Do you blog? If you blog, i would suggest you to have your own domain name instead of using subdomain like xxx.yoursubdomain.com. Have you wonder why must you have your own domain name? Let me give you an example. Have You guys heard of Xiaxue? The popular blogger in singapore? Currently, she is using a subdomain from blogspot(xiaxue.blogspot.com) and everyone knows that she make an income off her blogspot blog. So what will happen if google suspended her blogspot account due to some account issue? Simple! Her blog just disappeared! She could not do anything because she has no control over her domain (its a subdomain of blogspot). That means, she just lost one stream of her income(blog). Is it worth it? Things will be different if she own her domain name and hosted the blog. In this way, She has absolute power over her blog and has ZERO risk that her blog will be suspended. So if you are a serious blogger, get your own domain name now!
Today is the first day of the challenge, and i have created my first niche site using 3 hours of my time. Currently, i have listed it for auction in the marketplace, and i will post the results here when its being sold. For the niche site, actually i wanted to code it in php, but after thinking through, i changed my decision by using xhtml. There are several reasons for me doing so. Firstly, xhtml require less time of coding compared to php and its simpler. Secondly, search engines like statics website more then dynamic websites, so in order to seo the niche site if i coded it in php, i would have to mod rewrite the url, which takes more effort. Of course, static website has lots of disadvantages, such as updating or adding new pages etc. But i believe theres still a market for static websites.
For the free .com domain name for the $500 challenge, the namelist is officially closed. I have decided to give way two .com domains instead of just one .com domain. One category for my friends, and one category for others.
Here are the people that are on the list:
Others
1) K.Thenmozhi
2) Mike J. Pruett
3) nikoloz
4) Klajdi
5) Jayden
6) Justin V
Friends
1) Hong Beng Hwee
2) Jane
3) Amos
PS: For my friends, you guys are lucky! LOL, theres only 3 of you on the list, that means, one of you will get the free domain!!!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
{ 3 trackbacks }
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Derek, you have written a very nice post. 1 point to clarify. Xiaxue is not entirely living off Google’s Blogspot because she has her own name domain name (www.xiaxue.sg) and she is also using advanced FTP access to her blog.
But nevertheless, you have really written a good article!
Hi Cris! Thanks alot.. now then i know Xiaxue actually has her own domain.. thanks alot for clarifying.. appreciated it..
I didn’t know xiaxue have her own domain as well.
Nevertheless, her blog over at blogspot.com is much better known to her readers.
Cris Lim : To be honest, i don’t see a point to get a domain only to direct it to blogspot. Because all her links are still built in blogspot. One day if she decides to migrate her blog from blogspot to her domain(xiaxue.sg) then she would lose all her links that she had built up over the years.
Jasmine: Thats true. Guess she has to do SEO for xiaxue.sg now instead of xiaxue.blogspot.com. Anyone has any idea how much she earn from her blog per month?
Hey Jasmine!
You raised a good point. Sometimes people buy domain names because of trademark issues or they want to retain that exclusiveness of that name together with the nick that they have.
Yes I agree that when Google decides to kick Xiaxue out, everything goes down. She bought xiaxue.sg to have that exclusitivity. Oh well. Everyone of us have our own opinions.
Well, i eat back my words.. xiaxue.sg has a google pr of 5. So i guess, she has been building links to xiaxue.sg
It doesnt matter xiaxue.sg has how much google PR. All her useful links are in blogspot which is owned by google. What happens to those links are not in her hand. And all her xiaxue post links that can be found in google, are not linked to xiaxie.sg
If say one day, blogspot shut her out, for returning visitors, of course they know where to look for her but for random or first time visitors, some would go fot xiaxue.com instead coz her original links are now broken.
I used to have a blogspot account but finally migrate to my own hosting and domain name. The process is quite painful because I’ve hardcoded so many links so I hv to go in one by one to correct those links. But Derek, I think you have a valid point on Xiahue- her trademark is with blogspot and she cannot control factors like slow downtime or if Google decide to impose bandwidth restriction (like what Yahoo geocities did)