

Show HN: Get a personal site on your own domain name in just a few minutes - dylanbfox
https://www.claimyourname.io

======
err4nt
Who actually owns the domain you build your site on? If ClaimYourName.io gets
people to register their own name as a domain but retains ownership that could
turn ugly if you wanted to leave the service and keep 'your' domain name, or
if ClaimYourName.io goes under.

In the small town where I grew up the One Guy at the biggest web agency quit
in anger, and since nobody else at that company had the passwords to liberate
the domains, dozens of businesses in my town had to buy new domains and
reprint all their material with new URLS on it. What a headache :S

~~~
dylanbfox
You (the customer) owns the domain. If you cancel your subscription we give
you the info to manage your domain going forward. There's some more info in
the "do you offer refunds" q/a here:
[https://www.claimyourname.io/faq/](https://www.claimyourname.io/faq/)

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onassar
Really great dylan. Addressing the overhead of DNS settings, and a cumbersome
flow for getting a site up (especially for people who aren't too familiar with
routing, etc.)

I'd promote the email-address thing a bit more. Often people want a branded
email address, but don't know exactly how to go bout it. That would stand out
to me (eg. plug-and-play with your existing gmail)

Best of luck!

~~~
dylanbfox
Thanks for the feedback! I've definitely got to highlight this more, I agree.
A lot of my friends got really excited when I mentioned that feature to them.

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downandout
There was another one of these that made it to the top of Product Hunt the
other day...I don't remember the name. They didn't disclose on their lander
whether or not they handled domain based email though, so I would say this one
is at least better described if not actually better.

I get the value proposition, but I wonder if the positive response to this
concept on HN & PH is from actual potential customers, or is one of those
things that sounds to a technical crowd like a good idea for our less
technical friends. I guess I am curious how many people that would need a
simple service like this are interested in owning their own domain.

~~~
torkalork
I agree that most HN readers probably wouldn't use this service, but I will
definitely point people to it.

I have set up dozens of sites for friends and relatives over the years. The
only reason I'm still paying for shared hosting with WebFaction every month is
because some of them are still running blogs / businesses off the crummy site
I made for them years ago.

My default response when someone wanted a personal website used to be giving
them a WordPress blog. But most people never actually wanted to write content
for a blog - they just wanted a domain name and a custom email address, but
got overwhelmed when shopping for a domain.

Sending people to a service like this is better for them and better for me.

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highCs
It's working, neat, well explained, direct and fast. I like it.

A _little_ suggestion: the monthly charge on the billing page could have its
own explanation too as does the annual one, I'm not sure.

~~~
dylanbfox
Thanks for the feedback! That's a good idea. Just to make it as clear as
possible.

------
shanecleveland
Very nice. Well executed. I like this "do one thing well" concept and
eliminate complexities.

------
dylanbfox
Been working on this project for a few weeks now. You can see an example of a
site built with it here: [http://www.dylanbfox.com](http://www.dylanbfox.com).
I wanted to get a personal site up, but didn't feel like building one or
spending hours configuring themes on other DIY website builders. That's where
the idea for this came from.

Would love feedback on what features I should focus on adding!

~~~
te
Would like to see "gallery" of what the different sites (ie professional vs
creative) look like as well as what is and isn't customizable / configurable.

~~~
dylanbfox
I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this. One option is just have a
bunch of links to example sites. So they're displayed full browser. Another is
a gallery with screenshots, but they'll be a bit' small since I'd be putting
them in a gallery. What would you rather see?

~~~
Riseed
Why not a gallery of screenshots, with the individual screenshots being links
to the example sites?

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rchowe
It would be really cool if you could add SSL encryption by default once some
service like Lets Encrypt [1] which issues SSL certificates if you can prove
your domain name launches. Not sure how this jives with their terms of use
though.

[1] [https://letsencrypt.org](https://letsencrypt.org)

~~~
declan
Agreed that SSL should be included at least as an option; it's now gone beyond
a nice-to-have feature.

The ClaimYourName site reminds me of Strikingly (a YC-funded company), which
unfortunately still doesn't support SSL for domains purchased elsewhere:
[https://twitter.com/declanm/status/590313911271821312](https://twitter.com/declanm/status/590313911271821312)

~~~
declan
An update: I've found out that Strikingly (which has excellent customer
service) will manually add SSL support to a domain purchased elsewhere if you
ask them. But if you want SSL, it's probably still easier to buy a domain
through them, though.

------
iokanuon
Nice! What do you think about asking a user for the place they live? E.g.
German people would also get to choose a .de domain, Polish people .pl one,
etc.

~~~
dylanbfox
This is a great idea, and is something I completely overlooked. I'll be adding
this in shortly!

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sweedy
Just curious. Where/who is the proposed domain hoster? Any technical data
could also be useful. I see the point in doing the creation as simple as
possible, i would like at least to know, bevore i register anything, who i am
going to pay and what i pay for. Maby i just overlook it..

~~~
dylanbfox
Sure! Your site is hosted by ClaimYourName, which is hosted on Heroku. The
domain is purchased through Namecheap, and we use its API to configure the
domain's zone file to point to your site hosted on ClaimYourName.

The $10.99/year charge is pretty much exactly the cost Namecheap charges us
for the 1 year domain registration. We just pass this cost directly on to you.
The $6.99/month is "our" charge for a subscription and hosting your site.

~~~
notahacker
Does your setup solve the awkwardness with configuring the root domain at
[http://example.com](http://example.com) to point to Heroku?

Does the hosting autoscale or is it a basic one dyno (or share of a limited
number of dynos) setup?

~~~
dylanbfox
Nope! Customers don't have to do any setup. All of it is handled
automatically. We use Namecheap's API to forward your root domain to www, and
then point your www CNAME to a subdomain on claimyourname. That configuration
tells the app which site to serve up.

~~~
joedavison
So it doesn't support root domains? Using a root domain on Herkou requires
configuring some non-standard record (I think it is ANAME).

It's something that annoyed me about Heroku because a lot of people prefer the
non-www version of their domain as canonical these days.

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ludicast
I like this idea a lot.

I am a private person, but I made sure to get the .coms of my name, my wife's
name, and the names of our 2 (the second one born a month ago) children. I
think if this sort of thing appeals even to a misanthrope like me, it should
have a huge market.

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elwell
I like the simplicity. I think the challenge is how to get it in front of your
target market at the right time. Could you partner with GoDaddy (etc) to catch
people right after they buy a domain?

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Animats
That's neat. But does anybody have personal web sites any more?

There was at one time a proposed TLD, ".nom", for personal web sites. But
social went to Myspace, Facebook, etc.

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zapt02
Very neat! Maybe add in a DNS service on top? Being able to map
server.myname.com for private use would be a great feature.

~~~
dylanbfox
Very cool idea. I'll look into this! Do you think it should be an add-on or
come with the subscription?

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purans
I recommend using the white background for your own website. Looks darker with
black text!

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DonGateley
Can one move an existing name and its mailboxes to it?

~~~
dylanbfox
Right now we're handling this on a case-by-case basis. If you have a domain
you want to point to a site hosted on ClaimYourName, you can use the chat box
on the bottom of the site to talk to us so we can walk you through the steps.

------
flippyhead
This is great. Simple but solves a common need.

~~~
dylanbfox
Thanks for taking a look!

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Sir_Cmpwn
For those who are a bit more technically inclined, it's pretty easy to set up
Github pages with your domain.

[https://help.github.com/articles/setting-up-a-custom-
domain-...](https://help.github.com/articles/setting-up-a-custom-domain-with-
github-pages/)

Feedback for dylanbfox: $7/mo seems a bit steep. This is probably shared
hosting and a full blown VPS starts at $5/mo on Digital Ocean.

~~~
pmichaud
$7 is not steep at all. DO is a commodity VPS that requires technical skill to
even conceptualize, nevermind set up correctly. This is an easy, nontechnical
thing selling convenience. For someone who wants a pretty, simple site, $7/mo
is peanuts.

~~~
danellis
Yeah but it's approaching SquareSpace cost, and they offer a lot more.

