Most internet marketers know to purchase their own name as a dot com domain name if it is available. However, many don’t think to purchase the names of their spouses & children and that is a mistake for several reasons:
- Once it’s gone, it’s likely gone forever.
- It’s becoming more and more clear that the dot com domain name of a person’s full name will be a major part of their digital identity. A digital identity will be much harder to establish on a dot net or dot org domain.
- Online reputation management will continue to increase in importance and it’s much harder to do if somebody else is controlling your dot com domain name. With minimal work, your dot com domain name should be the top result returned on any search engine search of your name…so it’s important to control the message of that top search result.
So, even though my wife will never do anything with her own URL and my daughter and son are too young to do anything with their own domain names, I bought them anyway…smarter to have them in my own portfolio instead of someone else’s.
Todd Mintz knows PPC…knows Social Media…knows SEO…knows Blogging…knows Domaining…and knows them all real well. He runs growth marketing for )and is also a Director & Founding Member of SEMpdx: Portland, Oregon’s Search Engine Marketing Association, and he can be found here on Twitter and Facebook.
Interesting post Todd. I’ve been considering this for a while. Although, I’m not sure if I want syndicated ads placing “Hot ___ Photos” ads on my wife and kids urls. 🙂 How long do you usually buy your domains?
I just go 1 year at a time…since I make sure to keep an updated credit card at my registrar and have the domain renew automatically, I don’t see a need to register domain names for any longer than that.
FYI, it can’t be helped that my wife shares the same first name as a certain attractive race car driver…which is reflected in the parked page ads:.)
Good post Todd…. I took the whole “buying domains for your family” to another level last year when I bought my now wife’s domain name before we were even engaged. * I still get questions of why it took so long to propose, considering I bought her .com long before.
Scott Fish…mixing incurable romanticism with an in-depth knowledge of domaining:.)
Todd:
Pretty cool article and discussion string. We have been buying domains for family and friends as gifts this year. People really like having a frank@frankmurphy.com email address. We liken it to the Star Registery. Very cool, unique gift. Check us out next time you buy a personal domain…ssupport a little guy…lol.
Take care, here is the site again http://www.TheDotComYou.com
Jason