When news entered global ears that as at November 21st of 2016 dot blog domains were for sale, the general public was intrigued. It meant that instead of a my blog domain, you could have my dot blog domain. Okay, that’s cool but what did it mean and how would it work? That’s what we’re here to talk about, and we’ll cover just about everything relevant you need to know about dot blog domains and all the stuff in between so that it will make sense.
What is a Dog Blog Domain anyway?
A dot blog isn’t anything until you understand that it comes from a top shelf or to be specific a Top-Level domain. Shortened a top level domain looks like TLD and is referring to the bit that remains after the dot. Like, com, org, net, as, edu and if you want to get into the technological meaning further, head over to Techopedia where it is explained in length.
Now, to the dot blog. It’s an interesting story. Way back in 2015 dot blog domain control was auctioned off and bought by an enigmatic buyer for a sizable chunk of money to the tune of $19 million. That kind of money was not only an indication of things to come but was also about triple the value of any other TLD auction taking place at the time. It wasn’t until the latter part of 2016 when it was undisclosed that the mysterious buyer was WordPress’ Automattic who secured the dominance (no pun intended) over the sale of dot blog domains. Reasonably, they gave trademark owners first dibs and opened domains to the early birds whose paid applications were preferential. After that, the announcement was relayed across the world; dot blog domains were now officially for sale to the general public on November 21st, 2016.
Why Should You Consider a Dot Blog Domain?
After the brief history lesson, it’s a matter of weighing up your positives and negatives because you don’t want to tip the scales too far to the right. But imagine weightloss.Blog, vegan.Blog, healthyliving.blog and it only gets better with a little thought and imagination. There are more than 120 million dot com domains registered, and that number is growing daily. Given that figure, it’s getting more difficult to secure a dot com domain that suits your niche let alone your product. Trying to secure a single word dot com is almost near on impossible.
So, considering that this market is still relatively new, registering, for instance, vegan dot blog will set you back about $9,100. Weightloss.blog will bring you back to reality with a registration price tag of $3600. These are premium costs. Healthy living dot blog is a more modest and a little more affordable $366. The first two names are considered single word domains, the third is not.
There are two factors to take into consideration here. One is the newness of dot blog. With newness comes the price and Automattic are charging. Secondly, if you must have a dot blog domain, become flexible, and you’ll find an indicative single word domain, and it won’t cripple your bank account.
Dot Blog Domains Equates to Branding
Your blog is your brand; it’s the trust mechanism you’ve built over the time you’ve been maintaining it since its launch. Dot Blog is an exciting approach to a branding opportunity and while you might have vegan.com you now have the chance to harness vegan.blog. There’s a world of difference between the familiar and the new. There’s something intriguing in dot blog. My opinion only, but say it a couple of times … feel it. It’s short. Ayup, there’s something catchy about it.
Google’s SEO’s Don’t Penalise Dot Blog Domains
Google have stated there are no major concerns about the new top level domain extensions. Systems treat these as they do any other like dot com or dot org. So, go ahead and choose a dot blog instead of a dot com or both.
Just a note while we’re discussing this side of the coin, keywords in your TLD will not affect your rankings. If you decided to run with vegan dot blog, Google is not going to rate that as a match for those who are choosing a vegan diet and are searching for a vegan blog. In fact, it has been noted that Google doesn’t give exact keyword match domains any real importance any more so its of no concern in that regard either.
A Dot Blog Domain? Maybe Not.
Now that we’ve got you all excited and raring to launch your new domain, there are some negatives you need to consider. The dot com will remain the preferred domain extension. It’s common. It’s familiar, and above all else, it’s trusted. Beside all that, you want a name that is easy to remember and it most cases that will be a dot com.
Weigh up your options when you’re choosing between a dot com and a dot blog. If you’ve got a dot com that it pretty good and a dot blog that seems just a little better, you’d be better off sticking with the dot com. However, if the dot blog is great and the dot com is just coming in a slightly better, then the dot blog would be the better bet.
Dot Blog Is Not Yet Memorable
Give some serious thought to the fact that the dot blog is very new. There are people out there who don’t even know it exists. You change your domain to a dot blog, and you could be your worst enemy. Why?
- People might forget your website
- Trust may have leapt right out the window
- Your authenticity is at risk
Given that Automattic’s target is to register 250k dot blog domains over the next twelve months, it will remain to be seen if it is successful. If it is, then the new domain extension will be as familiar to the general public as a dot com. We’ll just wait and see. It’s still early days yet.
Purchasing a Dot Blog Domain
Checking in with GoDaddy and Namecheap we’ve found we can buy dot blog domains, however, as explained earlier, dot blog is a premium domain which these registrars consider are more valuable because of their common word or phrases people use to search online. That seems to clash with the claim that keywords in your TLD don’t affect your rankings. GoFigger. Purchasing from get.blog is a little more for regular dot blog extensions, and once again, a single premium word is up in the high thousands.
Concluding
It remains a personal choice, and by the looks of the prices of a dot blog versus a dot com, at this stage, it looks as though the dot com will remain the first choice. There are many single word domains still to be claimed with a dot com and it’s just a matter of keeping in mind the memorability and the simplicity of the domain. Having said that, we’ll wait to see how Automattic fares while it targets that number of domains and then maybe there will be a better indication as to how well the dot blog will be accepted.