Do You Own YourName.com? Why not?

[Brian D]

An article I wrote over at TeenDomainer.com,

I think it is really important to protect your name and your brand. Yes I do own Brian Diener .com. I apologize to those of you with very common names.

Do you own yourname.com? Some people cringe at the extra registration fee every year, but not owning youname.com could end up costing you much more than the $10.00 a year.

Not only is yourname.com a great place to showcase a portfolio of your work and websites, it is unique to you. It is perfect to have a small personal blog with a about me page. This could be very important when you are looked at to be hired for a job. You could put a great resume on the site. It does not matter what profession you are in, you will always be identified by your name.

When people go to look at someone today they go to Google. They type in your name and click on the first result that comes up. You want the first result to be owned by you so that you can control what it says.

Rest of the article here TeenDomainer.com

Do you own your name.com why or why not?

 

[blaknite]

What exactly is someone going to be able to do with yourname.com that they couldn't do to you without it? If someone is going to flame or bash you they can do it any number of places that would do more damage than yourname.com. Anyone got a link to a story where something like this has happened? Real world examples of an actual negative effect.

I'm talking aside from celebrity bashing which only bolsters their careers anyway.

 

[dnb8]

I own my last name .net and I own my first name .info

 

[mindless]

Picked mine up after spending years trying to acquire it, actually had sent an offer to the previously owner for X,XXX and never got a reply. One day was renewing names at godaddy and they indicated it was available. YES! Picked it up that minute. Not sure what happened to the old owner who wouldnt give it up before.

Launched my domain blog on it a couple weeks ago: BruceMarler.com If its all about branding might as well start with your own name

BTW, great job on TeenDomainer.com!

 

[bmugford]

Take a look at the UDRP for the domain SkipKendall.com, a pretty well known golfer. His wife's sister bought the domain and used it in a public way to criticize him in a public forum

She won the UDRP.

UDRP Decision


Brad

What exactly is someone going to be able to do with yourname.com that they couldn't do to you without it? If someone is going to flame or bash you they can do it any number of places that would do more damage than yourname.com. Anyone got a link to a story where something like this has happened? Real world examples of an actual negative effect.

I'm talking aside from celebrity bashing which only bolsters their careers anyway.

 

[Alex]

Too bad when your name is Alex Simon: .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .name(!), .me taken.

Not too many options left ...

 

[Dave_Z]

I also got mine. And my namesake cousin teased me for beating him to it.

 

[verbster]

I owned my own name for a couple of years, and discovered I had absolutely no use for it.

 

[NathanJacob]

Even I own MyNameLastName.com and its sounds so kewl to give your email address as [email protected] :P

 

[JGK]

I had mine for two years and did absolutely nothing with it until almost the end of that time, when I finally put a placeholder on it, and then eventually a couple of links to sites I liked.

Now it's been almost two more years since I've had it and the domain is still available (despite there being at least several others with the same name and a presence online). I did notice it was taken and parked for a brief while shortly after I dropped it, though - maybe tasting or something like that.

The only reason I'd want it is to have help in showing up first for my name in search results, and if necessary to give out as a sort of mini-resume. I wouldn't want to blog on it.

 

[Krossat]

waste of money, but yeah

 

[bluearrow]

own myfirstname.com and myfirstname.info. I had to wait for a while to get .com coz 2 people d owned it before me .. I used to had the .net but gave it up so someone else can have it.

 

[dtagr]

I missed out on my firstname lastname.com but I picked up the .info which may be even better, its certainly cheaper. Considering the .me but not the .tv like others suggest.

Given what some in this post have offered for their own names at .com there might be a little niche regging personal names and selling via social websites. I had this thought before and haven't acted yet. I'll think I'll take another look at it now.

 

[DotWeekly]

JamieZoch.com purchased
Zoch.com tried several times.. the lander still says "under construction"
Jamie.com It's for sale but in the $40-$50,000

If you happen to be in sales, I think it's very important to own your name in .com . If your in real estate, you really should since Realtor is a TM and they fight it a lot.

 

[NameCharger]

I went with the 3 character brandable route since my last name won't pass a radio test.

For my son, I went with FirstNameTube.com because I think it's cooler.

 

[Peter]

I personally own the .co.uk of my name however the .com is owned by a cybers quatter (apparently i have the same name as an author).

 

[bbrez1]

I own my FirstLastName.com which I used it for a blog for some time, now it's gonna be a portfolio.

 

[steveteva]

Will never get my firstnamelastname.com for several reasons.
1. Sometime privacy is necessary to avoid scammers, spammers, thief identity...
2. If one day you drop your domain name someone could reg and ask you for $$$$ or use against your agreement (scam...)
3. if you drop it, someone could reg and set a catch all email and if you have valuable informations like username and password before that were linked to that email chance are they will hack your members area or other things.

I only have mylastname.tel that is useful (privacy, no email linked, no website, no hosting fees...)

 

[JGK]

Will never get my firstnamelastname.com for several reasons.
1. Sometime privacy is necessary to avoid scammers, spammers, thief identity...
2. If one day you drop your domain name someone could reg and ask you for $$$$ or use against your agreement (scam...)
3. if you drop it, someone could reg and set a catch all email and if you have valuable informations like username and password before that were linked to that email chance are they will hack your members area or other things.

I only have mylastname.tel that is useful (privacy, no email linked, no website, no hosting fees...)

Points 1 and 2 make sense, but I don't understand point 3. If you don't use any email address, or at least don't use that email to sign up for any websites or services, then it shouldn't be a problem.

You could probably host a little portfolio-type site for a few cents a month on NearlyFreeSpeech.net, unless it got a lot of traffic or had videos or something bandwidth-heavy.

 

[Keral_Patel]

Yes I do own my firstnamelastname.com

Grabbed it while it was still free and moreover my firstname is rare enough so no problems in getting it.

 

[steveteva]

Will never get my firstnamelastname.com for several reasons.
1. Sometime privacy is necessary to avoid scammers, spammers, thief identity...
2. If one day you drop your domain name someone could reg and ask you for $$$$ or use against your agreement (scam...)
3. if you drop it, someone could reg and set a catch all email and if you have valuable informations like username and password before that were linked to that email chance are they will hack your members area or other things.

I only have mylastname.tel that is useful (privacy, no email linked, no website, no hosting fees...)

Points 1 and 2 make sense, but I don't understand point 3. If you don't use any email address, or at least don't use that email to sign up for any websites or services, then it shouldn't be a problem.

You could probably host a little portfolio-type site for a few cents a month on NearlyFreeSpeech.net, unless it got a lot of traffic or had videos or something bandwidth-heavy.

For point 3, here is what happen to me.
I had a email [email protected], one day I receive email from unknow person and was really personal like family photos, contents.. Also I received some email reminder saying that I did not yet update my profile on a adult website I've never visit (this was not spam as have full infos of previous owner did subscribe to it) I then found that I have the same name as the previous owner of this domain name that have been dropped (for info: there are about 5 same firstandlastname like mine in the world) It is really annoying to receive messages that are not suppose to be yours.