Now this is kind of scary.
I was thinking of opening up a political site of some type and was pondering domain names that had a 'centrist' or 'moderate' or 'independent' feel to them. At one point, just to get started, and fully expecting it to be taken, I typed in:
http://www.thecentrist.com
Go ahead and give it a spin. It's obviously been grabbed by some domain harvester and is just being used as a generic starting point for search items from which they unquestionably make money.
But, notice anything odd about the above page?
There's no 'Buy Me' link.
And that's scary. It's one thing if the harvesters extort some bucks out of you to buy that treasured domain name that you simply must have for your new business empire — quite another if it's not for sale in the first place.
As I've noted before, once 'yourname.com' is gone, it's gone forever. If it ever became available again, it'd be snapped up within electronical micro-seconds by the harvesters. They figure, correctly, that if John Q. Flubberdumper owned johnqflubberdumper.com once, that another John Q. Flubberdumper will want it again in the future. Or, perhaps more likely, the original Mr. Flubberdumper will suddenly have a reason for a site and want to buy it back.
One point of confusion is that we're not talking about actually having a 'site', as in web site or blog site; we're just talking about holding the domain name until you put a site on it. Which, I note, is getting easier and easier. I've got a great 'starter kit' on Doc's WordPress Guide that sets you up with my improved customized WordPress software, all of the necessary plugins, a sample streaming video, and a whole shitload of cool themes to choose from.
For hosting services, I've been a big fan of Blue Host for almost a decade. Unlimited server space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited email boxes, unlimited everything, and all for a whopping $5.95/mo. The above link takes you to their site. If you'd like to read some tips on digging up an available domain name, check this out.
If you ever — ever — think you might want a personal domain name, now's the time to grab it.
