04-02-Domain Name-Your Identity

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What is a Domain Name?

A domain name, owned or rented by a person or organization, is a name consisting of alphanumeric characters to locate the Internet address of a website or blog.  Other characters such as $, # and & cannot be included in a domain name.

A domain name is one of the components of a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) that is used to access a website or blog.  For example, if you have a registered domain name like myblog.com, your domain name URL is composed of:

• Top level domain name: com
• Second level domain name: myblog.com
• Host name: www.myblog.com
• URL: http://www.myblog.com

Domain Name for Your Blog with Blogger.com

When you create an account with Blogger.com, you will be required to provide your domain name for your blog.  Blogger.com will tell you if your chosen domain name is already taken and you cannot use it.  You have to choose another available domain name before Blogger.com processes your account application.

Ownership of your Domain Name

If you choose a domain name, for example: whydoiblog, and submit it to Blogger.com, and you do not register and pay for it with a domain name website, your domain name will appear like this:  www.whydoiblog.blogspot.com.  But if you register your domain name with a domain name website, your domain name will be shown as: www.whydoiblog.com.

Your domain name, if not registered with a domain name website, will be maintained by Blogger.com.  In the Blogger.com, nobody can use your blog domain name because it is associated with your current email address and password. One way to give your domain name to others is to change your existing domain name with a new domain name and allow somebody to use your old domain name.  With the change, your new domain name will be associated with your current email address and password.

Here is the problem if you will not register your domain name with a domain name website.  Let us talk about my case.  I submitted my domain name: money1guide to Blogger.com and it said that money1guide was available for use.  So after publishing my blog posts to the Internet, my domain name was shown as: www.money1guide.blogspot.com.  When I went to www.register.com website to verify if money1guide was already owned or still available, I was surprised - money1guide was not yet taken and still available when I already published my first blog with the domain name: money1guide.

For curiosity, please try verifying one of the following actual and live blog domain names and do the following steps:

http://waltmussell.blogspot.com/

http://sewnanawhereareyou.blogspot.com/

http://wyosarah203.blogspot.com/

http://obpopcultref.blogspot.com/

1.  Type the phrase: domain name on the search box below and press the Enter key.

2.  Select www.godaddy.com or any domain name website from the searched list.

3.  On the domain name box, type waltmussell (http://waltmussel.blogspot.com/).

4.  You will see that waltmussel is available (to be claimed and registered with a domain name website).

5.  Go to www.whois.com website and type waltmussell to find out if it is already owned and registered.  The truth: it is not yet owned by waltmussell blog owner or anybody.

6.  Repeat steps 1 to 5 for the other domain names listed above.

What will happen later on?  If I will not register money1guide, let's say with www.register.com, somebody will use money1guide and there will be confusion on domain name ownership.  So what I did, I registered money1guide with www.register.com website and paid a domain name registration fee of $3.95 for one year to "rent" the phrase money1guide.  If I will not pay the second year renewal fee, I will not own the domain name money1guide anymore and anybody can claim, register and use it.

Changing Your Domain Name with Blogger.com

After you have created an account and submitted your domain name, let's say mygardening for your blog with Blogger.com, your URL will appear like this: http://www.mygardening.blogspot.com.

You can change your blog domain name anytime you want because the Blogger's dashboard is within your 100% control.  To change your domain name, do the following:

1. Go to Blogger.com sign in page and enter your email address and password to bring you to the Dashboard page.
2. Click on Settings > Basic > Title > Edit.
3. Type in the box your new blog domain name and click on Save Changes.

When you click on the Publish button, you will see your new blog domain name on the Internet.

Your domain name is kept and hosted by Blogger.com for free forever, unless it changes its policy.  Your blog with Blogger.com is hosted by Blogspot.com, also for free forever, unless it changes its policy.

Please try to check your proposed domain name by using the search box above.  With your chosen domain name, you can start blogging using Blogger platform.  Happy Blogging!

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