Website domain names - what site to check if taken?

[Yankydoodledandy]

Is there a general domain/website site I can check to see if a name has been taken please?

Whatever site you would use to buy a domain.If you do a search on GoDaddy or whatever, it'll show you what's taken.

Watch out for brand names that might not have their own domain though. So let's say Pandora has a range called Stars. They have the domain pandora.com but naming your business Pandora Stars just because you realised that pandorastars.com is available can get tricky down the line for SEO and trademarks etc.

A friend had a ridiculously long name for her company, and had the domain, because it was practially a sentence, and some supplements company happened to have a product with almost the exact same name, and she had to change it all.

Great advice.