Using your own domain name for.....?

[davek_964]

A month or so back - admittedly after a few drinks - I decided it was essential I purchased my own domain name (following one of the GoDaddy ads, although I actually bought from Google). In fact - I'd had enough to drink that I bought 4...... My g/f made it clear that she thought this was an utter waste of money (although it was a trivial amount of money).

Obviously she's wrong, but....... I must admit, I haven't yet figured out why she's wrong. I don't run my own business and haven't actually figured out much use for them.
Google allows me to have a basic webpage for free - and I think even a blog for free - but I don't claim to be interesting enough that anybody would want to read my blog.

I could change my email addresses for accounts where I only get incoming mails to use my domain name - and forward them to my existing email - but although I like the idea, it doesn't actually seem to serve enough purpose to make be bother!

I'm sure there are people who have their own domains without running a business - what do you use it for?????

[otherman]

I built a blog type one when I got my first domain in about 2001. Gradually morphed into businesses and now I have three running with varying degrees of success over the years.
I also bought one that's my surname exactly when the .pm domain was first introduced, which I use just to host a tidy email address.
What were the domains you bought? And did you buy just the names, or also hosting accounts? When you say you bought from google, I think probably you searched using google, because I don't think they provide domain and hosting services directly do they?

[Nimby]

davek_964 said:

... I could change my email addresses for accounts where I only get incoming mails to use my domain name - and forward them to my existing email - but although I like the idea, it doesn't actually seem to serve enough purpose to make be bother! ...

Is your current email address tied to your ISP? If so it's worth moving to your own domain one should you ever want to change ISP.
Also you can create as many email addresses as you like, all forwarding to your "real" mailbox, so you can get off mailing / spam lists, or at least work out who has leaked your details.

[davek_964]

otherman said:

I built a blog type one when I got my first domain in about 2001. Gradually morphed into businesses and now I have three running with varying degrees of success over the years.
I also bought one that's my surname exactly when the .pm domain was first introduced, which I use just to host a tidy email address.
What were the domains you bought? And did you buy just the names, or also hosting accounts? When you say you bought from google, I think probably you searched using google, because I don't think they provide domain and hosting services directly do they?

I bought from Google (domains.google.com). (I'm a software engineer by trade so I do know the difference between using a search engine and actually using a Google service )
It allows me basic hosting stuff - as I said, I can create a basic webpage or blog for free (I did play about with the webpage stuff for an evening).

I bought two variations of my full name (Dave / David) with .co.uk and .com

Nimby said:

Is your current email address tied to your ISP? If so it's worth moving to your own domain one should you ever want to change ISP.
Also you can create as many email addresses as you like, all forwarding to your "real" mailbox, so you can get off mailing / spam lists, or at least work out who has leaked your details.

No - I learned a long time ago that having a host based email address was a stupid idea!

[mw88]

I mainly use mine for email - I've got a single email user setup, but I've also got a catch-all set so I can send to [e-mail] and it's delivered to my main account.

Anything that asks for an email address generally gets it's own prefix (ph@mydomain, adobe@mydomain, randomshop@mydomain), in the case that one of the databases that contain my email address is compromised I can just blackhole that prefix and avoid all the spam that comes with it.

[davek_964]

Yeah, maybe I should at least do the email thing. Although I get enough spam to my main account already that there is a certain 'horse already bolted' feeling to it

[camel_landy]

mw88 said:

I mainly use mine for email - I've got a single email user setup, but I've also got a catch-all set so I can send to [e-mail] and it's delivered to my main account.

Anything that asks for an email address generally gets it's own prefix (ph@mydomain, adobe@mydomain, randomshop@mydomain), in the case that one of the databases that contain my email address is compromised I can just blackhole that prefix and avoid all the spam that comes with it.

FWIW - I have my own domain and that's pretty much how I use it too.

M

[GCH]

mw88 said:

I mainly use mine for email - I've got a single email user setup, but I've also got a catch-all set so I can send to [e-mail] and it's delivered to my main account.

Anything that asks for an email address generally gets it's own prefix (ph@mydomain, adobe@mydomain, randomshop@mydomain), in the case that one of the databases that contain my email address is compromised I can just blackhole that prefix and avoid all the spam that comes with it.

Same.

Also useful for never ending 30 day free trials of stuff like showtime and amazon prime...so putting [e-mail] or whatever all goes to the same main mailbox.
Rinse and repeat monthly or as needed.

Also have it set up so I can send from ****@domain.com - useful for professional purposes on occasion.

[AC43]

davek_964 said:

A month or so back - admittedly after a few drinks - I decided it was essential I purchased my own domain name (following one of the GoDaddy ads, although I actually bought from Google). In fact - I'd had enough to drink that I bought 4...... My g/f made it clear that she thought this was an utter waste of money (although it was a trivial amount of money).

Obviously she's wrong, but....... I must admit, I haven't yet figured out why she's wrong. I don't run my own business and haven't actually figured out much use for them.
Google allows me to have a basic webpage for free - and I think even a blog for free - but I don't claim to be interesting enough that anybody would want to read my blog.

I could change my email addresses for accounts where I only get incoming mails to use my domain name - and forward them to my existing email - but although I like the idea, it doesn't actually seem to serve enough purpose to make be bother!

I'm sure there are people who have their own domains without running a business - what do you use it for?????

I bought it to unify my family's primary email accounts into the same format;

[e-mail].

Unified everything onto Google at the same time.

Didn't cost much, makes life easy.

[plasticpig]

AC43 said:

I bought it to unify my family's primary email accounts into the same format;

[e-mail].

Unified everything onto Google at the same time.

Didn't cost much, makes life easy.

Same here. But you have to have an unusual surname to do that; or have got in very early.

[Derek Smith]

davek_964 said:

No - I learned a long time ago that having a host based email address was a stupid idea!

I'll back that up. I lost rv8r.co.uk some years ago now, when it was getting lots of hits. According to my host, gained by nefarious means. The person sat on it, without publishing, and asked for £4000. Not worth it of course. I made an offer, £100, but it was refused and I was told the minimum was £3000.

I try to put such things behind me and move on, but every year, around the time when it is up for renewal, I go to one of the URL websites and run it up to see how much is being asked. It's now down to under £300. It probably cost the bloke a fair proportion of that in renewals over the years. Add the £150 I would have paid, and he's probably out of pocket.

I'd advise anyone to keep their URL well away from the host, or any third party come to that.

I'd appreciate it if some of you could search for it, or perhaps even check to see if it is available, just to get the bloke excited and make him renew it yet again.

I've moved on - mostly.

[dapprman]

For a while mine was just used for an email address for friends and family, but after having run a wordpress blog for a while I linked it in to that.

[davek_964]

I do tend to keep threads running about my car, so I just admit it's tempting to make that a blog

[AC43]

plasticpig said:

AC43 said:

I bought it to unify my family's primary email accounts into the same format;

[e-mail].

Unified everything onto Google at the same time.

Didn't cost much, makes life easy.

Same here. But you have to have an unusual surname to do that; or have got in very early.

Well, when I say ".com" I actually got ".uk.com". It's still memorable and makes like a little bit easier.

[plasticpig]

AC43 said:

Well, when I say ".com" I actually got ".uk.com". It's still memorable and makes like a little bit easier.

Ah ok. Mines a .com but I bought it in 1996 so got in early.

[robuk]

Derek Smith said:

I'll back that up. I lost rv8r.co.uk some years ago now, when it was getting lots of hits. According to my host, gained by nefarious means. The person sat on it, without publishing, and asked for £4000. Not worth it of course. I made an offer, £100, but it was refused and I was told the minimum was £3000.

Obviously not aware of exact circs - however it appears it was a well used website, so any expiring domains that had a website has value. People rebuild the sites and sell on / monetise , others do a landing page and make a few quid. That stuff is now done on an industrial scale.

I would be highly skeptical of it being taken by dodgy means - it smells like a non-renewal - and if the host is making excuses... did they action the renewal request?

If it was stolen, get proof from the host, and get it via the DRS system on Nominet for the low priced summary decision.

Web.archive.org could have backups of the content, so could rebuild on a fresh domain, and then a few emails will update old links to point to new site etc is another option.

[AC43]

plasticpig said:

AC43 said:

Well, when I say ".com" I actually got ".uk.com". It's still memorable and makes like a little bit easier.

Ah ok. Mines a .com but I bought it in 1996 so got in early.

I meant ".com" generically as I don't tend to publicise stuff like that on a site like this.

But, yeah, you were 20-odd years ahead of me.

My BIL is pretty techy and suggested I did it.

Good advice.

[ReverendCounter]

davek_964 said:

I don't claim to be interesting enough that anybody would want to read my blog.

Actually I would suggest your profession might give you some strong content to blog about. You could have sub sections about different areas of your work and interests. It might be that blogging in detail about problems you've solved in the software sphere could be useful as an educational tool and could pull in some ad revenue if you get enough hits, providing you can discuss it in the public domain.

And if you were to blog about car related stuff, maybe you could treat yourself to some tool or equipment and do a decent YT vid of its use and embed the vid in your blog - that should be good for a few hits?

For instance I bought a cordless drill last year as well as a load of additional attachments for it - ended up using it for rust/paint removal with an abrasive wheel, grinding off a chain link pin to shorten a chain for a motorcycle, got foam pad attachments and then cut and polished paint, got some socket adapters so I could quickly spin on/off wheel nuts after they'd been loosened. I also used it as a drill once.

Basically that cordless could have been used to create a load of vid content which could have ended up embedded in a blog. Perhaps you could do something similar with some screen capture software?

[Derek Smith]

robuk said:

I would be highly skeptical of it being taken by dodgy means - it smells like a non-renewal - and if the host is making excuses... did they action the renewal request?

I think that's it. It was their error. Just a bit of bull to cover it. In other words, don't depend on others. Look after your valuables. Regardless of what my then host did or didn't do, it was my mistake. I now do my own.

I set the site up again, with a new URL, Writewheel. It's doing quite well. I bought rveight and rv8.co.uk as forwarding URLs and I got quite a few visitors initially from those who mistype.

[snuffy]

I bought www.myfirstnamemysurname.co.uk in in 2001, mainly to have the email address, but also as a website.

I also own (since 2003) www.mysurname.co.uk but I don't use it, I just wanted to own it. I really want www.mysurname.com, but someone else got in before me.

I found people at first (i.e. years ago) were amazed that my email was my name, i.e. [e-mail], but less so now of course.