The Free LeanDomainSearch Alternative

What LeanDomainSearch Did (and why people loved it)

For over a decade, LeanDomainSearch (LDS) was a go-to free tool for finding an available domain. The idea was simple and fast: type a keyword, and it showed you a grid of available .com names built by pairing your keyword with other words — with the availability of each shown at a glance (green = available, pink = taken).

Its signature feature was keyword-position search. A filter let you narrow results to names that start with your keyword or end with it, and you could sort by popularity, length, or alphabetically, then star favorites and copy the list. That "keyword at the front / keyword at the end" control is exactly what made it feel purpose-built for naming — and it's the thing regular users remember most.

What Happened To It

LeanDomainSearch was acquired by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com — an acquisition announced on its own site in 2013. Over time the interactive tool was retired. As of mid-2026, leandomainsearch.com still loads, but it's a static placeholder page — a header, links to an FAQ and legal pages, and no search box at all. The keyword generator that people relied on is simply gone.

To be precise, since this compares a third-party product: this isn't a pricing complaint — there's no paywall. The tool was sunset, not gated. The functional search that made LDS useful no longer exists on the site. (Product facts are as publicly observable in mid-2026 and can change.)

Domain Search King Brings Keyword Search Back — and Adds .net

Domain Search King revives the part of LeanDomainSearch people actually used, and modernizes it:

• Keyword-position search, expanded. Find available domains that start with, contain, or end with your keyword — LDS offered starts-with and ends-with; DSK adds contains.
• .com and .net — and more extensions on request. LDS was .com only; a good name is often wide open on .net even when the .com is gone.
• Live RDAP verification. Every name is checked against the authoritative registry the moment you search — no stale or cached list, so you never click through to find a "free" name is actually taken.
• Free, no account. Search as much as you want without signing in.
• Bonus: AI naming. Describe your business in a sentence and get brandable, context-aware candidates — every one RDAP-verified available — on top of the keyword search.

Side-by-Side

Coming From LeanDomainSearch: What's the Same, What's Better

The same: the core motion you know — type a keyword, scan available names, filter by whether the keyword is at the start or the end. Better: you also get a "contains" filter, .net alongside .com, and a live registry check on every result, so the click-through-and-find-out-it's-taken problem is gone. If you want more range, add a one-line description of your business and let the AI namer suggest brandable options too.

Frequently Asked Questions