Domain Names - choose the right one for your blog!

An overview of domain and sub-doman names and which one is right for you!

After you choose a blogging platform, it time to decide your web address, URL or domain name of your blog. All three mean the same thing, the http triple w etc etc (referred to as domain name from now on).

Your domain name is what the world knows your blog/website as. How else would visitors remember or get to your blog? All sorts of important information is attached to your domain name. For instance, your PageRank, links to your blog, bookmarks and so on (all these hopefully I will eventually cover in this blog). If you are unsure of what they are right now, it is suffice to say it takes a lot of hard work to improve your Page Rank, build up links and bookmarks etc. You definitely don't want to spend hours upon hours promoting your blog only to switch to a new domain names after some success and start all over again. I see many blogger do this, which is one of the reason I emphasis bloggers to choose a domain name and stick with it.

Usually a blog would either have a domain name or sub-domain name.


Domain Name

As mentioned before a domain name is http://www...com. For example, the domain name of my blog forum would be http://www.blogcrowds.com/. You can register an unclaimed domain name with ICANN through many domain registrars. Some domain names with certain ending are free, but they are not very popular. For more widely used domain extensions, .com .org .net, the price to register is relatively inexpensive ranging from $2-10 USD for an unclaimed domain name. Sometimes you may find deals or host package that will include a free domain name.


Sub-Domain Name

Like the name suggest, a sub-domain is a web address that is a level lower than a domain name. As an example, the web address of this blog http://blogger.blogcrowds.com/. http://blogger.blogcrowds.com/ is a subdomain of http://www.blogcrowds.com/. Sub-domains are identify by a period(.) separating the web address with no www after http://. Sub-domains are often given by free webhosts, so it maybe something similar to http://something.awardspace.com/.


Domains vs Sub-Domain

For obvious reasons, you should try to use a domain name rather than a sub-domain. A domain name give you much more control - technically, the subdomain belongs to the domain owner. For this reason, you cannot apply for certain web services with a subdomain. For example, if you wish to run certain ads networks, you should not have a subdomain. And of course, a concise and memorable domain name is much better than a long sub-domain name.

Many bloggers, especially alternatively hosted BlogSpot or MovableType bloggers will use sub-domains. Of these bloggers, some write about their personal life and their cats for friends and family while others are more ambitious and try to turn blogging into a full time job. Most of the bloggers who seek blogging as a career path usually start out with a subdomain plans to move on to a domain after they have a steady number of visitors and traffic. The basis for this route is mainly financial - most bloggers want to earn enough money before seriously invest in blogging. Once they change their web address though, they will have to start all over promoting their blog and build traffic. However much these bloggers made before, be it $10 or $100 a day, is at risk. Redirecting traffic to the 'new' blog could be easy or hard depending on the content and reader loyalty. Nevertheless, easy or hard, when you have a steady readership, what you should do is write more quality content and not worrying about promoting the content yourself.

That, is the reason why, if you ever want to have your own domain, you should buy it in the very beginning. In any case, a domain is not that expensive. I hope everyone can get a domain name if they want to. If you can't purchase one, try to obtain one through webhosting packages, domain name give aways etc.


Choosing the right domain/subdomain

I won't dwell much on this topic, bloggers always do a good job on choosing domain names. Just choose something between 4-10 letters that is related to your blog and make it unique and memorable. There will be instances when the domain name you want is already taken by someone. Instead of paying an unreasonable whopping amount someone demand for it, just be creative. For example, del.cio.us or flickr.

One last thing when picking domain is the domain extension, the most popular being .com, .org, .net. There are many other domain extension such as .tv, .info, .tk etc. Selecting a domain extension is entirely a personal preference. Most people view the extensions .com, .org, .net equally and a category above all other extensions. Personally, there is no other domain extension other than .com with exception of 'location' extensions such as .co.uk (United Kingdom), .us (United States) or .ca (Canada).

To sum it all up, pick a good domain name you like that will create a desirable image for your blog/website and stick with it!