The number of domain extensions that we offer at Hover has exploded in the last year or so. It wasn’t long ago that we had a few dozen and today, that number is in the hundreds.

That huge increase meant that the number of results provided on a domain name search was getting way out of hand.

The problem: there are often many good results in each search results set, but it’s nearly impossible for us to know which of them is most highly relevant to the person doing the search.

Categories and filters

We started our experimentation with putting results in categories so searchers could scan down the list and zero in on the few domain extensions that were most relevant for them. But over time, even the list of categories was getting out of hand! What to do?

Recently, we added some filtering to the right side of our search results. This allows searchers to really easily scan the list of categories in the sidebar (without scrolling) and then select the one(s) that are relevant.

Clicking a category removes all the other irrelevant results from the list, and elevates the relevant category’s results to the top where they are easy to scan for a perfect match.

One step on a road of many steps

Categories and filters are just the next step in our ongoing efforts to provide an effective and useful domain search. We’ll continue to iterate on the way we present results, and add some different features to help bring out the most relevant domains for you, no matter what your specific niche is.

Sometimes it’ll be obvious that we’ve made a change or added something to our search (like with the filters). Other times you won’t see anything different, but you might notice some improved relevance in the results set.

As more and more domain extensions are added over the next couple of years, providing contextual and relevant search results that help you find the perfect domain for your idea is high on the list of things were focused on at Hover.

Want to try it out? Try searching for a domain name to see how it all works: