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How I Turn Thousands of Domain Ideas Into 20 Daily Picks

11/20/2025

A high-level look at how AI, filtering, and human review help surface strong brandable domains worth sharing each week.

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3EF Studio was looking for a use case to refine and demonstrate our capabilities. As we were building the studio we recognized that domain hunting is messy. Whether your looking for a domain for a new startup, or one of the many people investing in domains with the hope of flipping them for profit.

If you’ve ever looked through an expired-domains list or asked an LLM to generate “brandable startup names”—you already know what happens:

  • 95% are unusable
  • 4% are borderline
  • 1% might be worth a second look

But buried inside that noise are genuinely strong names. Names with clean blends, clear pronunciation, and real potential.

Manually reviewing thousands of candidates isn’t viable.
So I built the Domain Discovery Engine (DDE) workflow that combines AI-assisted generation, automated filtering, and human evaluation to surface around 20 solid names per day.

I’ll be sharing a weekly Top-5 DDE Picks from that pool.
This post explains the workflow behind the scenes at a safe, high-level—before the series begins.

AI as the Input Engine (But Not the Decision Maker)

AI is excellent at expanding the search space.

I use it to:

  • Generate structured candidate lists
  • Explore naming patterns (verb+noun, abstract blends, short compounds)
  • Surface combinations humans often skip
  • Identify early “themes” in a batch

AI creates breadth, not judgment.
It does not determine what is strong, weak, or brandable.

AI provides the haystack.
It does not find the needle.

Noise Reduction: The First Big Filter

Once the AI-generated list is ready, I run a series of mechanical filters.

This step safely removes:

  • Unavailable domains
  • Misspellings and unstable blends
  • Repetitive stems
  • Hyphenated or numeric noise
  • Overly long or awkward constructions

The goal isn’t perfect scoring—it’s to remove 90% of the junk quickly.

A typical run might begin with 2,000–3,000 candidates.
After filtering, that drops to a few hundred worth evaluating.

AI-Assisted Evaluation (High-Level)

After filtering, AI helps again—but only in a supporting role.

Pattern Strength

AI checks naming patterns and helps identify structures that align with modern brandable conventions.

Semantic Cohesion

Some names feel natural; others feel forced.
AI helps cluster similar ideas and flag semantic outliers.

Outlier Detection

It can highlight names that appear unusually strong (or weak) compared to others in the batch.

This is directional input, not a ranking system.

Human Review: The True Quality Filter

This is the most important part of the process.

Every name that passes the filters goes through human evaluation:

  • Brandability: Does it feel like a company?
  • Pronunciation: Clean? Clear?
  • Unintended meanings: Any hidden issues?
  • Category fit: Could a real startup use this?
  • Collision check: Are there obvious conflicts?
  • Vibes: The intangible sense of “this works.”

AI can assist with scale, but not nuance.
Human review is where weak names die, and great names survive.

This step usually narrows the list to about 20 names per day that are worth sharing or tracking.

Pricing: AI Helps, But Humans Decide

When I evaluate a name for potential purchase or listing, I run a light valuation loop.

AI contributes:

  • Rough comparable examples
  • Category context
  • SEO Keyword analysis
  • Preliminary valuation ranges
  • First-pass listing copy

Human judgment determines:

  • Actual pricing
  • TLD premium
  • Market relevance
  • Whether the name is worth acquiring at all

AI offers a starting point.
The real pricing decisions come from experience and market sense.

What This Means for the Weekly Top-5 DDE Picks

Going forward, I’ll publish a weekly Top-5 DDE Picks list here and on social.

Each list will include:

  • 5 curated names
  • A short explanation for each pick
  • Recomendation (Mainly for Domain inverstors - Strong Buy, Buy, Skip, Scoring Miss)
  • Occasional pricing or pattern insights
  • Zero fluff, zero AI-spam lists

If there’s interest, I’ll eventually expand this into:

  • A weekly email with a longer list
  • Automated comps lookup
  • Category-based valuations
  • A small dashboard of recently analyzed names

But starting small is the right move.

Want the Weekly Drops?

I’ll share them here on the blog, on Reddit, and on X.
If you want them delivered by email later, let me know—it will help me prioritize the setup.

First Top-5 list coming soon.