If you are looking for another handy domain checking tool, to find out more information about a particular domain name out there – check out Statden. To use this handy tool, all you  need to do is plug in the domain name of your choice and hit the "Go" button.  The website will then dive in and research, so you don’t have to.

You get some pretty basic statistical information about the domain you search on.  You can see details like the Google PageRank level, the description, tags, and both Alexa and Compete ranks too.  The website also provides some neat graphs and maps of both your traffic and server locations too.

Going after the social route, you can see how many times this domain has been mentioned on other blogs or on Twitter too, which is always handy to know.

Statden might lack information, when compared with other domain analysis tools out there, but it does give you an easily readable table of some really basic domain name information you need to track and know.  I hope in the future, this great tool continues to get better. 

You can try it out for yourself over at statden.com.

Need an easier way to find the perfect user name?  When looking for a user name, you want one that has not been taken before, and is available via all the popular social networks – and maybe even as a domain name.  If you are in search of a helping hand in your search, NameChecklist is the place to check first.

The idea of this online tool is simple enough.  You can use the service to check if our brand name, user name, domain and vanity URL are still available across dozens of social network website and the web.

For example, when I typed “funkymonkeymitch” into the search box, and hit the button labeled, “Check”, it showed me that user name is available via:

• Twitter
• Netlog
• Flickr
• LinkedIn
• Last.fm
• Foursquare
• Facebook
• MySpace
• Delicious
• JoinedIn
• Gowalla
• and YouTube

It also check to see that this user name is available to be registered as a .edu, .org, .com, .net, .nl, .be, .de, .fr, .co.uk, or .us domain name.  This is handy, because you never know when I might start up funkymonkeymitch.com just for fun.

Last, but not least, it shows you search engine and media results for that user name.  You get the number of results in Google, Flickr, YouTube, and Yahoo.

NameChecklist is a great website to keep handy to make sure your brand is setup and registered across all the different social network websites out there, to check for domain name availability, and also to check and see who’s talking about that user name right now.  Check it out at namechecklist.com.

You have to like it when a website delivers what the promise in the domain name.  theDomainSearch.com offers really simple domain name searching.  All you need to do is type in the domain you want, and it will tell you if it is available and help you register it.

On that point alone, it serves as a handy way to search for domains.  You can search to see if the .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .us, .eu, .in, .ca, .mobi, .name, or .tv version of any keyword is available. You can then check out the domain WHOIS info if the domain is not available or register the domain name through GoDaddy if it is available.

Another nice feature is that they promise not to log searches on the site, so you don’t have to worry about them picking up quality domains you find now, but don’t want to register till later.

Unfortunately though, that is all you get with this online tool.  Is that enough to help theDomainSearch.com survive as a service?  Try it out – and let me know what you think.

WooRank is an impressive new web site analysis tool worth singing the praises of.  I have several of these types of online tools bookmarked, and I have written about most of them.  The thing that separates WooRank’s analysis of a domain over any other tool is the plethora of information they provide to you.

After submitting mitchelaneous.com to the site, I found out tons of information I can turn around and use to make my web site even better.  Here are some of the details this online tool provides to you:

• Visitors
• Content
• In-Site SEO
• Home analysis
• Inside analysis
• Website compliance
• Off-Site SEO
• Popularity
• Directories
• Social Media
• Usability
• Website information
• Server
• Domain
• Related websites

WooRank is definitely my new favorite tool to find out how I can make my web sites better.  I got a WooRank of 53.1.  Can you beat me?  Plug your own domain name into WooRank.com and see what score you get.

Ever wonder how much your web site empire is worth? Well, mind is worth $9,530.88.  How can somebody find that out?  Just check out cubestat.com.  Plug your URL into the lookup tool and they will analyze your web site to see how much you could ask for it, financially speaking.

They will provide you with your web site worth, your daily page views and your daily estimated ad revenue. Other than that, you get basic stats about your domain and how it is doing on services like Compete, Alexa, and more. 

On the negative side of things, it missed my Google and Yahoo stats (not sure why, I double checked myself) so actually your value might be a ‘bit higher than what they say. 

Cubestat.com provides a unique, although be it not perfect, way to measure a web site’s worth.

It has plenty to love, but would like to see even more tools avaliable.  Right now DomainTools is still my favorite domain lookup tool.  So if your looking for another way to do a little more research about a favorite domain, give abouthisite.com a shot.

URLXL shortens your URLs using slugs instead of numbers, so they are easier to remember.  After you have submitted your information in, you are given a web page much like this one:

http://www.urlxl.net/review/web-hosting/

You then have the options to share on Twitter or Pownce.  This new service is also powered by the Google App Engine, which means you can use your Google login info to gain access to it.  It should be really interesting to watch urlxl.net to see where it goes in development in the future.

Without one you can not have the other – so I figured it would be nice to know how to find at least one half of that equation. Shopping for domain names can be a tricky task indeed. Hopefully though, with this guide by your side you should be a little more prepared for what is in store for you.

1. Search for Your Desired Domain Name

One of the first things you are going to want to do, after you figure out what domain you want, is to figure out if it is available or not. Now most domain name registers will give you a box to search from. Here are some of my other alternative favorites to do that work for you.

DomainTools.com | AjaxWhois.com | Whois.net

2. Don’t Pick a Hyphenated Domain Name

Think of ten of your favorite Web sites. Do any of them have hyphenated domain names? No. The first reason is, is that hyphenated domain names are really hard for folks to remember. When picking a good domain name, you want to find something short, relevant, and with a few keywords. Sure, there are a few companies that break that rule, take Amazon.com for an example.

3. You Should Be a Picky Shopper

It never hurts to be too picky when it comes to buying a domain name. Before you decide on which domain name register you should go with, you should do your homework on them and make sure they are legit and have no bad history.

Going with the trusted names out there might be the best way to go because then you know they at least have a large user base that they can’t afford to screw over.

Here are some domain name registers to start with:

GoDaddy.com | NetworkSolutions.com | Register.com

4. The Shorter the Domain, the Better

When you have a domain name, you want it to be something that people remember. Now this one should pretty much be common sense, but some people are a little lacking in that department. Something short or something that is unique is usually the best way to go. Overly obvious works as well.

5. Should You Buy Other Extensions?

There are a lot of different domain name extensions out there. From .net to .us, which ones should you buy? Well I would say first things first, you want to get that .com domain name. That is the one most people know and the first one they will try when randomly typing in your name via the browser’s address bar.

6. Purchase Spelling Mistakes

Do you have a domain name that is often misspelled or could be misspelled? In that case it might be a good idea to purchase a few more domain names for those misspellings.

Did you know that Gooogle.com will take you to Google? So does Gooooogle.com. Goooogle.com does not though. See the difference?

Don’t know why they couldn’t get the four “o” Google domain.

7. Get the “You Suck” Domains
Think you are going to be popular? Well in that case, purchasing a domain name with the word sucks after it might be a good idea. This will percent somebody else from doing it in the future and publishing all kinds of bad stuff about you. Did you know the folks at GoDaddy own GoDaddySucks.com? It will take you right to the front page. Beat your competition to this domain and get it now. if your competition hasn’t done so – you might want to by theirs as well.

8. Should Domains be Keyword Heavy?

Sure, there is nothing wrong with that. Search engines love it, and so do real live visitors. I would not sacrifice keyword usage for length though. If you have to choose between getting the keyword rich domain and getting the short domain – I would pick getting the short one.

9. Make Sure You Own Your Domain Name

You should always make sure that the domain name is registered in your name and not the name of the Web host or the domain name register. That way if you want to move to a different Web host or domain name register, the process isn’t such a pain in the rear. Want to find out who’s name your domain name is under?

Just do a simple Whois search and you should be given all the details there are. Make sure you always read the fine print.

10. Domain Name Acronyms

Now I am sure everybody knows what an acronym is. Just in case you don’t though, an acronym is a word that is formed by combining parts of other words. Web Hosting Show Fans acronym would be WHSF. It takes the first letter of each word in the phrase and makes a word out of it. Now do you want to use acronyms when you pick your domain name? I would say maybe. I would rather you get the whole phrase first, and then pick up the acronym later on down the road.

For example, www.ilovemashedpotatosandcheese.com might be a little too long of a domain name. In that case, it might be better to direct people towards www.ilmpac.com.

Bonus! Domain Name Resources

As a special bonus tip – I figured that I would share with you some of my favorite domain name resources. Here is the full list – feel free to leave a comment and suggest your own too!

Uwhois
SamSpade.org Tools
Network Tools
DNS Stuff
Ajax Whois
Domain Tools

Have anymore domain name shopping tips to share?