Coming up with a short and memorable domain can be tough. Most of the good .coms are taken and those that aren’t are usually expensive. Increasingly, more sites are going with domain hacks.
Thanks to international top-level domains like .am, .ly, and others, a lot of words can be spelled out in an efficient use of space. But it’s not only domain-name shorteners like bit.ly and sn.ip, tr.im and sl.im using it. There are also gems like tra.sh, the musings and advice of a grizzled biker and combat veteran experienced in life and love.

• Samur.ai: Just a message rewarding you for typing in too many stupid domain names. Strangely satisfying after the hundredth GoDaddy holding page.
• dontclick.it: Can you resist clicking? Do you miss clicking?
• Inter.net: An international web host.
• Crescen.do: Some kind of bill-paying doo-hickey.
• Cre.do: Design studio.
• fant.asia: Lists the definitions of fantasia.
• Vir.al: Aggregator of several URL shorteners. One of the few .al domain hacks not taken by these guys.
• Goth.am: Some kind of electronic breadboard for cars.
• Logj.am: Another simple message.
• Neopl.asia: Wikileaks mirror. “Neoplasia” means “tumor” or “unwanted cell growth.”
• Funny.biz: Dorky little collection of “weird news” with links to Fark, the Smoking Gun and the webcomic Pearls Before Swine.
• Meow.cat: Poorly-constructed poll about what cats say in each language. (.Cat is usually reserved for sites about the Catalan culture of eastern Spain; there’s no explanation how this got approved.)
• Chicken.coop: Montana Poultry Growers Cooperative.
• S.coop: A URL shortener.
• Meaning.name: Christian-themed schlock with your name and its meaning printed on.
• instagr.am: iPhone photo sharing and filters.
• fat.cat: and under-construction mass of nothing.
• bre.ad: looks a little like a usehipster.com clone.
• dub.ai: Take a guess.
• ch.ai: News about tea.
• accident.al: A directory of how-to articles about things people might need to know after an accident.
• thebea.st: The Daily Beast, a news and entertainment site.
• acr.es: Real estate development company.
• berri.es: Spanish language medical library.
• commun.es: French email portal.
• desir.es: Wholesale designer handbag site that claims over and over that it’s NOT A SCAM.
• felin.es: “Miaow.”
• gnom.es: Customized WordPress design.
• goodi.es: Something that is apparently launching in a couple of days.
• fo.am: A multidisciplinary research and arts group working on things like vertical hydroponic gardening and data visualization.
• d.re.am: Some kind of Chinese forum.
• columni.st: An avid writer, columnist, and editor, who hasn’t written anything about himself since 2005.
• fa.gs: The blog of someone who herps derp every now and then.
• filecabi.net: A video-sharing site where none of the videos seem to work.
• fr.ee: Offers.
• Braini.ac: The Braini Academic, “self-paced online technology training.”
• Insomni.ac: H.P. Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu.”
• Ponti.ac: Just some pics of a car dealership, dude.
• Lo.af: Someone’s personal site with appropriate splash page.
• got.it: Currently under maintenance.
• here.it.com.es and
• there.it-go.es.
• iamserio.us: A blog whose owner is thrown into an existential quandary when he grows into an American Apparel medium.
• actual.ly: Owned by Brands-and-Jingles, also owns: certain.ly, brief.ly, apparent.ly, and more lys.
• mir.aculo.us: the blog of Ruby On Rails core alumnus Thomas Fuchs.
• pa.st: Vassily Maximovich: “Everything is in the past.”
• mongoo.se: Health and fitness link spam.
• sear.ch: A search engine, duh.
• bit.ly: The url shortener.
• sl.im: Another url shortener.
• tr.im: Another url shortener.
• stop.spamming.us: It’s all in the name.
• syste.ms: Derek made a website in 1999 and never looked back.
• uncerta.in: I don’t know what it is exactly, but the site reassures me I don’t need to bother with it.
• w.tf: (Not the site you’re looking for.)
• jessi.ca: The blog of a woman named Jessica in Key West.
• kitty.cat: Basically, it’s a cat.
• wristwat.ch: Swiss Wristwatches.
• mu.gs: This is literally just pictures of mugs.
• son.gs: Another landing page for a band called “Bread is Toast.”
• toa.st: Bread is toast.
• jo.hn: For nearly 3 years, John Van Den Berg has had plans for a personal web page.
• mov.ie: A directory of movie sites that looks like it was made in 1996.
• bibl.io: I guess you can buy books here. This was WAS made in 1996.
• cur.io: A thrift store in Waltham, MA.
• chil.li: Someone’s record collection is for sale.
• fami.ly: Nothing shows that you generally agree with the idea of families like these “Support Our Families” ribbon magnets. Apparently there’s not enough in that racket to buy good web design.
• da.mn: Oh I could tell you but I shouldn’t.
• vita.mn: Arts and Entertainment magazine of Minnesota’s Twin Cities.
• chir.pn: Some kind of Boost Mobile ad with Master Shake from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
• cyclo.ps: Search multiple stock photo sites at once.
• mor.ph: Cloud computing solutions.
• dis.org: Some kind of outdated hacker group. Looks like it was last updated in 1999.
• cra.sh: A crowd-sourced zine of creative writing. Looks like it’s released every 6 months.
• ohgo.sh: Cocktail recipes.
• tra.sh: The blog of a biker named Trash. This is really something special.
• paintbru.sh: Teresa Castaneda’s paintings and paper flowers.
• harve.st: Farming consultants.
• lu.st: Girls’ dresses and tops.
• podca.st: a no-frills FAQ on podcasting from 2004.
• re.st: A broken gallery of photos from Cedar Creek Falls, and an apology for an unfulfilled promise of @re.st email addresses.
• ma.tt: Unlike John, Matt Mullenweg updates his blog regularly.
• call.us: Some lawyers in Texas.
• crimene.ws: some links to news about crime in general.
• sparro.ws: a word association game.
• myfla.ws: the abandoned blog of a web development student.
• elbo.ws: a music blog.
• deja.vu: Another arts and entertainment magazine.
• al.ly: YET ANOTHER url shortener.
• ragt.ag: a simple looking site analytics tool.
• thermost.at: Some German guy’s blog.
• scri.be: Ghe announcement for a memorial fund-raiser.
• sl.am: Drawings by a guy named Greg Baker.
• zigz.ag: Well, it says what it says but it doesn’t do what it says.
• b.ag: It’s just parked
• sw.ag: Redirects to S&W Transport. It probably isn’t an intentional spelling of swag after all. But hell, if you’ve made it this far into the list, you know I’ve given some freebies already.
• abnorm.al: Redirects to abnormous.com, which could still be described as abnormal even if that’s not the name on the site.
• besid.es: Redirects to Annecdata, the blog of Ryan Namba, a marketer in Hawaii.
• ste.am: Same as besid.es.
• canv.as: The next startup from 4chan founder Chris Poole. Still in private beta.