Top Level Domain for your Website – Should You Have One?
A top level domain for your website is critical, if you’re serious about being taken serious. There is not that screams, “AMATEUR,” quite like yourhastilychosenusername.somebodyelsesdomain.com/abiglongnumber. Hint: Don’t waste your time promoting someone else’ website!
There is nothing wrong with being an affiliate and promoting another company’s products. In fact, that’s just smart. That’s what The Winning Affiliate does. Being an affiliate gives you access to products without any of the normal costs associated with owning a business.
But never make the mistake of just grabbing a pre-made affiliate website with some long affiliate subdomain handle attached to it. It really looks terrible, plus a lot of people simply scratch the affilate code off and go directly to the main site. To be blunt, if you are promoting a typical affiliate page, you are part of a vast herd of wannabes who are all promoting the same page – and that simply doesn’t work, except for the actual owner of the top level domain.
Disclaimer: Certain links on this site are affiliate links for which the owner is remunerated for sales and/or leads.
A top level domain is, as the name says, the main domain, not a subdomain. The top level domain is the one that starts with www and ends with .com, .net, .biz, or whatever. While .com is the choicest and best for a top level domain, all the others are still better than a software-generated affiliate subdomain.
It’s not expensive to register a top level domain. All of ours are registered through our web host, who have proven to be the most reliable, supportive and all around good value of the many we’ve tried over the years.
Here’s a little secret: We moved away from our host for a while. You know the old saying – “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” In fact, it was a really, really bad idea. Our new host was great at the beginning. It was a company that had been around for a while, too. But then things started to go wrong, sites began to get corrupted, and suddenly, support was non-existent.
I won’t say who that host was. Suffice to say, the owner is an Ottawa, Canada expatriate living in Texas, and I wouldn’t add another dime to his bank account if his was the last web host on the planet! (Big grin.) That’s what happens when your web host’s secret for making a lot of money is creating one over-hyped “Network Marketing” program, after another.
Our host now, which we were very happy to go back to, has been fantastic. Their price is good, and their service and expertise is second to none.
That’s also where we register all our top level domains. The price is well below many of the others, and their reliability and ease of access makes them a really good choice. Furthermore, their price makes it clear that there’s no excuse for anyone who’s serious about being in business not having their own top level domain. It’s simply not expensive.
What is your experience? Do you have a good domain name? Is it worth it? Where do you host it? Your comments and links (no spam, please) are welcome below.
Dave Cottrell is opinionated, compassionate, and passionate about people, marketing and online business. He does a lot of digging, experimenting and research, and writes like crazy about a wide variety of topics and subjects. He is the owner of many websites and blogs; you can read his rants and find out more about him at https://www.davecottrell.com/
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