What I really don’t like though is when domains contain hyphens, typos or numbers. Not professional at all!

LL

When I do a Google search, I often use “-blogspot” to filter our some of the search results.

Granted I loose some valuable stuff, but often times, I find the results to be a little more relevant.

My opinion.

“The sites function differently, the blogger domains are of much higher quality and it allows anyone who wants to, to create a site.”

The last part is the key there. That’s just it — anyone can create a Blogspot blog, and people often do — and then they don’t take it seriously and abandon it. The fact of the matter is that those who have their own domain name (even if they map it to a Blogger blog) have shown demonstrable interest in their brand and what they are saying. $6-$10, even if you don’t make money from your blog, is not that much in the grand scheme of things (lay off 2 Starbucks for the year). And if you don’t want a credit card, I’m sure you can find a friend to buy it for you.

I’m not saying you lack credibility for having a Blogspot account. I’m saying you have to work that much harder to prove what you’re writing is worth my time reading it if even you don’t think its worth a couple of dollars.

Or is that what’s really the issue? Perhaps the fact that free internet is such a great equalizer, allowing anyone to have a voice and their fifteen minutes is the problem?

“just” six dollars really is relative, isn’t it? One needs a credit card to be able to pay for hosting in most instances. Many of us either don’t want a credit card, or can’t use their credit card because of debt and ridiculous interest rates. Some of us have poor credit ratings and can’t even get a card. As to secured credit cards, they aren’t legal in all jurisdictions, either. Does that mean people with poor credit ratings don’t have anything worthwhile to say? Or that people who choose to live without endenturing themselves to Visa, MasterCard or Amex are somehow less worthy of being listened to?

You say I somehow lack credibility for having a blogger account. That sort of ignorant snobbery gives you a lot less credibility in my mind.

To me it has always been a non-starter, getting a descriptive domain name is crucial. Trying to find one that is unique and doesn’t sound corny is another matter.

It’s not coincidence that all these Web 2.0 start-ups have the most amazing ‘made-up’ names going, they have to in order to be different. I don’t need to point out how hard it is nowadays getting a domain to match your business.

Hence when I do a rebrand job, I always use domain names as a reference. If the .com or .uk is already taken, I’ll move onto the next name.

Ideally I need both .com and .co.uk to be available. As yet I have not had to get the leftovers. What is the point of taking a .co.uk when the .com is taken or vice versa. Asking for trouble.

So my business names are based on domain availability and this just means you need to be more creative with your thinking. It’s good forward thinking sense to snap up however many of the ‘dot whatsits’ you can possible afford to keep the value of the brand.

So at the end of this long day, I am also a domain Elitist and proud of it.

There are some decent Blog solutions with decent URL’s: SquareSpace to name but one. I have an account here as well as my hosted WordPress account and am happy in this instance to have to have ‘www.blah.squarespace.com’ sounds OK to me.

Graham
ImJustCreative
“On: Creativity within Life”

As a result, I guess I’ve become an elitist too. And all this time, I just thought I was just arrogant. Whew!

Last year I bought a total of 51 domains, and did very little if anything with them. However, 6 of them (2 sets of .com,.net,.org) I have plans for this year.

Of course, I like that I have the domain names for my sites — especially when I tell people my URLs or give them a card.

Several of the blogs that I read on a semi-regular basis are hosted on Blogger or WordPress.com. I doubt that I would like their content any better if they had their own domain.