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Advantages of buying a domain?

  1. maggieannthoeni
    Member

    I assumed registering (purchasing) a domain, ('claiming' the name), might increase hits, and the price seems really 'doable'! But reading a few of the support Q/A's leads me to think - for my simple needs - buying a domain name might introduce headaches I'll not want (until I get potential glitches worked out.) My understanding is 'muddly'! Do I want to do this? Can you please describe advantages and possible disadvantages to purchasing a domain? Thanks!! :)

    The blog I need help with is thoughtsfromthewell.wordpress.com.

  2. raincoaster
    Member

    It will not increase hits.

    It will, for the first four months or so, decrease hits until the new URL has as many incoming links as the old URL.

    Overall, it makes you much more professional-looking, easier to find, makes it easier to move your site in the future should you care to, helps you keep your RSS subscribers if you Do move, is a powerful branding tool, and obscures the fact that you're not paying for your hosting.

  3. auxclass
    Member

    More "class" - easier to find or give your URL to people as it is usually shorter -

  4. lisjones1
    Member

    So according to raincoaster's comment.....the perfect time to buy a domain would be when you are a newbie and don't yet have a lot of incoming links, correct???
    .

  5. raincoaster
    Member

    Absolutely!

  6. shimworld
    Member

    There's a lot of talk about the merit of personalised domain name. I used to have one and over the years, I became more and more detached to it to a point I decided to let it expire with no intention to renew. Whether or not you get one depends on how much you value your hard work and the blog's content. Like Steve Job's biography, I invest a lot of my time and effort to document my photography journey "for the kids", to leave a legacy of my work and accomplishments for them to discover when they grow up, long after I'm gone.

    The last thing I want is for a domain name and possible hosting fees to expire after I'm no longer around and its content formatted over. That would be devastating. Sorry if I went slightly off track but I think these are good, strong considerations if you plan to blog with a long term view.

  7. lisjones1
    Member

    Good point, shimworld. Guess one would need to leave that domain subscription info with his/her important papers, like their wills, and also tell a close family member or friend about the info and where it is kept so it does not get overlooked upon death.

  8. raincoaster
    Member

    The content all remains here, where it was. You don't have to keep renewing the domain for the content to stay; it always has the old whatever.wordpress.com address as well as the whatever.com address. If the latter goes away, the former still works.

  9. maggieannthoeni
    Member

    I so appreciate your varied responses! You've given me the range of information I need to decide whether or not buying a domain name is right for me. Your thoughts, Simworld, blend with those of others to remind me to think about my reasons for blogging, my time-available, etc. I'll hold off for now. I do value my blog and what I post there (as do we all, I imagine!). But I'm irregular at posting, and don't feel ready to 'commit' to what would feel a 'competitive' aspect of blogging, (branding, obscuring that I don't pay to blog, ...). I'd turn those benefits into a source of stress, whether or not it's rational, and I already stress about 'imagined perfection' vs 'time to reach it'! I can always pursue a domain name later, and hope if I do I don't have too many incoming links to chase down! Thanks to all - so much!!

  10. shimworld
    Member

    I started Shimworld in November 2006 and it has taken me all this time to publish 596 posts to reach 1.058 million page views. Phew! :)

  11. maggieannthoeni
    Member

    Shimworld - I'm impressed! Sounds like your contributions are of great interest to many! :)

    Thanks again to each of you for your very helpful comments. I'm glad I asked, as perhaps someone else will have the same question.

    I've been thinking about Shimworld's blog purpose. It's caused me to imagine : "What if we could create a pdf of our blog site, or portions of it?" Now that's something I might cough up a few dollars to be able to do! (I have family members not on internet, and would love to share with them what I've shared with anyone else who might come along!) I'm off now to find a place to post my idea ... maybe, maybe ... :)

  12. shimworld
    Member

    @maggieannthoeni

    Thank you. With regards to your PDF idea, it's no longer a "what if" but rather "when". I have a 'print to PDF' share configured on mine for individual blog posts. I noticed from my Dashboard | Share Stats that PDF is a popular tool my readers use. To add PDF Sharing to your blog's Share tools, I use "Print Friendly" service and instructions to configure it are easy to follow.

    Your day just got better (it's 9.15am here in Brunei GMT+8). You can also publish your blog into a book using a WordPress.com endorsed service by BookFabrik. It's pretty awesome .. it gave me a link to download a copy of the proof from my 2011 blog posts — 652 pages (and this is just 2011 and it's not even the whole year!)

  13. shimworld
    Member

    @maggieannthoeni

    Inspired by this discussion thread, I wrote a blog post about BookFabrik's service with an example of my 2011 Jan to Sept posts turned into a book (proof). File size: 62MB.

  14. timethief
    Member

    For those bloggers who are exploring free and/or low cost methods of printing their blog posts, or creating ebooks, or publishing a book these may be of value: Bloggers: Publish your book, ebook, or your blog

  15. timethief
    Member

    @lisjones1
    You said:

    Guess one would need to leave that domain subscription info with his/her important papers, like their wills, and also tell a close family member or friend about the info and where it is kept so it does not get overlooked upon death.

    I think this article may be helpful in that regard:

    Have you considered what will happen to your digital assets after you die? Have you made plans for disposition of blogs, web sites, photos, e-mail, financial data, social networking sites profiles, fan pages, etc.? Many sites make it very difficult for anyone other than the account holder to access them and that can create problems for your executor and beneficiaries unless you plan in advance. Your digital assets after death

  16. expressiveheart
    Member

    Thank you, Timethief! Your articles are so amazingly presented & exactly what so many of us are looking for!

  17. timethief
    Member

    @expressiveheart
    It's always good to hear positive feedback on my blog posts. I appreciate it very much. Thanks for posting and you're welcome. :)

  18. pekepenguin
    Member

    @maggieannthoeni
    For me, I purchased a domain within days of setting up my blog. Apart from looking more professional, it really cuts down the length of the URL.
    Having "wordpress" in your URL can make it hard for people to remember it. (especially if they are unfamiliar with wordpress).
    Most of my readers are Japanese so I want to keep the URL as simple as possible.

  19. raincoaster
    Member

    Getting a unique domain name doesn't commit you to competitiveness. It doesn't force you to think about branding. It's just that if you already think about these things, it'll work FOR rather than AGAINST you. If stats matter to you, then you already do think about these things.

  20. shimworld
    Member

    @timethief

    Great informative articles on your blog on Asset management and publishing eBook. Shared them to my followers on Twitter and linked one from mine for anyone who may be looking for more info. Thanks.

  21. timethief
    Member

    @shimworld
    Thank you so much for doing that. :)

  22. galody
    Member

    Can I ask, in regard to buying a domain name…

    What will happen to my followers (either WordPress or email)? Will the email followers still be emailed any posts I make? I'm not going to lose followers when I buy a domain name, am I?

    If people are not followers but have bookmarked the wordpress URL, what will happen when they click on it, will they still get sent to my new URL or not?

    Thanks

  23. raincoaster
    Member

    You're not going to lose followers, because the old URL still works; it even works for all the new posts you write. They have both whatever.com and whatever.wordpress.com URLs.

    If you set the new one as primary, that's the one everyone will see when they're looking at your site, regardless of which one they have bookmarked.

  24. galody
    Member

    @raincoaster

    Thanks.

  25. raincoaster
    Member

    You're welcome!

  26. mcmoto
    Member

    pekepenguin, do you find it a problem to access the Japanese with a western server? Or are you using the .com and your URL? Is your site in English and Japanese? And why is your audience Japanese? This would be very helpful to me. We are setting up a blog and twitter account and can decide if we need to have two blogs - one Japanese and one English (personally I like seeing both languages and would like to see a comments in one place in both languages. But I have read so much about bots looking at blog and not preforming well when their are two languages. Would love to hear a first hand experience instead of all these people building business IT sites.

    THANKS

  27. tessf
    Member

    Your posts explain why my reader stats took such a dive after I bought the domain. I was really enjoying those higher numbers and then poof. ..they just plummeted. I suspected that had done something.

    Four months, huh?

    Long time to wait for things to pick up again. :)
    Just discovered Reddit though and that's helping.

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