Have you ever done a Google search for “Bob’s Blog”?
To my dismay, it doesn’t show up at all in the first ten pages of Google’s search results! I think the name, Bob’s Blog, must be one of the most common names for blogs out there. Everyone has one. “Bob’s” are a dime a dozen. (Try “Bob’s Blog Thinking Out Loud” or “Bob’s Blog Bergey” and it comes right to the top of the search results.)
To be honest, I knew that when I named it. But because the original purpose of this blog wasn’t to become famous or widely read, I wasn’t worried about it. I just wanted to make it available to friends who might enjoy some of my musings online outside of Facebook. This avoids the distractions of Facebook, for the most part.
But I do wish it was a little easier to find. Of course I checked other domain names. BobsBlog.com was long ago taken, and left to die three years ago by its owner. BobsBlog.net was registered but never used — what a waste, right? BobsBlog.org never got past the first blog post. So what’s a “Bob” blogger to do?
Fortunately, I’ve had the Bergey.net domain name for a long time — since 1995 as you may have seen in this site’s FAQ. It’s been used for a number of purposes over the years, starting with my professional photography studio, then for my web design and photography services for a number of years, and more recently it’s been waiting for Bob’s Blog to start. My friends know my last name, so Bergey.net isn’t all that difficult to connect. Still not quite perfect, though.
When I started my second podcast last November, “Bob’s Tech Talk,” I ran into a similar dilemma. There are lots of sites with that title. None of them, however, were podcast sites, so if you were to search on “Bob’s Tech Talk podcast,” my site is top of the search results. Still, the dot com domain and other common variations were not available. But that’s when I learned that the dot XYZ domain was rapidly rising to the fourth most common domain name, and that one was available. So I immediately registered it, and now https://bobstechtalk.xyz takes you to my podcast website for Bob’s Tech Talk.
So that got me thinking. As this blog is starting to get a bit of traction, I want to make it easier to find. SEO (search engine optimization) is important, and I have a lot of work to do on that yet (and I am working on it). But an easier domain name is key, too. Not only is bergey.net not an automatic connection for people who don’t know me well, but even those who do know me frequently have a problem spelling it correctly. And unlike major corporations, I don’t want to try and register all the common misspellings (that’s a story for another day).
While I was thinking about this earlier today, I decided to do some searching (again) for domain names that might include “BobsBlog.” Guess what! The dot XYZ domain was available! And not only that, it was on sale, just $1 for the first year! Jackpot! So that was a no-brainer. I bought it this morning, and redirected it to bergey.net. Now you can go to either bergey.net or bobsblog.xyz and you’ll end up right here! Pretty cool, right?!
NOTE: It usually takes 24-48 hours for a new domain name to propagate — the time for servers around the world to update new information — and begin working. So try it again in a day or two if it doesn’t work right now.
Oh, that reminds me — did you know the nonstandard punctuation “?!” has a name? I just learned yesterday, it’s called an interrobang — look it up! See what kinds of cool things you learn reading Bob’s Blog?!
