment. Especially on HN. But still: Someone has to say it.

Pointless hipster-TLD is pointless. Utterly pointless.

Very short names are useful for link shortening. There are good reasons to pick names out of the "gTLDified" ccTLDs for that. IO isn't even a real country, so it's a better choice for ccTLD abuse than something totally stupid like LY.

So it's less stupid than something utterly stupid. Great.

And then people choose to base the core identity of their company/service on that. Needless to say, I wish them greatness.

I think it's totally responsible to have a shortener in a gccTLD as an adjunct to your main brand. e.g. quora.com has qr.ae as a link shortener.

I'm sort of against the whole concept of link shorteners, too, but if they're run by the site themselves, long-lived, and otherwise don't break the expectations of URLs/URIs, then they might make sense for mobile and type-in use.

Because you don't like it or…? What decides the “pointfulness” of a name? Is a name better or worse because of the TLD someone chooses to put it on? Is booking.com better than booking.io for a reason other than you've decided you don't like .io?

Let me rephrase: do you have any reasoned argument anywhere for why the .io TLD is in any way bad or pointless? Because it certainly hasn't manifested itself in the comments to this post. Vitriol seems to be the only thing that's been presented so far.

I bet you wouldn't say no to eie.io

Could somebody explain to me the imporance of .io domains in today's market? It seems they are very hot right now, especially in the startup world and I think they could even become as popular as .com.

The main reason that this TLD has recently gained traction is due to google adding .io to their generic country code top level domain (gccTLD) list:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en...

Not entirely accurate.

That all happened after hipsters squatting these domains cried Google a whaaambulance over not getting the search-rank they felt they "deserved".

Something else made these utterly pointless domains popular before that, but what that was, I don't know.

> Something else made these utterly pointless domains popular before that, but what that was, I don't know.

Possibly 'io' being short for input/output. The first .io domains I remember were some programmer blogs/personal sites. Now they are just over used.

Sidenote: I am enjoying all of the current interest in the .io domain (speaking as someone who owns a few .io domains). As a recent addition to google's gccTLD list, it still has a ton of great names available. Part of this is no doubt due to the higher registration costs. Part, however, is likely due to the fact that .io was only recently upgraded to gccTLD status.

Also, the most reasonable .io registrar I've found is gandi at $40. Out of curiosity, has anybody found anything less expensive from a reliable registrar?

Lol, I paid €84 :P I guess it pays to shop around a bit first :)

Nice, lots of cool stuff in there. I also made a tool that searches for all available 2 letter .io domains at any given time. http://framespersushi.com/lab/two-letter-io/

So, are there any left?

The short answer is yes. The slightly longer answer is, yes, but no two letter domains remain. Can you register something like d3.io? Yes. Can you register something like dx.io? No.

Last time I checked, there were some left without numbers. However they all had the letter Q in them, which people seem to hate.

Nope, not any more. Assuming your tool is correct (which, from checking other sources, it appears to be), all two letter io domains are taken, even those starting with q. There are still a decent number of letter + number domains [1], along with a ton of three letter domains.

[1] I posted a list of letter + number .io domains recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5672237 - most are still available, but some were immediately taken due to the post and due to FramesPerSushi's tool (which I found rather useful).

You guys missed it! Back in January 2011, there were a bunch: http://rb.io/blog/two-letter-io-domains-available :-D

Two letter .io domains left as of May 10, 2013 1:40am: http://pastebin.com/k5qbbACB

Ew. Those domains look so shady that if I received emails from them, I'm pretty sure they would instantly be classified as spam.

Can anyone recommend a good registrar for buying these?

gandi.net. $40/year (not cheap, but cheaper than most).

Biggest hurdle for .io for novelty use.

Stop whining about .io being a "hipster" TLD. Hipster is just a slanderous term for someone whose interests aren't exactly aligned with yours. Live with it.

.io is great because it has not been polluted by squatters and excessive usage over the past 20 years. The price of .io hopefully discourages wasteful registration, and it's a TLD used mostly by the tech savvy community, so it won't get polluted too soon. If you're in the tech community and you want a nice domain name, go for .io.

I can't believe nobody took vag.io. Then again, there's not much you can do with it due to the ridiculous rules on .IO domains.

or tit.io, but I just decided to buy it.

Given the rules on the domain, do you have any specific plans for your shiny new domain?

A tit fan page, of course, with subdomains for the blue tit, coal tit etc.

vag.io is no longer available. But vagio.com is. I have a feeling it wont be in a little while after I make this post. Sucks domain squatters are such fucking scumbags. Plus nobody is interested in the term 'vagio' in the first place or else both domains would have been taken before today, so there's no demand or means to make a profit off of them. I hate domain squatters... the worst form of scum on earth!

fellat.io is also still available.

Not in my house!

ba-da-dum-tish

Not available:

ruf.io (would have been great for Dante Basco) sud.io (would have been great for Phil Collins)

I have a spare domain pin.io. If anyone has good usage for it please let me know at marcin.mieszek@gmail.com.

I have http://readwrite.io and a few others. Click through for my email address.

I don't think that this list is exhaustive. jmr.io (my initials) isn't on that list, but it's available.

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