The hassles that come with owning a domain may be too great for some bloggers and website owners, so you might want to stick with a domain that isn’t “completely yours.”

1. When building brand loyalty and recognition throughout the web, there are a number of domains that aren’t that short (containing .blogspot or another domain). It all depends on how you market and promote your site.

2. Not everyone can fork over the $10 domain cost plus hosting if you want to go this route. You can make money to recoup the costs, but if you are planning on making no money from your site, there is no reason to purchase a domain.

3. Search engines no longer favor unique domains, but sites that have quality content and can rank better for their ideas, in a sense. You can have a great domain, but horrible content, and you won’t make it as far as a .blogspot.com domain with excellent content and a developed community.

4. If you are a business, a website is critical, but with the plethora of tools now out there for people to find your contact information, it isn’t completely necessary.

5. Having a domain name means that you have to stick with one URL for a year or more. Likewise, you could be spending time creating more content and seeing the direction that your blog is going before you finally settle on one down the road.

6. A domain name makes your business/website look more professional, but if the domain name is inappropriate for your business, it can be more difficult to brand and promote your business than if you didn’t have a domain/website at all.

7. Having a domain name gives you more opportunities when it comes the time to “sell” your site, but in the meantime, you have some risks, although small, that you are presented with. The account that you have registered the domain with could be hacked, meaning you lose the ability to redirect your domain.

8. The number of great domains left is near zero. You can still purchase branded, developed domains, but they’ll cost you greatly. Likely, it’ll be difficult to find a domain that is still easy to remember and type, at least compared to a recognizable brand.blogspot.com blog.

9. Nearly all the features of having your own domain are available with “free” blog platforms and websites. You don’t have to upgrade at a certain time to a domain, and there aren’t a ton of additional benefits when you simply purchase a domain.

10. Finally, although nearly all “professional” bloggers start with a domain, if you don’t want to go the whole pro route, the cost factor can add up. Changing domains, as previously mentioned, can be expensive, especially if you are involved in a long-term approach (just ten domains at $10 each will run into the thousands of dollars within a decade period).

Conclusion

While there are certainly the benefits to purchasing a domain, the cost can be too high for bloggers on a limited budget and those that don’t necessarily need it. You have to weigh out the options before you go to purchase a domain, even if you do have the required extra income to purchase extra domains.

I have gathered up a list of resources that you can use to find domains. It is incomplete and may be expanded – I need your recommendations. What tools do you use beyond those listed for finding domains besides those that come with your registrar?

1. FreshDrop – This site presents a list of affordable, recently dropped domain names. They are often much more affordable (up to twice) than when you purchase new domains from most registrars, although this cost may be associated with purchasing the domain and not the yearly registration.

Nearly 2.5 million domains can be found through the site, although some may be more costly than others to purchase. You can browse the sites through the various languages, apply filters, and view statistics and information about the sites. You are given a set amount of time to purchase a domain – the site is based around a “bid” system of sorts. Traffic, Page Rank, number of Google searches, listings in directories, and more are displayed on a complete list.

2. GreatDomains – This site displays some of the best domains, and with the better domains, you’ll have to make offers (six figure or higher costs). You can also sell domains through the service, ideal if you have a number of unused domains “laying around.”

3. Flippa – A new service from SitePoint, this is the number one place on the web to find developed and new domains and websites, including those that you can purchase with content – ideal if you don’t know where to start with building a site.

4. Deleted Domains – Find valuable deleted and expired domains. You have the ability to perform an unlimited number of deleted domain searches, filter domain searches, export domain deletion results, receive daily deleted email alerts, and more.

Membership plans are available to gain access to more features and discounts on domains. For example, you are limited to a select number of results when you perform the search without any plan.

5. Stuck Domains – Browse through more than 27 million unique domains. When searching for the term “blog,” I found quite a few domains that are brandable, albeit quite long in length. Within the set of search tools, you can filter out some domains, such as those with hyphens, numbers, and those with longer lengths.

6. Just Dropped – You need a membership to join the site, although it is free, can be a hassle if you need to find an expired or recently dropped domain quickly. In addition, the site doesn’t have the best organization and layout.

7. MakeWords – This is my favorite site for finding domains and getting ideas for new domains, as it has the cleanest and most organized layout. It might not have the most complete set of tools for organizing domains and finding them by link popularity, Page Rank, etc., but is ideal for people who want a domain within a certain length of characters and those starting or ending with a certain set of characters.

By signing in, you can save your domains, settings, and keywords.

8. Whois.net – Find deleted domains and search the WHOIS directory. This is one of the primary methods that people use to look up who they registered their domains with.

9. Old Domains – Great domain names, with the ability to search and browse through recently dropped domain names.

Saving money on web hosting is no secret, really. You simply need to know where to look, and how to find the best hosting for your needs and requirements. For example, you don’t want to choose a hosting company just because they offer the cheapest rates, unlimited hosting, and other features that you’ll likely never use.

The Requirements

The following are some of the requirements that I look for when I choose a good, reliable hosting plan. They vary according to what you are looking for.

• Support for MySQL databases (4.0 or greater for WordPress)
• PHP support (4.3 or greater for WordPress).
• Hosting space should be at least 1GB. When you think about the amount of content being uploaded today, it will be easy to go over limits when you only have 50MB of storage. Let’s say you want to post a high-definition video to your blog that is ten minutes in length – that will easily take between a quarter and half of your storage at 1GB.
• Transfer space of at least at least 10 times as much as your storage. Let’s assume that someone visits and views all your information on your site, then you will be using (theoretically) 1GB of storage (for this example) just for bandwidth/transfer. You have to take into account the number of pages, images/videos, and other forms of medium uploaded to your site.
• Support that answers questions whenever they may arise, and multiple methods of contacting them. For example, Bluehost has a chat box, forums, email, and phone support. You can even see some of the positive feedback on their service on Twitter.
• Ability to easily install scripts and tools that make it easier to blog or run my websites.
• A free domain, although this shouldn’t be a requirement of all hosts.
• Ability to add a good deal of additional sub-domains to the main site.
• Ability to host more than one domain per account. You take the number of domains per account, to determine how “cost-effective” a plan is. For example, if you can only host one domain, then the site will cost you ~$100/year, while hosting ten sites will only cost ~$10/year, if you get what I am saying.
• Unlimited email support. Even though most accounts have this, there are some that only support a few, and that is definitely a limitation when you need at least three per domain, more if you have guest authors or other people on your account.

What You Can Look For

In your search for the best host, be sure that you don’t be confused with what the host is offering you. If they claim to have unlimited storage, don’t buy into their claims unless they can prove that this is available. Most of the time, “unlimited” means that they will support everything legal that you upload until they begin running out of resources and other sites are affected by what you are doing on your account.

Another main requirement is that your host delivers what is promised. If they are unable to deliver the uptime guarantee, seek a refund if it occurs multiple months on end. An uptime guarantee should be met as frequently as possible. When your site is down, there won’t be any new visitors arriving to your site, people may think that you forgot to renew your account/domain, and you may lose some credibility if it happens too frequently.

In terms of pricing, you want to receive the most “bang for your buck.” Saving time installing WordPress or other blog systems with scripts can be a huge advantage, especially if you value your time. Plans that don’t offer the very basics should be avoided, and those that offer too much could simply be marketing something they couldn’t possibly deliver.

Beyond anything else, you should only pay for what you need. That’s why I went with a plan that worked for me (at this time), Bluehost. They offer reliable hosting and are priced affordably, with an uptime that is one of the best out of any online company.

For example, with a 97% uptime, you’ll see 21 hours and 36 minutes monthly downtime, 10 days, 22 hours, 48 minutes yearly downtime. Plus, you could use the chart the other way and use the amount of downtime you’ve seen to find what the uptime percentage is.

In web hosting, the most ideal uptime is 99.9%, or 43 minutes per month, 8 hours and 46 minutes per year. The best case scenario is that you see that amount of time or less.

The main reason for this is the fact that you might want to later convert to the main domain, as follows:

– http://www.blog.com/blog/

… later changing it to:

– http://www.blog.com/

If you use an automated installer, it is particularly hard to make sure that you don’t make the mistake of installing it in a folder, such as /wp/ or /blog/. If you speed through the installer, there are ways to convert it over after the fact, but you will need to be knowledgeable about editing the .htaccess file.

Under the following situations you should stick with an alternative, off-main domain structure:

• When readers should be able to quickly access the sub-site, but content shouldn’t filter into the main site (through use of categories or tags for the topic).
• You want to create an additional blog or separate area for your site.
• You are a part of a business, in which you want to keep the blog separate from the main site.
• You want to save some money by not having to purchase an additional domain for a project that “may or may not” work out.

Reasons to avoid subdomains and folders:

• They are not as search engine friendly as placing all content on the main domain, as individual posts.
• People will have a harder time finding your main content or the main focus of your blog, unless you redirect it to the right location.
• It will be harder to get people to subscribe, as they think that you are working for someone else under their name (making it appear more like a Blogspot-hosted blog than your own site.

Again, this is just a word of warning if you are planning on placing your blog within a subdomain or folder off of another site. You want to make your site as uncomplicated as possible for your readers to access. As long as all your focus is on the main site, why not use it? 

I also realize that you may have personal preferences where you place content, but everything looks nicer when you have all URLs as http://site.com rather than using a longer, more complicated sub-domain or folder structure.

Note: This does not pertain to users of Blogger or WordPress.com – that is a different case.

The Five Most Common Reasons Bloggers Stick with Free Services

1. The reliability of developer-hosted accounts is usually greater, as there are people working behind-the-scenes constantly trying to reduce the downtime and costs to host the millions of people that are connecting to their servers at any one minute. Additionally, many require ads to be served 24/7 in order to remain profitable, thus they try to maintain a 99.9% or greater uptime.
2. Not everyone needs the advanced services that you get when you host your blog on your own server, including shared services, so there really is no need to upgrade in this case.
3. Third-party hosting services aren’t hard to come by and you can easily upload all your files to these services without any concerns about cost/reliability. For example, Flickr, Picasa, and Photobucket all have extremely high bandwidth and storage limits (usually greater than a gigabyte apiece). Therefore, you don’t need the extra storage that an self-hosted account would offer.
4. Traffic and content isn’t great enough to generate the need. As your blog becomes larger, you might begin asking yourself whether you need the advanced services. Many people will never reach this point – you’d need to write dozens of posts daily with hundreds of images before you start noticing any major changes in how your blog functions.
5. Free. This is a large factor of how people decide whether to upgrade or not. Hosting costs have come down as storage technology has matured, although there are still costs involved. For example, even with basic hosting (unless you come by a good deal), you will have to pay $10 for the domain yearly plus upwards of $100 a year for hosting. To some, this doesn’t seem necessary for a hobby that they can continue doing for free.

Conclusion

As long as your are content with the blog platform you are using and don’t see any obvious reasons to switch providers, you don’t need to do so. However, the best decision in this is to choose the option that is the most affordable, has the most complete set of features, and appeals to both you and your readers. Again, developer-hosted plans that are free appeal to so many because they are fairly complete and easy to use – there is no major setup involved, and most optimization has already been implemented as soon as you sign up for your account. 

What are your thoughts on these services – do they work for you or do you want something that can do more, add more value to your site, etc.?

Note: Remaining on the developer-hosted (Blogger and WordPress) accounts may be ideal for many people as long as they don’t need the resources required to upgrade accounts or pay for extra services and add-ons. That may be the reason why many are still content with what they offer, compared to the advanced, and sometimes unnecessary features involved in hosting on your own server.

Click image for larger view.

When you first venture out looking for a domain that is still available, even if it is on a free, developer-hosted site, you probably didn’t spend the necessary time preparing for outcomes of not choosing a domain wisely.

Let’s take a look at this one example, highlighted in the image above.  Now, why are those blogs listed like that, set apart from the rest of the Blog Search results?

For one, each of the four (often varies depending on what you are searching for) sites/links are extremely relevant to the term “blog tips” that I was searching for.  As a result, these links were displayed at the top, above recent blog posts and news items.  This also pertains to search results, in which links are generated for select sites and placed at the top, often pertaining to particular keywords.

3+ Ways to Hopefully Appear Here

While I can’t admit the in-depth specifics of how to get your site listed here, there are some general tips that you must follow that will likely have yours placed here.

1. Each of the sites listed in this area have a domain that contains the term “blog” or “blogger,” which are both relevant to the search terms.  The more keywords that appear in your description, blog title, or domain, the better.  Some of the domains/titles above contains multiple instances of the same words, generating higher ranking results.
2. Recent content.  All of the links contained at least one link back to a recent post (when sorted by relevance) that was created within the past day or so.  It is likely that the algorithm calculates the link placements of these blogs using the number of times the blog appears on this page.
3. Age of domain and popularity.  The more visitors a blog receives (compared to other sites) as well as domain age, and several other factors, such as the number of links from other sites may also be placed into the equation.

Now, how many visitors will you see from your link appearing at the top of Google Blog Search (or any other service)?  In truth, it won’t be a significant number.  There is only a fraction (likely less than 5%) of Google searchers who have ever used Blog Search and even fewer click on the top results, as their searches are more specific than “blog tips.”

On the other hand, it can be beneficial when other people weigh the popularity of your site, especially if they are considering buying it or advertising on your blog.  They may look at this as being an ‘authority’ in your targeted niche, thus proving that you are the best place to advertise on/purchase.

Additional Tips

Despite the fact that there are only a few spots reserved for these blogs, it isn’t impossible to “bump” a domain off the list – as long as you have the factors addressed above and are willing to commit time into thinking about a domain that contains a few keywords relevant to your niche.  Without these, you have a much less chance of even coming close to entering this premier listing.

Over to you – What are your thoughts/experience with higher placement on smaller services such as Blog Search?

Why should you be concerned over which domain suffix you choose?

Key Points to Remember When Choosing Your Top-Level Domain (TLD)

• Branding - Domains with suffixes that aren’t typically seen, or geographic and nation-specific domains (.us, .asia, .co.uk, and others) typically aren’t as easy to convince to readers that they should remember the entire domain.  Think about the enormous effect this would have on larger sites – Google, for example.  If you could only access their search engine through the google.net instead of google.com domain, it would be extremely costly, however you can access the website through multiple points.
• Geo-targeting - If you want to connect with people from a specific country, having a second-level domain extensions may be the better solution.  Search engines sometimes favor sites with more country-specific domains, and result in the domain displaying higher in the results.
• Search Engine Ranking - Search engines like Google favor top-level domain names more than second-level domain names, so don’t settle for a lower-ranking domain suffix.  When people see the .com instead of a .info, for example, they are more likely to travel to that site simply due to the fact that .com is the universal, commercial domain.
• Marketing/Long-term Potential - Finding someone to buy your domain for a higher price than you paid for it can sometimes be a daunting task, so having a favorable top-level domain could sell a developed site for a few thousand more dollars than one that is on a .info domain.  In addition, it’ll be easy to promote your site through PPC marketing or other advertising networks.  Again, the factor of brand ability comes into play – how well will people you mention your site to be able to remember it, then use your site to purchase advertising or products (through ads/products you create)?
• Cost Effectiveness - Purchasing multiple domains for your site can be effective in the long-term, as you can build community or additional sub-sites on the .net, .org, etc. versions of your site name.  You have to be serious about an individual site concept and stick with it, enabling you to point the alternative (or additional) domains to your main site/blog.  However, it may be easier to just stick with one version of your blog until your readership has grown to quite a considerable level or you have plans on expanding your network.

Conclusion

The main goal when purchasing a good domain is finding one that suits your blog/website, and doesn’t require a massive amount of branding and marketing to get a unique domain across to your intended audience.   You are trying to create the best experience (in finding your site) as possible, with an easy to manage setup on your side.  

For example, it makes more sense to use a folder/sub-domain to create a mobile version of your blog, but a .mobi domain can make the mobile version of your blog more accessible - potentially resulting in a higher interest and a higher view of professionalism.

Some people insist that you purchase at least a few domains related to your .com or GeoTLD, so it won’t be as hard to find your blog, however it is more costly: $40+/year versus $10 or less/year and can be difficult if you truly want to develop each site or direct them to one domain.  In my opinion, you need to do something that is the most convenient and effective for you.  If you’d rather use the country-level domain, then use it.  There is no one stopping you from doing so, however it is often said that the .com version is the easiest to promote.

What are your thoughts on each domain level and your personal experience branding and promoting sites/blogs?  Is it best to stick with the commercial TLD if available, or use alternative versions – .net, .org, etc. when someone has already taken your preferred .com version?

By the way they responded on their blog, with the title “Um, Whoops.“. To date, more than 350 comments have been left on their Official DreamHost blog, 1100+ on the DreamHost Status/problems page, and received much attention across the web, including many traditional news sources reporting on the issue. 700+ people have Dugg the story.

In my opinion, nothing that overcharges customers by any amount should be taken as “a teensy eensy weensy little billing error”, even if just one customer is affected. The company with the “Best Corporate Blog of 2007″ now must deal with the problems caused by simple carelessness. The main problem was under billing, as a new system was being put into place.

Many customers were disappointed with the lack of formal notification (a simple mass email) telling them that they were facing problems. Instead, many logged into their account to find it no longer existed. Excuse after excuse after excuse combined with the belief that all their devoted customers realize the “professional” company they are dealing with. Perhaps they were “so high right now you don’t even know” when this all happened?

Does any of this sound professional?

.. you thought it was a joke!

Ha, the joke is on you! I guess. Um, okay, no, not really, I’m sorry.

How on earth could something like this happen?

and

I couldn’t remember. But, since the biller is super-safe and robust anyway, I went ahead and ran it for 2008-12-31, 2008-12-30, 2008-12-29, 2008-12-28, 2008-12-27, 2008-12-26, and 2008-12-25, just for the hell of it.

Notice Anything?

Don’t feel bad if you didn’t. I kind of missed it myself.

THOSE SHOULD HAVE BEEN 2007!!

Heh, uh.. um, er.. my bad?

and

Well guess what… NO! We will NEVER want to rebill as though today were a day that hasn’t happened yet! But instead, somebody along the line (Sage? Me? Somebody else?) figured, “What’s the harm in keeping it flexible?”

About $7,500,000 in harm, that’s what!

A comic by Brad Fitzpatrick at bLaugh. 

A temporary fix to the major problem:

A new service is running right now (in parallel on all the controllers) that fixes all those future charges, re-enables your account if it was erroneously suspended, and if your credit card was automatically rebilled, refunds the payment automatically. You don’t have to contact us or your bank, and you’ll get an email when your account is finished fixing up. It’s going to take several more hours to complete. There are (or were, after this incident) a lot of you these days!

If, because of this billing mistake, you somehow incurred some fees from your bank or credit card company, please let us know after tomorrow (today we are just replying to all 10,000+ billing messages with a generic explanation) and we’ll do our best to make it right for you.

And of course, the biller no longer allows dates in the future.

To succeed, their main objective now should be putting their company in debt, by providing a free year of hosting to EVERY customer affected – to at least regain a little bit of respect from customers.

Lunarpages is taking advantage of the problem by offering a $40 off hosting package and they will also pay for the remainder of your contract (up to 9 months) by using the code DHRefugees. Out of 30 comments, 98-100% of them stated they were dissatisfied with their service, despite being lenient with their downtime problems, and were now looking to switch to a more professional service.

[sources: Unofficial DreamHost Blog, InfoWorld]

NOTICE: This post will not make me any money. No affiliate links or sponsored reviews here.

1 and 1 

Offer: Save over 40% on their most popular packages for a limited time. Domains (.biz) are on sale plus servers are $200 off for the first year.

Offer Ends: December 31, 2007

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Offer Ends: No date provided, probably limited-time only.

Limitations/Terms: Terms and conditions apply, additional fees might apply.

Offer: The ‘Winter Special’ is only $4.95/month (originally $7.95/month), which features 600 GB hosting, 6,000 GB transfer, 2,500 email accounts, web site builder, a free domain, and the ability to host 25 domains on one account.

Offer Ends: Limited-time offer

Limitations/Terms: * Sale price is for first term only. Account renews at regular rate.

** Offer available only from this page **

Offer: More storage (350 GB disk space, 3,500 GB of bandwidth) plus up to $300 in free ad credits – all for $7.95/month with a free setup and domain.

Offer Ends: December 26, 2007

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Prices displayed are our discounted rate after term pre-payment. Certain plans require quarterly, semi-annual or annual pre-payment to receive fully discounted rates. Please see Terms of Service for full details.

Offer: Receive a free web page with the purchase of a domain or 25% off – Normally packages were $9.96 to $13.30/month. With this offer, you’ll get them for $7.47 to $9.97/month. Plans range from 7 GB disk space/150 GB data transfer to 15 GB disk space/400 GB transfer monthly.

Offer Ends: Limited time online offer.

Limitations/Terms: 25% OFF savings is on annual package only. Limited time offer. Free domain name service is for one year and contingent upon a minimum annual purchase of a new Web site, E-Commerce or Hosting package. Free one-year domain name service is for new domain registrations, domain renewals and domain transfers of .com, .net, .org, .us, .biz, .info & .name extensions. Only one free domain is available per order. If you wish to purchase an additional package and receive an additional free one-year domain name, please complete a separate transaction. If you select an eligible domain during the initial purchase process, the domain will be discounted on the “View Your Order” page. If you do not select a domain during the purchase process, a coupon for the free domain will be e-mailed to you after you complete your order, which must be redeemed within 30 days to take advantage of the offer. Valid for initial purchase only and only on domains registered with or transferred to Network Solutions. This offer is not valid with any other offer.