The AI Domain
Hallucination Index
We asked leading AI models for "available" .com domains — then checked each one against the live registry. Most were already taken.
The leaderboard
Each model was asked for hundreds of supposedly-available .com domains. We verified every suggestion live. Higher = more of its picks are actually free to register.
| Model | Actually available | |
|---|---|---|
| 👑 Domain Search King our tool | 98.7% | |
| Zephyr 7B | 41.7% | |
| Mistral Nemo | 41.3% | |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro | 39.6% | |
| Gemini 3 Flash | 31.8% | |
| Llama 3.1 8B | 25.3% | |
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | 23.4% | |
| Gemini 2.5 Pro | 21.8% | |
| Hermes 3 (Llama 3.1 8B) | 13.6% | |
| Claude Opus 4.8 | 13.2% | |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 5.5% |
Across 3,963 live-verified suggestions, even the strongest general model lands under ~42% available — and the weakest under 6%. Domain Search King checks every name against the live registry before it ever appears, so what you see is what you can register.
July 2026: we asked for 96 names. 96 were already taken.
We ran the test again with a current frontier model (Claude Opus 4.8) — the exact thing a founder types: "give me available .com domain names for a <business>." 96 brandable names across 12 industries, every one checked live against the .com registry. Zero were available.
And it isn't that they're barely taken — it's how long they've been gone. The model confidently offered names registered before it existed, some from the early web:
| Name the AI called "available" | Registered since |
|---|---|
| dailygrind.com | 1995 |
| leakbusters.com | 1996 |
| flowmasters.com | 1997 |
| pipeguard.com | 1998 |
| draindoctors.com | 2000 |
| brewhaven.com | 2002 |
| morningritual.com | 2004 |
Median registration year of the suggestions: ~2004. The names that "sound available" are exactly the ones that sold decades ago — the better a name sounds, the more certain it's already owned. The model never knew; it was never connected to the registry.
You're not imagining it
Even a competitor admits it
Instant Domain Search, a rival naming tool, concedes the flaw outright: "one limitation when using ChatGPT as an AI name generator is that it does not assess domains for availability." Instant Domain Search · 2024
It's the same bug as fake links
Ahrefs analyzed 16 million URLs and found AI assistants send people to dead 404 pages 2.87× more often than Google — AI asserts real-world facts (a page exists, a domain is free) it never actually checked. Ahrefs · 2025
Nobody else has measured it
No registrar or naming tool — GoDaddy, Namecheap, Namelix, Looka — publishes how often AI-suggested domains are actually free. As far as we can find, this is the only live benchmark of it.
It can cost more than time
An AI-suggested name can also collide with a live trademark the model never checked — domain availability and trademark clearance are two separate searches. Confirm both before you commit.
Why this happens
AI guesses, it doesn't check
A language model predicts a plausible-sounding name. It has no idea whether anyone already owns it — it was never connected to the registry.
The good names went years ago
Short, brandable .coms are mostly gone. The names that "sound available" are exactly the ones already registered.
We verify before we show
Domain Search King checks every candidate against the authoritative .com registry in real time. Taken names never reach your screen.
Verify it yourself
Every result links to a live availability check. Don't trust us — confirm any name in one click.
Stop registering disappointment
Get domain names that are actually available — and wire the same guarantee into any AI agent.
Find available domains → Use the MCPAlready have a name that came back taken? the 7 moves that fix it can help.
Domain Search King's MCP gives Claude, Cursor, and any AI agent verified-available domains — the 98.7% above, on tap.
Methodology
The prompt
Each model was asked for available .com domain names across dozens of business niches and naming styles (freeform, one-word, prefix/suffix), identical input for all.
"Available" = live registry
Every single suggestion was checked against the authoritative .com registry in real time. "Available" means the registry returned no active registration at check time — not an estimate.
Sample
3,963 suggestions verified across the models shown. Per-model rates are shown in the leaderboard below.
Living benchmark
Re-run as new models ship — so the table reflects current model versions, not a one-off snapshot. Most recent spot-check: July 2026 (96 brandable suggestions, 0 available). Reproduce it yourself: ask any model for "available" .com names and check each at a registrar.
Verify any result yourself: pick any model's suggestion and check it at a registrar — that's the whole point.