Thinking About Domain Names

It seems every year, the price of domain names increases. Michael recently blogged Domains Cost More, Blogs Disappear, and not three weeks later I got my increase email from NameCheap.

On November 1, 2026, the registry responsible for .com domains will increase its prices across the industry. Pricing for registrations, transfers, and renewals will all be affected.

My renewal price will be $19.98, which breaks down to $1.67 a month, which isn't bad. I mean, I blow a lot more money on stupid stuff both online and off, but when I think about owning multiple domains, that is when things become a bit more tricky.

I'm in a much better place than last year, but currently I own two active domains (this site and the domain I use for my email address). I have one other domain I was going to use for a secondary blog I decided against, and I have one more that is expiring that I used last year. So, that's an improvement from when I had 8-10 active domain names, which would have put me in the $160-$200 yearly price range, which I could never stomach.

Of course, I could move the domains to a cheaper option, and I may do this, but the reasoning for this blog is not how to pay for my domain cheaper, but rather, is a domain necessary at all?

Take Stephen's blog, An Almost Anonymous Blog. It's hosted on Bear, and he uses a subdomain on there: https://lwgrs.bearblog.dev/. Have I ever once questioned his blog or thought less of it for not having a domain name? Absolutely not. In fact, I associate it with that subdomain. I personally think I would hate it if he added a custom domain at this point. To me, lwgrs = Stephen. I have no friggin' idea what lwgrs stands for, but that's irrelevant. :)

The point is, his blog has an address and I've had it bookmarked/added to my RSS/linked on my blog for years now, and everything has worked out well. I guess the only true con would be I can't type the blog into my browser quickly if I needed to access it and I didn't have access to my own blog/RSS/bookmarks or email, which of course is never. It's just not as simple as Stephen's Blog or something like that. But again, Stephen saves $20, and I still read the blog.... so again, I must ask the question, is a domain necessary at all when it comes to personal blogs? I understand it when you are selling something or have a brand, but for our mindless ramblings online, is it needed?

I think somewhere along the way we convinced ourselves that having a custom domain was a sign of legitimacy. I remember when everyone had a Blogger, LiveJournal, or WordPress address, and nobody seemed to care. You signed up, picked a name, and started writing. These days, it seems like we spend as much time worrying about domains, hosting, themes, and all the other nonsense as we do actually writing. I'm certainly guilty of that. Sometimes I wonder if we've made a simple hobby more complicated than it needs to be.

Of course, there is an argument to be made for owning your domain, and it's a good one. You own your address, and if you decide to move from Blogger to WordPress to Scribbles, your readers can follow you without having to change their bookmarks or RSS subscriptions. If you're using a free subdomain and the service shuts down, you're out of luck. All those links pointing to your blog are suddenly worthless. I've moved my blog enough times over the years to appreciate having that freedom, but I still wonder if it's something every personal blogger really needs.

And then there's the question of whether readers even care. When I come across a blog I enjoy, I'm not looking at the address bar to see whether the person paid for a domain. I'm reading what they wrote. If I like it, I subscribe to their RSS feed and move on. I'd imagine most people are the same way.

For many years, I used a subdomain on Blogger, and just today, which helped prompt me to finally write this, Vincent added custom subdomains to Scribbles. Would anyone care if my blog pointed to brandonsjournal.scribbles.page? Would it really make that big of a difference?

I guess what I'm getting at is that maybe we've put too much importance on something that doesn't matter much to the average reader. I'm not making money from this blog. I'm not building a business or trying to create some sort of brand. I'm just a guy who enjoys writing about things that interest him, and occasionally someone stops by to read them. If making blogging cheaper and easier means more people are willing to start a blog or keep an existing one going, then I'm all for it.

A domain gives your blog an address, but it's the writing that gives people a reason to visit.