Should You Use Your Name As The Domain Name
When Scott Wainner contacted me about his new blog, one of the questions he asked was what domain name to use. Scott owned and registered a bunch of possible domains, including his own name. In the end, he went with W Revenue because I advised him against using his own name. I’ve received several questions asking why I advised Scott not to use his name knowing that my blog bears my name. Here’s the answer.
John Chow dot Com Was Never Meant To Be Commercial
I never intended to turn this blog into a commercial operation. It was just suppose to be a place for me to talk about whatever was on my mind. Most of the early readers were friends and family members. The blog was a great way for them to keep up with what’s happening in my life.
Because of a case study to see if money could be made by blogging, the blog went all commercial. In doing so, it attracted a ton and new readers but my family members hardly read it anymore. Were I to do it over again, I would have kept John Chow dot Com as my personal blog and did the case study with a brand new blog using another domain name.
It Could Be Harder To Brand
Generally, it is easier to brand a commercial name than your own name. I had an advantage in that I was already known in the tech circles so it was just a matter of extending my brand into blogging. However, for the average blogger, branding your own name is extremely hard. You’ll have a much easier time branding a trade name than your own name.
It’s Next To Impossible To Sell
How much is John Chow dot Com worth if there’s no John Chow? According to the business Opportunities Weblog, my blog is worth over $3 million but realistically, no one will pay that much for it unless I agreed to stay on (even then I doubt they’ll pay that much). However, if I’m going to sell, I want to cash out and leave, not stay on and work!
I highly doubt Matt Coddington could have sold his blog for $12,000 if he didn’t change its name to Net Business Blog. The really strange thing is John Cow can probably sell his blog much easier than I can sell mine. In the end, I can never sell this blog because this blog bears my name and I want to maintain control of my name.
You Have To Do Most of The Work
When your blog bears your name, you have to write most of the posts. Sure, you can bring in a guest blogger every now and then but for the most part, your readers will expect 90+ percent of the blog posts to be written by you.
Contrast this with the 16 bloggers that write for Blogging Tips. Kevin still writes the majority of the posts but he has a lot more leeway than I do when it comes to using other writers. If Kevin wants, I’m sure he can slowly back away from writing and leave things to the other writers and most readers wouldn’t notice (especially if he removes the writer’s picture next to every posts). This is because the name of Kevin’s blog is BloggingTips.com, not KevinMuldoon.com.
Use Trade Names for Commercial Blogs
If you’re blogging for money, then I recommend you do it with a trade name instead of your own name. You should definitely register your own name as a domain name but keep it for personal use.
- Posted in Make Money Online, The Net
- 111 comments what's your take?
Excellent post John (one of your best posts in ages actually). Now I’m glad I didn’t use my own name when everyone else was jumping on the “name in my domain” bandwagon.
Reply to this commentdunno bout it being the best. lol.
Reply to this commentYeah, I was starting to feel like you used your name on purpose…
Reply to this commentIt is indeed a good post, but not sure if is the best. My preferred one is Are You Getting Maximum Dollar For Your Ad Space? post.
Reply to this commentI agree with you, this is the best post in ages
Reply to this commentMy 5 cents worth. It depends on what you want. For me malaysiandefence.com is right for me.
Reply to this commentah a fellow Malaysian blogger eh?
Well Malaysian/Chinese/American blogger….
Reply to this commentIt is a great post, I jumped on the “name in my domain” Bandwagon. Still not sure if it was a good idea as it is only a new blog. Only time will tell.
Mike
Reply to this commentI want to have a domain but I don’t know what trade name I should have. I can’t have gettycash.com because its not available.
Reply to this commentCreate one. Random alphabets arranged and meaningless like xerox did!
Reply to this commentI guess it’s a similar story for many though, starting off a blog for personal reasons then the focus changes and it becomes partially commercial. I think there’s an unofficial line between a monetized personal blog and a blog intended to make money as it’s sole purpose.
Reply to this commentJohn is right. If you intend to create a commercial blog or site, then using your own name as the domain name is ridiculous. I mean, how professional would that be! [a little sarcasm there, cough, cough]
Reply to this commentBut your personal with your name as your domain name is a good idea because it is yours and for your ramblings.
From what I see, having a brandable domain name is good if you really want to sell the site once it gets success. But if you intend to keep it I don’t see whats wrong having the domain as your name. I mean, it gives you more space to write. Would John be able to have categories like Fine Dining and Cars if he had a blog named like techzone.com ?
I hope you get my point, but as far as it regards to “build it than sell it” than yeah, a brandable domain is much better.
Reply to this commentWhy would it be unprofessional? As a blogger all you have is your reputation and what better way to stand behind your posts and your blog than putting your name on it? I’m not saying it’s absolutely the best way to go but there is nothing inherently wrong with it.
John you, or anyone else who has their name for a domain name, could easily sell this blog. You’d just need to register a new domain and redirect this domain to the new one. You might have to make a deal to keep the redirect in place for a certain period of time but you could certainly negotiate a deal to sell it.
Reply to this commentThis is the reason why I changed my name by deed pool to Cash Quests.
Reply to this commentI’m a firm believer that most people who use their names for domains are either:
A. Unimaginative and can’t think of anything on their own
B. Already famous
C. Think they are famous
D. Have a narcissistic fantasy, where they will speak and everyone will listen
I’m done now.
Reply to this commentBut what about private blogs?
Reply to this commentHow can you how private and blog in the same sentence, there is nothing private about the www?
Reply to this commentMaybe he meant personal blog
Reply to this commentI actually own http://www.pamhoffman.com and it’s currently parked with sedo.com. In part, I wanted to get some things going and then add them under pamhoffman.com as an ‘umbrella’ site. I also haven’t quite figured out how to build it the way I want it (i’m still pretty new to all of this!).
Here’s my thinking, by way of an example. Richard Branson is doing a whole bunch of stuff in the world (i plan to as well) and he probably has a bunch of sites for those things.
Now, what if he had richardbranson.com (he may in fact, i don’t know) and if ‘Richard Branson’ gets a lot of searches, he might consider building richardbranson.com as an ‘umbrella’ type of site which could point you to all of his other sites.
Any thoughts?
I haven’t completely figured out what pamhoffman.com will eventually do tho I know what I would like to be connected with. I intend to create infrastructure by which we may travel from the Earth to the stars. My site might reflect that someday. I might sell it, I don’t know. For now, it is parked until I can figure out what to do with it…
Thank you for your post John. Something to think about!
Pam Hoffman
Reply to this commenthttp://seminarlist.blogspot.com
Richard Branson’s equity is far less than his trademark - Virgin. That is why he uses the latter for all his businesses.
Reply to this commentCould somebody translate this please? What is..”An infrastucture by which we may travel from the earth to the stars?” I thought that was the Enterprise. Srsly.
Reply to this commentWhat about freelancers who don’t use a generic business name in the ‘real’ world, John?
Reply to this commentThose are freelancers, not make money online talkers. If you want to brand your name and want to continue for that business in a longer time, than keep your domain. If you intend to sell it one day, than a brandable name would be better. Thats the whole point of this post, that if you would to sell it would be easier to sell a brandable domain name instead of a domain name that holds your name.
Reply to this commentIt’d be interesting with my blog, as whilst I don’t have my full name, it does have my first name in the title. I think a bunch of people do call it “The Gospel”, but expect to see my writing, not anybody elses.
How do you think my blog is branded?
Reply to this commentIt’s easy to see how well something is branded. Just ask, “would it be weird if someone else wrote for this site”. If the answer is yes, the person is branded more than the blog - like on johnchow.com
If the answer is no - the blog has the brand and it can be transferred/sold a lot more easily.
In your situation, I think it would be a little weird if TGAT was suddenly written by a Dave or a Mike.
Reply to this commentBut other people do write on john’s site and it really isn’t all that weird.
Reply to this commentIt would be if they wrote on it everyday and John never wrote on it.
Reply to this commentThats why those are called Guest bloggers, because they are guests and not blog owners. And the rest of the answer Cash Quest already gave to you
Reply to this commentMy personal take is that Gospel Rhys is simply fantastic. It can do well for a domain name indeed.
Reply to this commentI definitey have to agree with you John the restrictions of getting Guest Bloggers in. One other example I can cite is http://www.myblogpost.com which I believe has over half a dozen writers who regularly author there. If the owner had his name, as you said, it wouldn’t have been easy for him to set up the idea.
Great Post
Reply to this commentthats why i got fatmanunleashed.
Reply to this commentBut are you really fat? (No offense)
Reply to this commentSupposing your domain had something to do with health issues, and particularly say, weight loss programs it can be a great domain name.
Reply to this commentSometimes using your own name in the domain is good especially when your name is well known (Your name is branded!).For instance if Bill Gates would come up with a blog domain name containing his own name, John Chow would be in trouble. I mean Bill’s blog would attract more visitors. But if you are not popular and if you want to sell your blog in due course, John’s advice is alright. If you do not want to sell it John Chow Junior can pick it up and continue with it.
Clement Nyirenda’s blog world
Reply to this commentI never intended my blog to be commercial at the start either, but that’s how it became. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using your name in your domain. It gives the blog a unique URL that stands out from the crowd.
Rense.com gets 10 million hits per month. Even though its not a blog, it gets very high traffic for a site named after its founder. Many people think that you need the perfect name to make a web site successful, but its not the name that drives traffic (or SEO tricks), its content. My blog, cyprich.com, is averaging 950 unique visitors a day this month so far and I don’t think it would be getting higher traffic if I had named it successfulprogramming.com or something else.
Reply to this commentGreat Post!
Reply to this commentA really good question. But now is John Chow a well known name
And maybe it will be like IBM or BMW in a view years…… I will check it!
Reply to this commentJohn,
You could always move all your content over to another domain and redirect everything from johnchow.com, or is that too risky?
Reply to this commentHe will then loose all his ranks that he has built for quite some time. From an Alexa ranking of under 3000, he will start all the way over 1 million and he won’t get a Google Page Rank of 5 and he will not be listed under the top 100 blogs is Technorati.
You see, there are lots of consequences.
Reply to this commentWhat about the blog that John started in the shadows of this one? The one he is testing to see if he can get it up there pretty quick? Perhaps what he could do it bring that one up to surpass this one, and then take this one back to its original roots but still keep the PR and etc
Reply to this commentI always go for a SEO friendly name based on keyword research and it has never failed me yet. When I first started themakemoneyonline.net I was told by lots of people it was way too competitive yet already I’m starting to see search traffic from that phrase.
Reply to this commentThis is very good thinking and a good idea to follow.
Reply to this commentThat’s true, although some SEO experts say domain names don’t matter, it does and if you look at #1 ranking for any good keyword, that keyword itself is in the domain name.
Reply to this commentIf you use your name as a brand for your blog this blog is yours forever :). I agree. But this is the only bad thing about using your name. If you achieve high level of credibility in your area, this name will become your strongest trade mark and your biggest money source.
Reply to this commentAahh.. that’s a fabulous tip. I am just thinking of getting another domain wif my name but guess I am enlightened now~
Reply to this commentTQ~
John,
I recently discussed the selling problem in of my posts Get your blog an own domain. As I do also use my name as a domain, I´m involved in this problem. But I do not even think about selling my blog. But of course, this would be a matter of money.
Cheers
Reply to this commentMarco
http://www.marcorichter.net
nice post John…
Reply to this commenti don’t know if it was discussed but it’s just me with my firefox and google toolbar or did johnchow.com went back to PR 5?
A question many bloggers face. You make some good points.
Reply to this commentThe reasoning is flawless and practical. Well written John.
Reply to this commentI started out wanted to have a personal blog just to share things but my blog has evolve into something that passes on information.
I don’t think I will get another domain real soon but I guess I will want to make my blog on my name sells well.
Wish me luck!
Reply to this commentIt’s a great post about stating the obvious, and I mean that without any sarcasm. Sure, I can see how some people’s personal blogs exploded into something bigger and lead them down the same path you are on, John. But if you’re just starting out and looking to monetize, brand your blog.
Reply to this commentFor my needs, I had every intention of using my own name as my domain name. I felt it gave me credibility both online and offline. It’s cool when complete strangers recognize you and call you by your name. It also looks great on a professional resume
Reply to this commentLet’s see: my last name alone has 13 letters in it. Only two of those are vowels and there is a string of 8 consonants in a row. If I ever decided to use my name, no one would ever return because they would have no idea how to spell it.
StartBlogging.net is much easier to remember.
Reply to this commentit’s amazing how you could come up with blogging topics all the time John!
Reply to this commentI definitely should’ve thought of that before registering my name as my domain….at least I’m #5 in Google for my first name
Reply to this commentI decided not to go with my name precisely because of those reasons. Mainly because I also wanted other writers to be able to contribute liberally.
Reply to this commentMy name is taken for basically every extension… it’s a very generic name and I agree about your “branding”. The name of my blog is Eureka Diary… mainly because it’s a journal format of the types of AHA moments I have in Internet Marketing.
I love that feeling when you get a great idea and the concept keeps flowing and branching to new ideas and you get incredibly excited to get started. That’s why I named it EurekaDiary… but even that name wouldn’t be easily sold - not generic enough IMHO. But if you want to buy it for lots and lots I won’t refuse… hehe
Reply to this commentDoesn’t this go against the being a Dot Com Mogul checklist? Having your name as the domain name was one of the criteria
I choose to use my name because if you do a search for me, I come in the number one spot
I’ve had friends in the past find me that way because of it it too. But then again my blog is not really commercialized. I talk about whatever comes to mind, rants, PHP coding, MySQL tips, WordPress comparisons, local or international news whatever!
Reply to this commentI was going to use my own name, but it’s a little long…Jorge Orduna.com just isn’t as easy to remember as sirjorge.com
Reply to this commentthe problem only come when you are trying to sell it
Reply to this commentMaybe I shouldn’t think of selling. Owning a domain with my name means forever…
Reply to this commentBut would this site be as well branded with a generic name? Would it be as popular? Do people come just to make money online or do they come to find out what John Chow says to make money online? Why do they return?
Reply to this commentAh, very true. I wish I had thought about that before making my site.
Reply to this commentI think using his own name is only good for a personal/private blog.
Reply to this commentthe most biggest Companies using all fantasy names or something like that. for example: Google, Sedo, Ayom, Yahoo ….
It pays to use your own name only if you are somewhat famous
Reply to this commentI guess John has managed to pull the rabbit out of the hat as he was not that famous in the first place
Reply to this commentIf you knew about TTZ then Moto is famous
lol
Reply to this comment… in the good ol’ days. It doesn’t work like that any more
Reply to this commentMy blog, my thoughts, my advice… so having my name as the domain name makes sense of course!
Reply to this commentI totally second your thoughts, having our name as the blog domain is like saying out to others that “Now you are in here, all of the things here are by [blogger's name]“!
Reply to this commentI dunno. Blogs are personal logs. Companies have blogs, but they are usually a subdomain (www.amalgamateddust.com/blog) of the company name.
Reply to this commentBlogs should be related to names (if possible) because of the personal value they bring to the reader - Jason Calcanis for instance. We know him, his blog is an extension of him and what he writes.
I think John’s entry suggests that all blogs are eventually for sale. I don’t think that is the case with a personal blog. A niche blog, yes. Personal, know. I doubt Jeremy would let go of Shoemoney any time soon.
John,
Did you already own a domain that you initially wanted to use commercially for a blog such as this one, only for JohnChow.com to beat it to the punch?
Reply to this commentDARN! Great feedback! I just switched over my clickbiz.tv to my actual name Lindsey Harper. Mostly for credibility sake I do think there is valuein using your name and creating a brand around that. so question for you.. I also bought MarthaStewartonCrack.com.. can I use that or is that a “trademarked” name
and no it’s not about drugs 
I am slightly addicted to many hobbies! and web businesses and all sorts of other fun things!
Reply to this commentyou know what’s really crazy? I found out about your site only a few months ago and was thinking to myself that I actually have a domain name with my name on it too. (I bought it a couple of years ago just to show off to my non-html knowledgeable friends). I saw your blog and was thinking maybe I could actually develop that domain name, and here you are posting about that idea today haha.
I don’t know if you saw that big money website I sent the other day. It’s like a blog, but a forum at the same time, although I am manually adding posts in HTML, I don’t know how to make an automated blog software. This is one reason I am just keeping a “blog” there rather than my own name domain name..
Reply to this commentyeah I did, but I also want to blog about my current work stuff so I decided it was better to use my name.. (frankly I like more creative blog names!) so it has a dual purpose. work blogging (I work at microsoft) and also talk about things I do outside of work like web businesses, crafty techy stuff and etc. etc… so i was stumped!
Reply to this commentI agree, a personal site/blog is fine if it’s in your own name, but commercial sites should have a less personal domain name especially if you might one day want to sell it to somebody else.
Reply to this commentChrisJacobson.com was already taken, so I resorted to using a company name, which has worked out nicely for me.
Reply to this commentI decided to go with a new domain rather than using my own name domain which I already owned. I was tempted to use my name domain since it was several years old and has a PR4. But I thought it would be better to go with a generic domain name which would allow easier reselling if I wanted to do that plus greater flexibility.
Reply to this commentIt’s funny that you have wrote about this actually because I have owned kevinmuldoon.com for several years and I was planning on launching a personal blog.
As you said though, using my own name as the domain name might not be the best idea. I will never sell the domain name however what it comes down to is what will the site be about.
Reply to this commentAnything Irish.
Reply to this commentMr. Chow,
I know this comment is not related to your post now, but I have a suggestion for your blog to make a “general comments” section.
The reason? I am reading your Ebook right now and would like to provide thanks for providing that .htaccess code on page 22. I thought I had this covered but apparently not, until now. Major SEO help for me. If you have links to a www and a non-www inside your domain name with the same content, I believe you get duplicate content penalties and you get killed in google (could be the root of all my failures in the past). Just thought I would share that.
Best
Reply to this commentHe also has a Contact Page where you can send it to him if its not about a particular post.
Reply to this commentNice Post John
Reply to this commentIt actually depends. For me, i would use yourownname.com as domain when you plan to develope yourself as an expert in your respected field first. At least, you will gain the close relationship with your targeted market. Then, you definitely will need yourkeywords.com or yourbrand.com for commercial purposes. I’m in the process of developing my own name then next step create other sites that sell something.
Reply to this commentI also think that using your own name for a website will make it hard to rank for different keywords… The search engines love the websites that have at least one keyword in your domain name, just do a search on an important high paying keyword, and you will see for yourself.
Reply to this commentYour theory is good but there are always exceptions. Dear Abby is still an advice column but she’s dead. Someone else is giving Abby’s advice now…serial advice… and I guess it’s working.
..scary. I think I’ll buy John Chow’s name…after he’s gone of course…maybe 
Reply to this commentJeeze what if Stephen King could write novels for all eternity or Jackie Collins or Erma Bombeck..
It’s a two-edged sword. Somewhat one-sided to claim it would always be wrong to use one’s own name. If you’re truly trying to build online credibility for further activities like consultancy, speeches, e-book writting etc. you might need your name exposed so you can become well-known in your field of expertise - your niche.
Also, selling one’s blog would be next to impossible. Noone could catch quite the same style of writting. I don’t know if this was your best blog article John. But I do know that you are always well worth reading, and that should count for something.
Taking John Chow out of the JohnChow.com-blog would be like eating a nice chinese rice and meat (and sauce) dinner without any of the sweet and sour sauce. Pretty boring. True?
Therefore: keep up the good work.
Reply to this commentWell..
Reply to this commentHe could have a boy and bring him up to be the next John Chow (Jr.) Actually he could do that with his daughter. You can’t see her. No one would know. Just think how much the site would be worth at the time of “The Great Ones” demise. You diggin this John? What a legacy!
As a fellow “my name dot com” blogger, I really enjoyed that post John.
But I’m on the lucky end of things…at least when it comes to selling the domain name. In fact, I’ve already been presented with some rather lucrative offers to sell it…and that’s because I happen to share my name with a major league baseball player…Aaron Cook of the Colorado Rockies.
But since I waited over 4 years to finally snag the AaronCook.com domain name, there’s no way I’m selling it! At least not until the offers exceed 5 figures.
As for branding, it all comes down to the approach. If you know how, you can successfully brand anything…you just have to understand the nature of your customers and your future customers. And ultimately, it all comes down to your readers and your audience.
Shine on,
Reply to this commentAaron
Good points. Exactly the reasons I didn’t use my name for my new blog.
But John, you can’t seriously take the business opportunities seriously lmao. According to them my blog (Internet babel dot com) is worth $23,000 + HA! as if. That tool is ridiculously innacurate.
Reply to this commentVery good post John. When I started reading the post even I waas wondering why did you refuse Scott Wainner to use his own name as the domain name when you too have your name on your blog. But all my doubts got cleared as soon as I reached to the end of the post.
Reply to this commentI must say you have explained the whole concept of not using names in domain name very beautifully in your post.
Credibility and reputation sells…I know that I (the general public consumer) would be a lot quicker to buy anything John recommended (even unrelated items) because I feel that I know him personally (even though I don’t ) and he’s built up a trust factor through valuable conent. When I think about someone else giving the same advice under John’s name, I feel cheated, even though it may be the same, word for word. Seems to me it’s ok, even good, especially if you have things to sell….if what you have to say has value and you don’t plan to sell your site…ever. It certain