

Ask HN: Why don't people register personal domains? (eg YourName.com) - mikejarema

I own jarema.com (my last name), mikejarema.com (my full name), and a few other variations and TLDs. I take pride in my slick email address (m<i></i>*@jarema.com) and my blog ranking highly in Google for name queries. Based on HN submissions coming from personal domains, I expect that there are others here like me in this respect.<p>When I encourage others to grab a personal domain, especially when their last name .com or even first name .com is unregistered, I find myself all but pleading the case, most times unsuccessfully.<p>I mean for ~$10 annually, and a bit of upfront effort, you can:<p>- move your email from gmail, ymail, hotmail, whatevermail over to your own domain<p>- redirect visitors to your favorite social media profile (FB, twitter, github, dribbble) or in minutes have an about.me page going aggregating it all<p>- alternatively spend some effort building out a blog or portfolio site<p>- avoid worrying about being "cyber-squatted" or pranked by a buddy with some initiative<p>- just sit on the domain (defensive registration)<p>The truth of the matter is that a good number of personal domains are available in the .com namespace, and many last name .coms are also up for the taking.<p>However, if &#38; when your name is taken, you're basically SOL.<p>So... I'm curious, why DON'T people register their personal domains?
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hoppy44
Mike, I totally agree with you and it drives me crazy and has become a bit of
a personal mission. My field is career development and so I work a lot with
people during their job search, and one of the first things I ask is "what
happens when someone googles you?" Then I'll explain the value of having your
own domain. I understood when older workers would say they didn't understand
how to set it up, or were confused, etc so I often walk them through it.

Then I went back and spoke at my college (I'm 42). I figured, well, these 21
year old internet whiz kids will certainly have this figured out. Nope. The
number of people I met that owned their domain was about the same...
consistently about 1-2 out of every 10 people I ask.

So in tech geek/lean startup mode, I got frustrated with explaining it to
people over and over, so I purchased a domain, bought a theme for $8, used my
friend Jayme as a guinea pig, and in 1 weekend recorded a how-to video and
built a site so I didn't have to explain it over and over. It's called
GetYourNameToday.com.

Look, I realize there's no way for me to not make this comment look spammy,
and yes, in full disclosure there is a GoDaddy affiliate link on there (which
I note in both the video and on each page), but I figured if it doesn't cost
the person anything more, I am genuinely helping them out, and I can get a
little something for my effort, why not.

I'm very transparent with who I am on the site, link to my career
development/new media blog to show that it is in sync with what I do for a
living, and even tackle questions such as WHY to register your name and what
to do if you have a basic name that isn't available. I'm with you... seems
like there are very few reasons why someone wouldn't see the benefits of
securing their name for the "investment" of $10.

Would love to hear your feedback on the site and if you would have positioned
it any differently or what I could do to improve it. Thanks! Jim

~~~
mikejarema
Jim, thanks for the link and insights. I used to interview boatloads of
interns for a couple companies here in Toronto, and the personal domain always
left me with an improved first impression of an applicant.

But yes, the ratio was quite low, especially considering I was interviewing CS
students.

I'll take a look at the link and send you some notes later.

~~~
hoppy44
Thanks Mike. Wow, just went to your site and found Namevine -- what an awesome
site. That's the logical next step for a lot of job-seekers... once they have
their URL, they want a Twitter account and maybe a YouTube video. And
obviously we're both in sync with the helping people/affiliate link dynamic.
I'll be recommending this to people I work with. Thanks again.

~~~
mikejarema
Thanks Jim, Namevine is a fun side project of mine, and like you I'm hoping to
monetize via affiliate links.

Really the big win (for individuals) would be a one click unified domain
registration, social media signup, @yourname.com email hosting and About.me
setup.

The video you've made shows the current path of least resistance to setup your
online identity (at YourName.com), but I can't help but feel it requires more
effort than it needs to. Eg. navigating GoDaddy's aggressive upselling, DNS
management, etc.

Have you seen IWantMyName.com? They're trying to simplify some of this.

On the other hand, Flavors.me is like About.me but also offer domain
registration as a part of the signup.

Finally, when it comes to _using_ a personal domain, my instinct (and most
others I'm sure) is to find free solutions for every aspect of the domain
where possible.

On my personal domains I use:

\- Google Apps for email and private wikis (free, I'm well within the free
usage limitations)

\- Tumblr for my blog (free, including pointing my domain to their service, I
love that about Tumblr)

\- Montastic for monitoring (free, my needs are quite simple and they'll
happily monitor a couple URLs at somewhat infrequent intervals)

I think the point I'm trying to make here is that I'm onboard with you in
terms of personal domain advocacy. However in terms of a business its probably
tough to simultaneously offer a very low effort solution that provides a good
overview/perspective on the individual using the service (eg. a nice default
personal profile page) and make money given people's propensity to use free
solutions for their own domain.

Check out the recently launched BrandYourself.com, they're doing something
cool that is really in line with your thinking, I wonder what their traction
is like (I use the free tier - surprise, surprise).

------
tomx
\- People may feel there is no content they wish to broadcast about themselves
to the world. I don't have a desire to promote myself constantly, I'll just
continue being quiet. Not everyone feels the need to tell the world their
thoughts constantly.

\- A single gmail/similar address can work fine.

\- Not everyone has enough friends to warrant using "social media".

~~~
mikejarema
Good points, I suppose one assumption I'm making is that people do have
something they'd like to share with the world at large.

What are your thoughts about the notion of registering YourName.com now
basically as an insurance policy to ensure it's available in the future if
you'd like to use it?

Personally I think the annual reg fee is worth it, actually my domain went
unused for a couple years.

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Fedons
My surname is Benedetto and unfortunately "benedetto.com" is owned by a
funeral services company. However I managed to register "benedet.to", which
makes a great personal domain!

My only fear in owning an extremely personalized domain is that if for any
reason I fail to renew the domain, some squatter could get it and do whatever
he wants (it happened with my previous blog: someone picked up the domain and
used it for a porn website. It took months to take down every link that still
referred it as my personal blog).

~~~
mikejarema
I like the domain hack, good grab. Do you host your email on this domain? Are
you launching the blog anytime soon?

I view a personal domain as an asset for life. On one hand some of my web
projects may die and I'll subsequently let the domain drop, I view my personal
domain in the opposite light.

I'm ready and willing to keep renewing year after year, the yearly cost is
worth it, much like I need to renew my drivers license or pay property taxes,
its just an annual expense that's a part of being me.

~~~
Fedons
Thanks :) I use the free version of Google Apps with this domain for my email.

The best thing is that I'm de facto using the gmail web app, but if in the
future I would like to change provider it will be a smooth transition, since
my email address will remain the same.

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zem
i think it's because i internalised the "domain names should be
cute/clever/creative/individual" mindset; registering yourname.tld comes way
too low on the imaginativeness scale. i wouldn't name a
star/planet/city/village/company/building/house after myself either. the
internet at large does seem to be shifting more towards seeing domains as
equivalent to email addresses, though, so i'll probably go ahead and register
myname.net at some point.

~~~
mikejarema
I hadn't thought of the creativity perspective here & I agree that
YourName.tld is an uninspiring, obvious choice.

I've made the analogy to a few people that a cooldude69@hotmail.com email
address that you may have setup in high school isn't necessarily what you want
to be posting on your resume / linkedin account.

Thanks for the comment!

~~~
zem
i wasn't thinking about the domain equivalent of cooldude69, i was thinking
more of sites like "daringfireball.net", "intertwingly.net", "defmacro.org" -
something that is creative without being gauche. (personally, i really wanted
hitchhiker.net but i was too late to get it)

~~~
mikejarema
Sorry, didn't mean to imply that tackiness was along the lines of what you
were thinking, the analogy was off the mark.

I like hitchhiker.net, but looks that company has grabbed all the TLD
variations unfortunately.

I'm curious, what would you do with hitchhiker.net if you had it today? I ask
because a friend of mine was excited to grab InsomniaLabs.com on the drop, but
has yet to make much of it as his personal site.

~~~
zem
i'd probably move over my rudimentary website [<http://zem.novylen.net/> \-
some 10 years ago a friend who was more proactive about these things set up
novylen.net and then offered a bunch of friends free domains on it, so i
figured why not] and consolidate a few scattered ideas for blogs i started on
wordpress.org. "zem" and "hitchhiker" are names i frequently go by online and
in fandom, so it would definitely be something i thought of as a personal site
to coalesce my online identity around.

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rmATinnovafy
My name is too common. I think it was already registered before I started
coding back in '85.

Though I agree that for programmers who want to create a brand around
themselves, having their name as their domain is a fair move.

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runjake
Because I can't find any domain variation of my name that isn't taken.

~~~
mikejarema
I can't argue with that.

Are the current registrants doing much with the domains? Do you check back
every so often to see if the names are expiring?

------
stewie2
my name is already taken :(

~~~
mikejarema
Mine was too - an unflattering picture of some other guy with the same name.
As soon as it dropped, I claimed it and will be holding on to it.

If you're interested, there's a bunch of backordering / drop-catching services
out there that you only pay upon successful delivery of the domain. I'd
register and backorder your name if you're interested. Look for snapnames,
pool, namejet.

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pcopley
In my case, [lastname].com is owned by some domain squatter looking to make a
quick buck (or 12k of them last I checked). I own [firstname][lastname].com
and that seems to be good, but it'd be cool to have my email me
[first]@[last].com and my blog at [first].[last].com.

First world problems!

