Guides
Naming, honestly
17 short pieces on picking a name you can hold across every platform.
How to choose a social media username
A short, practical method for picking a handle you can hold across every platform.
What to do when your brand name is taken
The name is gone on the platforms you wanted. Here's the order to work through your options.
Should your domain match your social handles?
When consistency is worth paying for, and when it isn't.
.com vs .co
What you actually give up by taking the .co, and when it's worth it.
How to choose a consistent username
A method for getting one name across every platform that matters.
Best prefixes when your brand handle is taken
Which prefixes read as a brand, which read as a workaround, and why.
Should you use “get” or “use” before a brand name?
Two prefixes that look interchangeable and aren't.
The character limits that quietly decide your name
Every platform caps handle length somewhere different. The tightest cap decides the name you can hold everywhere.
What actually happens when a domain expires
The timeline from expiry to drop, why waiting for a name rarely works, and what the backorder services are really selling.
When a name looks free and isn't
Reserved words, dormant accounts, squatters, and the difference between a handle being available and a name being usable.
When a hyphen or a number is actually fine
The usual advice is never. The usual advice is mostly right, and here is where it isn't.
Changing a name you've already launched
The order of operations for a rename, what you can keep, and the things that break quietly if you get the sequence wrong.
Beyond .com: what the alternatives actually cost you
The real trade-offs behind .co, .io, .ai and the country codes — including the risks nobody mentions until they bite.
The check to run before anything gets printed
A short list to work through after you have chosen a name and before the choice becomes expensive to reverse.
The domain is taken but nothing's there
How to read a parked page, what "make an offer" really means, and how to approach an owner without setting the price yourself.
Two-word names that survive contact with handles
Compound names are the most available and the most likely to break when the space comes out. How to build one that doesn't.
You've got the name. Now hold it.
Renewal, lock, expiry email, defensive registrations, and the handful of small things that stop a name being lost by accident.