Always Own Your Name

Who owns your name?

That might seem like a silly question. You do. . .don’t you? When it comes to online, the answer is that you might not. And if you aren’t careful, someone else will own it.

My brother’s name is Richard Bliss. He’s a social media consultant. His company provides training and coaching for everyone from sales teams to c-level executives on how to manage their online persona. He’s brilliant.

He doesn’t own his name.

Nearly 20 years ago he owned richardbliss.com. And like most of us, he rarely considered renewing it until the month it came due. Well, one thing led to another and he kept putting off renewing it. He had the money, of course. It’s ten bucks or so. And, besides, who else would want it?

It turned out that he actually let the domain become available online. And someone else wanted it. They wanted it A LOT. It was immediately snatched up. But, if you try to navigate to richardbliss.com there’s no website there. There’s no email addresses @richardbliss.com. He domain got snatched up by a squatter. The squatter offered to sell the domain back for thousands of dollars.

That happened in 2003. The squatter still owns the website.

Richard’s company website is blisspointconsult.com. And that’s a perfectly fine name. But, it’s not HIS name.

These scribbles appear online at the location of rodneymbliss.com. That’s certainly my name. But, I wish I had the domain name without my middle initial “M like Mary. . .but that’s not it!” That domain belonged to another Rodney Bliss who was a real estate broker back east somewhere. Eventually, he let it become available. I could have registered it for a couple hundred dollars. I decided to wait until the price dropped to what most new domains cost, $15 or so.

I’m still waiting. It’s been two years. I doubt I’m ever going to get it. It’s owned by a squatter.

There are literally millions of possible domain names. And if you are starting a company, or a blog, or an ecommerce site, you can be creative. But, if you want your name on the web. But it as soon as it is available and then continue to renew it.

Always own your own name.

Stay safe

Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren. Order Miscellany II, an anthology including his latest short story, “The Mercy System” here

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