Hotel Reservations In Miami - Why it’s Worth it to Purchase Your Own Domain Name

Source - http://lifehacker.com/
By - Harry Guinness
Category - Hotel Reservations In Miami
Posted By - Homewood Suites Miami

Hotel Reservations In Miami

Before I start, you should know that buying domain names is my dirty little habit. Some people smoke, others cheat—I go online in the dead of night and have a look at what domain names are available.

Just one look. But with all addicts, I can't leave it at a look, so I often buy a domain name...just the one...it's cheap—until you own ten of them!

With that guilty admission out of the way...

We have the opportunity to purchase millions of desirable domain names, from our own FirstnameLastname.coms to good LocationBusiness.coms and Singleword.coms. While a great LocationBusiness.com is worth holding on to, just like a good Singleword.com, the most important domain name is your own FirstnameLastname.com; those are the ones I'll be focusing on for this post.

For example, the most "valuable" domain name I own is HarryGuinness. Neither of the other two Harry Guinness's can have it; they're going to have to settle for some alternative like TheAustralianHarryGuinness.com or maybe HarryGuinnessRandomJobDescription.com; HGuinness.com is available but I'm seriously considering buying it as soon as this blog goes live. Whoever wants HarryGuinness is going to have to pry it from my cold dead, keyboard gripping, hands.

I'm lucky that my name is rare enough that I was able to get its domain. But the odds are that someone shares your name somewhere in the world. No matter how uncommon it seems where you live, the chance of someone having it in a different country or on a different continent are staggeringly high. If you're curious, just plug your own name into a Facebook search and see how many others show up. That will search about one-eighth of the population of the world so it should give you some idea.

So I've convinced you that domain names are being snapped up like beer at a student party but why should you care? You don't even need a domain name, what would you do with one?

First, trust me, you need a domain name. You might not need it today but in a few years time you'll want it. The way people think about websites is changing, and more personal landing page services like flavors.me and re.vu are popping up—and it takes a matter of minutes to set up. In a few years it may well be common to send a link to your online CV. It's worth future proofing yourself now, rather than gambling on ending up with some godawful domain name because it's the only one that includes your name.

Second, even if you never totally need it, it's damn handy. It doesn't need to link to your own website, you can forward it to Twitter, Tumblr, or one of the personal landing pages that I mentioned above. Set up Google Apps on it and get Firstname@FirstnameLastname.com as your email address. Save yourself from giving out that ridiculous hotmail address you set up when you were sixteen.

So that's why you need one, and what you can do with it, but what are the advantages of having your own domain name? Honestly, they're endless: