How Important Is a Unique Blog Domain?
Conventional wisdom holds that a blog ought to have its own original domain. Among the reasons cited is branding. Why dilute your brand by promoting “blogspot” or “typepad” in the blog’s URL?
But how important is a blog’s domain, or its entire URL for that matter?
I’m beginning to wonder. I pay less and less attention to URL’s all the time. Blogrolls display the blog title or author. Hypertext links usually include blog title, author, and/or a description of the linked blog or post.
For me, blog URL’s are like phone numbers and speed dial. A phone number that’s important–a brand I want to remember, if you will–goes straight to speed dial. If you were to ask me the cell phone number of my wife or daughters, I couldn’t tell you. But I can get ahold of them in a flash.
Many contend that a unique domain gives the blog a sense of legitimacy or professionalism. That may be true to some degree, but in the long run, it’s the blog’s content that determines its quality. If I were to rank blogs according to their value to me as a reader, the domain name would not enter into the equation at all.
Now, having your blog title match words in the blog URL is a good thing. (I’ve messed up badly there.) More on that some other time!
In his book “Small is the New Big,” Seth Godin has a brief bit on this. Given the way people actually find blogs/sites, the URL isn’t that important. Far more important is how and where you appear in search engines, like Google. That’s how most people find blogs and sites. Or through blogrolls, or friends passing on a link etc.
Brad, you are right on the money. If you don’t have good content, folks don’t stick.
And, some bloggers are better at technology than others. Now that we have MyBlogLog, it’s much easier to follow folks with graphics as well.