Automattic Acqui-Hires Lean Domain Search to Improve Its Domain Registration Service – TechCrunch

by Matt Mazur Streamlined domain search launched the Hacker News in January 2012. Today, Mazur announcement that the tool, which makes it easy to find available domain names based on a keyword, was acquired by the parent company of WordPress.com Automatique. At Automattic, Mazur will help the WordPress.com team make it “even easier for WordPress.com users to find and register great domain names for their websites and blogs.”

Lean Domain Search will continue to work and, as Mazur writes, “it’s also now completely free to use.” Previously, Lean Domain Search also offered paid accounts ($79 for two months or $199 for annual access). The service already offers the possibility of registering a domain name directly via WordPress.com.

WordPress.com has always offered a domain registration service as part of its premium features. For $13 per year, users can register a .com, .net., .org, or .me address. Until now, however, the service offered no additional tools for finding good domain names.

Given WordPress.com’s push towards more niches as it seeks to get more business users to see it as a tool for hosting full-fledged websites – and not ‘just’ blogs – we’ll likely see it add more premium features like Mazur’s tools over time. time. One of the latest Mazur features added in his service was a Customizable domain names section that has helped startups find business names with available domains, which seems to be a perfect fit for WordPress.com’s target audience.

Update: Lean Domain Search actually firm the customizable domain names section a few weeks ago (though there’s no reason to believe that WordPress.com couldn’t resurrect this feature).