One hot Internet topic, these days, involves specialised ("vanity") domains.
The hot names seem to change, by the week. This week, enom is hyping ".family", ".live", ".rocks", and ".social". Other registrars may have other recommendations.
The blog Address (Name) is a key blog identity element, in a well designed blog. It's visible both to people, and to search engine crawlers.
The requirement that addresses must be unique is a supposed benefit of vanity top level domains - but vanity TLDs, alone, will not provide blog uniqueness. There will always be competition for some names, in any useful Top Level Domain.
My suspicion is that the shinier the TLD, the more competition you may see, between people who plan their uniqueness around choosing the perfect name.
Any popular blog / website subject will have name competition.
I could publish this blog as "chucksblog.com" - and that would be a shiny and unique name. Until another "Chuck" registered "chucksblog.us", or maybe "chucksblog.name". How unique would "chucksblog" be, then? How many readers could I expect, if they know "chucksblog" - but can't remember if it is "chucksblog.com", "chucksblog.info", or "chucksblog.name"?
If your blog has a popular subject, you won't have a unique name - unless you register your name, in every possible TLD that might be relevant to your name. And that will be a financial limitation, for many blog owners.
What name would you want your blog to have? For a truly shiny domain, you'll have competition.
Complete uniqueness == No competition == No interest == No readers.
McDonalds, for instance, may be able to register "mcdonalds.com", "mcdonalds.franchises", "mcdonalds.hamburgers", "mcdonalds.smallbusiness", etc (as each hypothetical TLD comes online) - and local domains "mcdonalds.co.uk", "mcdonalds.de", "mcdonalds.us", and so on.
Very few of the readers of this blog will be in a financial position to do all of that.
enom is hyping ".family", ".live", ".rocks", and ".social" - this week.
Your uniqueness strategy should include content.
You will have to develop a "uniqueness" strategy based on content - not solely on the address. You will need to understand that your blog may lose traffic, from people who know the blog "name" - but may not remember if "yourname" is a ".com", ".net", or ".us".
Of course, if you publish only to "blogspot", you will automatically have "yourname.blogspot.com", "yourname.blogspot.co.uk", "yourname.blogspot.de", and so on. You won't have "yourname.com", "yourname.net", and "yourname.us", however - unless you pay for the privilege.
Are you getting a feeling for the complexity of the branding issue? Good. Concentrate on content. The search engines index your blog - and provide you traffic - based on informative, interesting, and unique content.
Google denies the value of vanity domains, for raw SEO.
AdWeek weighs the issue, in What’s in a Name on Social?.
When it comes to vanity domains, Google has long denied that they affect search rankings. Their in-house tech team advised way back that registering a vanity domain for the sheer, hopeful sake of page rankings would be a fool’s errand. But there’s a solid number of marketers that disagree, and they watch these things very closely. Chalk it up to wishful thinking, if you like, but time will tell. And there are only so many .com domains available.
Only time will tell. I suggest that you keep your traffic and uniqueness strategy diverse. Don't depend upon a vanity domain, alone, for search reputation and traffic.
For best results, keep it in perspective.
Consider the name issue, if you want. But keep it in perspective. Blogger blogs will benefit from well written and unique content - as much as from a carefully chosen name / URL.
Some #Blogger blog owners are intent on publishing a blog to a custom domain, using a top level domain that relates to the blog subject. They do this, hoping to have a unique blog name.
They may overlook the idea that Blogger blogs benefit from well written and unique content, as much as from a shiny and unique URL.
People who speak (read / write) languages, that do not use Roman character sets, need to publish in their native language - and the Internet now supports that need.
Some registrars will register domains which use non Roman character sets, in the URL. Not all Internet services will accept non Roman characters, however.
My favourite online DNS diagnostic services, DigWebInterface, and intoDNS, and Rex Swain's HTTP Viewer, only use ASCII. One cannot use non ASCII ("non Roman") characters, with either service.
"بحث-سناب.com", as converted, shows an example of an Internationalized domain name.
To use DigWebInterface to retrieve DNS addresses, and intoDNS to check the domain setup, we have to convert the native URL to Ascii.
I use three reliable online services, which will convert URLs to ASCII.
Converting "بحث-سناب.com" to ASCII involves use of one of the latter services.
DomainTools
WhoIs - Identity for everyone
Who.is - Powered by Name.com
Using the 3 tools, we see that "بحث-سناب.com" == "xn----zmcbcml8b0j.com", "XN----ZMCBCML8B0J.COM", and "xn----zmcbcml8b0j.com", respectively. Look carefully, in the body of the display for each service, for the IDN equivalent.
We can then use "xn----zmcbcml8b0j.com", with DigWebInterface, and intoDNS - and get the necessary diagnostics.
And using the latter tools, we see a properly setup domain - which is now being used for a properly published Blogger blog, verified in Rex Swain.
DigWebInterface
intoDNS
Rex Swain's HTTP Viewer
And when assistance is requested, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, we can use these tools with non Roman character URLs.
There may be limitations, though.
Here is a blog published to "www.राजभाषाअनुभाग.भारत" - aka "www.xn--l1b0bn3cxacq2d2ccbd1b.xn--h2brj9c".
The IDN concept has now led to another domain name concept - "emoji" domains.
Some people have taken the ability to setup a domain, using non Roman characters, to another level. How about a domain name, which includes a smiley face?
This is a limited use feature. Maybe, the limit will save us?
The availability of emoji domains is limited. As of August 2017, there are eight top-level domains for which registration is possible, all of which are ccTLDs: .ai, .cf, .ga, .gq, .ml, .tk, .to, and .ws.
This is intriguing - but is it useful?
If people don't know how to "type" it, how will new readers access the blog? Will search engines index it? Does the Blogger "Create a blog" wizard actually support it?
The jury is still out, here. ".whatever" vanity TLDs started this trend. I'm not sure where this will go, with TLD "emoji" domains.
Houston, we may have a problem with TLDs that are IDN encoded.
For a TLD that is in English ("بحث-سناب.com"), both of these work:
http://www.digwebinterface.com/?hostnames=xn----zmcbcml8b0j.com%0D%0Awww.xn----zmcbcml8b0j.com&type=A&useresolver=8.8.4.4&ns=auth&nameservers=
https://intodns.com/xn----zmcbcml8b0j.com
For a TLD that is IDN encoded (राजभाषाअनुभाग.भारत"), we have mixed success.
This works:
http://www.digwebinterface.com/?hostnames=xn--l1b0bn3cxacq2d2ccbd1b.xn--h2brj9c%0D%0Awww.xn--l1b0bn3cxacq2d2ccbd1b.xn--h2brj9c&type=A&useresolver=8.8.4.4&ns=auth&nameservers=
This does not work:
https://intodns.com/check/?domain=%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%9C%E0%A4%AD%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B7%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%85%E0%A4%A8%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%AD%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%97.%E0%A4%AD%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A4
The Internet now supports use of non ASCII characters, in URLs. In order to publish #Blogger blogs to Internationalised Domain Names, we need to convert native URLs to ASCII - using any one of three identified online DNS services.
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/blogger/qKWZ0807m60
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/blogger/L1pv6CPUK18
The ability to publish a Blogger blog to a non BlogSpot URL is becoming a known - and desired - option for many bloggers. And with the retiring of FTP Publishing, many bloggers are turning to Custom Domain Publishing. Not everybody is satisfied with the TLD choice of ""com", "net", "info", "org", or "biz"", though.- Some folks would like to publish to a "vanity" TLD, like ".me", ".tv", or ".us".
- Others would like the country relevant TLD of their residence, like ".au", ".de", or ".in".
- And I have seen one or two queries about using a ".gov" TLD.
Custom domains will support use of any properly registered domain that you can "buy". The limitation is with the "Buy a Domain" wizard, which lets you select only a ".biz", ".com", ".info", ".net", or "org" generic Top Level Domain. Additional TLDs are available from eNom or GoDaddy, or any third party registrar that you can use.
When you choose your registrar, please make sure that your prospective registrar will provide "4 x "A" / "CNAME"" referral - that choice is essential, for a reliable custom domain. That is the basic requirement.
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