Four Reasons to Register Your ‘Domain’ Name

According to a recent TWiT episode there were 15 million Web sites created in 2011. That works out to an incredible 40,000 per day (to the nearest thousand)!

This includes ‘sites’ created using Web site builders and blog-style sites created using sites such as TypePad, Tumblr, WordPress, SquareSpace, Blogspot/Blogger, LiveJournal, Weebly, Webnode, Quackit, Tripod Lycos, and many more that I don’t know of.

When people create a site or blog they need to give it a name that is used in the URL (address) of the site. For example if you were creating a Tumblr site and you called it “abouttwinpeaks” then the URL to that site is going be: www.abouttwinpeaks.tumblr.com and if it was a WordPress site then the URL would be www.abouttwinpeaks.wordpress.com.

For any Twin Peaks fans reading this I have checked and neither of these addresses exist—sorry.

At about this point, or even before this point, a decision needed to made as to whether the Web site or blog should have its own domain name. If the domain name is registered then it can now be used to point to the Web site or blog. So if abouttwinpeaks were a registered domain name then once the Web site or blog is set up the domain name can be linked to it.

So. Why would or should you bother to register your domain name? It’s not free. It will cost you about $15 to $20 per year depending who you use to register it (see notes at the end about registering a domain name).

Following are five reasons why you might want to consider registering your domain name.

(1) It stops someone from ‘stealing’ your site

Using the example above, if I created a site that was at www.abouttwinpeaks.tumblr.com and did not register abouttwinpeaks then anyone anywhere in the world is able to register that name. They would then be able to use the URL www.abouttwinpeaks.com to point to anything they liked, or not point anywhere so it just ‘dead ends’.

So if people heard about my great site “About Twin Peaks” and they entered the URL www.abouttwinpeaks.com then it would go to the thief’s site and not to my site.

Even if people used Google to search for “abouttwinpeaks” there is a chance that his link will show up before mine because his link is a ‘proper’ dotcom URL rather than a blog-site sub-domain extended address. So people are likely to go to his site rather than mine.

(2) It stops someone from making you pay a lot more for your domain name

There are people who make a living from locking up domain names and then when someone wants them they sell them for much more than it would normally cost to register a domain name. These people spend hours per day trawling builder sites looking for site names people have used but did not register, and if they think there is a chance that the owner of the site is likely to want to register it at some point in the future then they register it first.

If I had created a site called www.abouttwinpeaks.wordpress.com and it had been going for six months and it turned out to be popular then I might decide to register the domain name—so I can make the URL to my site just www.abouttwinpeaks.com. But when I check the availability of the name in the global register of domain names I find it has been taken. When I put the name into my browser and open it the person who owns it does not have a site there but instead they do say that the name is for sale—however they want $1,000 for it.

(3) You can move your site without changing the name

If you have your domain name registered than you can move your site anywhere at any time but the name stays the same.

For example let’s say that I set up abouttwinpeaks at Tumblr which would make my site name at Tumblr www.abouttwinpeaks.tumblr.com. But as I have a registered domain name people get to it using my domain name with the URL www.abouttwinpeaks.com. They don’t put the “Tumblr” part in the address when they link there.

So then after a year or so I decide I want to move my blog to a more professional and reliable Web hosting company that provides much faster response for people accessing my site, can handle the bigger load of accesses now that my unique link count per day has skyrocketed to 5,000, and that guarantees my site is being backed up three times a day so I can never lose any content. So I might move it to SquareSpace.

Now my full site name becomes www.abouttwinpeaks.squarespace.com.

But I simply go into my domain registration and re-point my registered domain name to the new location. People coming to my site still use the registered domain name URL of www.abouttwinpeaks.com. If they have my site saved in their favourites then the link they have saved is still going to work.

If I did not have a registered domain name I would need to tell everyone, somehow, that the URL of my site has changed. I would most likely need to leave a re-direction page at my old address.

(4) You can have an e-mail address using your domain name

When you register a domain name you get the option of including e-mail accounts with it. If you do this then you can have e-mail accounts that use your domain name. So with my abouttwinpeaks domain name I could then have an e-mail address barry@abouttwinpeaks.com.

This e-mail address can then re-direct to some other e-mail address where you actually check and reply to e-mails.

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These are more or less the ‘big’ reasons. If you search the web you will find all kinds of other reasons such as:

• Having a site hosting name (such as Tumbr, WordPress, or SquareSpace) as part of your URL is ‘unprofessional’.
• Shorter URLs are better and a registered domain URL is always shorter.
• Having a domain name protects your identity.
• With the number of domain names being registered the ‘good’ domain names are drying up.
• If you decide to host your site or blog yourself on your own servers then the URL still remains the same.
• Your site naming is your ‘branding’ and you need to own it. You can only own it by registering it.
• A ‘proper’ registered domain name gives your site more credibility.
• Search engines give registered domains higher rankings than sub-domains.
• If you decide to monetise your site or blog in some way it will need to be registered and then it might be too late to get the name you want.

So some people may be wondering at this point how you register your domain name. Basically you can use any of the thousands of domain registration services available on the Web. I use Nettica who are here. There is also the TuCows company Hover (here), who are recommended by TWiT. Then there is the well advertised GoDaddy (here). But there are many many more and search something like “register a domain” will probably find them.

The first part of registering a domain name is to check if the name you want is available. Then, if it is, to register it you will need to provide a working e-mail address that you really do use because this is where they will send your annual reminders to re-register (otherwise someone might jump in and steal it if it expires). You will also need a credit card.