What is Custom Domain Name & Benefits of Using it?

78Shares

Benefits of Selecting a Custom Domain
  • Save

Have you heard the term “Custom domain name” & wondering what is it?

Most bloggers start on the blogging journey with BlogSpot.com or WordPress.com because the blogging investment is zero. This is always a safe way to start, but as someone who is looking forward to creating a career in blogging, this is a huge mistake.

Self-hosted blogs are the best options for those who are looking to make money from blogging.

Instead, I’m going to talk about custom domain names.

When you sign up for WordPress.com or BlogSpot, you get a domain like:

  • yourblog.blogspot.com
  • yourblog.wordpress.com

But for professional blogs, these kinds of domains are bad.

Many bloggers who blog using a free blogging platform usually don’t like to invest in a custom domain. They keep on blogging for years on the same sub-domain. They feel they can always change to a custom domain when they’re getting more traffic. But that’s not always true.

Note: When I talk about choosing a domain, I’m talking about a top-level root domain name like ShoutMeLoud.com, ShoutMeLoud.org, ShoutMeLoud.in, etc. When you sign up with BlogSpot or WordPress.com, you get a sub-domain like ShoutMeLoud.WordPress.com.

What are you missing without custom domain name?

Custom Domain
  • Save

  • If you’re blogging for a year and can drive lots of traffic, then your blog will have built up some domain authority. But when you switch to a custom domain, you will lose all of that DA, and you’ll have to start from the beginning. Even though you can maintain your rank in SERPs, your DA will go back to 0.
  • When you search for your blog in search engines, your new address won’t be visible for a while. It takes time for Google to pass on the link juice (after a 301 redirection) from an old sub-domain to your new root TLD.
  • You’ll need to update your Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools accounts to reflect your new name. While you can always use the old analytics codes in a new domain, it would be odd to measure your metrics for a new domain name under the old domain name.
  • You will need to submit a sitemap to all search engines again.
  • You’ll need to update your blog’s address on all social media profiles
  • When you shift from a sub-domain to a custom domain, you need to re-brand and re-market this new domain name.

Benefits Of Having A Custom Domain:

  • You have better exposure in search engines. Search engines (especially Google) prefer to link to root domains rather than .blogspot.com or .wordpress.com domains.
  • You can also increase your chances of getting approval for your AdSense account. Check out how Ankit got AdSense account approval with a one-month-old domain.
  • You can have a contact email like [email protected] rather than a Gmail or Yahoo email. Check out how to create a professional email ID using Google Apps.
  • You can publicize your domain name with ease rather than having to say a long name.
  • Root level domains are a lot more trustworthy in the eyes of users. If you are trying to make money blogging, you’ll have a much easier time with a custom domain than you would with a free sub-domain.

Perhaps the most important point is that you will have a brand name from day one.

Brand name
  • Save

Here at ShoutMeLoud, when I started blogging, I used the name “Virgintech”. I was on a BlogSpot blog and wanted to move to WordPress. But the domain Virgintech.com was taken, so I had to create a whole new brand.

Well, in your case, you are lucky enough to learn from my mistakes, and instead of waiting, you can grab a top-level root domain right from the start.

How To Choose A Custom Domain:

How to choose a domain
  • Save

We’ve detailed this topic extensively at SML, but here a few quick pointers…

  • Try to choose a shorter name rather than a longer name.
  • Make sure the name is easy to spell.
  • If you’re switching from a free sub-domain, try to keep the brand the same… ex: ShoutMeLoud.wordpress.com to ShoutMeLoud.com. If that’s not possible, try for something similar.

Check out:

Once you have understood the science of picking the best name for your blog, here are a few domain name suggestion tools which will help you in finding the perfect name.

You can buy the domain name from Namesilo or get a free one from Bluehost when you go to buy hosting (which you will need when you switch to WordPress). If you are using BlogSpot, this complete DIY guide will help you add a custom domain to your blog.

Adding domain to BlogSpot
  • Save

Similarly, you can add a custom domain from the WordPress.com admin dashboard.

But again, I will always suggest using a self-hosted WordPress blog instead of a free WordPress.com or BlogSpot blog. You can refer to this WordPress guide to get started.

So what do you think? What are some other reasons you can think of as to why we should start blogging with a custom domain name? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Like this post? Don’t forget to share it!

Was this helpful?

Thanks for your feedback!
  • Save
78Shares
Authored By
A Blogger, Author and a speaker! Harsh Agrawal is recognized as a leader in digital marketing and FinTech space. Fountainhead of ShoutMeLoud, and a Speaker at ASW, Hero Mindmine, Inorbit, IBM, India blockchain summit. Also, an award-winning blogger.

34 thoughts on “What is Custom Domain Name & Benefits of Using it?”

  1. Jimmy

    Harsh

    I know this post is a bit old. I would appreciate if you could assist with a question. I have a tumblr blog that i am switching to custom subdomain on my site. After doing that, I discovered that my external links to other sites when clicked are returning not found. This is partly because when I moved, i did it with CNAME. For example, If i had a link on your site, when clicked, it goes to the subdomain index page as 404 error
    So, is there a way to get and keep the external link juice on the new subdomain? Thanks

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      @Jimmy
      You need to figure out a way to 301 redirect all links to specific post/pages on your custom sub-domain blog to retain the link juice. Worse case scenario, even if you manage to redirect all links to your homepage of sub-domain blog, you still manage to save some of the link juice.

  2. kiran

    helllo Harsha,
    I just started blogging but I have some knowledge about blogging.actually I have a question
    I have purchased custom domain of (.com) for my blog which is on blogger.com but when I search in google and when I found my site,my old url is showing like xyz.blogspot.com
    why it is happening please tell me solution because I have been trying so much to fix it but couldn’t succeed.
    thank you

    1. Pradip Nalwaya

      Hello @KIRAN, I have also Same problem when I buy New Domain (.in). But Don’t worry About it. After Sometime is auto Solved.

  3. biswajit panda

    Why should all other companies, institutions and organisations dont use blogspot as domain instead of buying their own domain name

  4. Fatima

    Excellent post. I currently have a sub domain on blogspot. Was just wondering if I should go for custom domain for blogspot only or should I migrate to wordpress.

  5. Pratik Patil

    Comment: I did took a year to switch to a custom name and now lost my alexa rank 🙁 , all bloggers do note what harsh says…
    Thanks harsh..

  6. Mayank

    Hello everyone, i have recently updated my blogspot to a custom domain but i can’t see any ads from adsense and one more problem is that i don’t even know what things are to be changed in analytics and adsense, in order to continue wor in the same manner as it was before changing or redirecting to a custom domain.

  7. Ingenious

    Hi! I really find this post helpful. I am just starting to build my online presence, and I am so happy to have followed your advice – I just bought a custom domain for personal branding! I also have updated my custom domain on Blogger and everything seems fine.

    Well, I am figuring out if it’s okay to use free hosting such as blogger. I still don’t know if I should move or transfer to WordPress.

  8. kanza batool haider

    Thanks! that was a wonderful article. now i’ve got to seriuosly think over to buy my own custom domain as early possible. my blog is almost to complete an year and i fear i’d loose valuable traffic. Anyhow, never too late to get started 🙂 (Y)

  9. Rajiv

    Hi,

    Excellent article. I have created my blog in blogspot with good content and getting daily number visitor in my blog but when I have shifted my blogspot blog in custom domain I have lost ranking and visitors. Anyways excellent article post thanks for sharing huge information which very useful.

    Thank you.

  10. Ashkar

    You are absolutely right… I was running a blogger blog without a custome domain for years. And got pagerank upto 3, but my bad I choosed my new custom name and it’s new page rank is 0.. Hope I can regain it..
    Thank you. Nice post..

  11. Pinky

    Sir,
    I have a blog with sub domain.And it was disapproved by Adsense in 2 times. But if I buy any Domain from google at $10/year. May I apply for adsense again?Or it will be disqualified again! It is a running blog.What should I do? Or I should Open a new one?

    Thanks.

  12. Janak Kumar Yadav

    Now, I got a confusion. I am using bloggers free domain service .blogspot.com I want to move to my own domain,but my blogs title name was a common one so I opted for my name as blogs url. Now,what do I need to change before moving to my own domain,the blogs url or blogs name or both??

  13. Abhishek

    Exactly !! The sooner you move to custom domain, the better it would be. I had a PR=4 on blogspot sub-domain. But on recent transition to custom domain my PR fell down to Zero. That’s so much pain and loss of organic traffic as well !

  14. tarun

    Actually i have a custom domain,i am asking about the hosting. Will being hosted by google will affect my blog in long run or not.

  15. taun

    what if we host our custom domain on blogger,i am a newbie and familiar with blogger rather than wordpress thats why i don’t want to export my blog to wordpress. can you tell me if any hosting provider company providing hosting for blog on blogspot platform.

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      @Taun There are two part of this Hosting and Domain.
      When you are on BlogSpot.com You don’t need Hosting as Google take care of that. Though, as explained in this article, You can use custom domain (Instead of domain.BlogSpot.com, use domain.com)
      You can buy it directly from your BlogSpot dashboard> Settings. Let me know if you have more questions..

  16. Bablu

    I am thankful to you, I found really such great information on your blog.

    I have a request to you if you can make a article about Earning through blog.

    And how can we hold our users on our website through tool, just like you are using similar stories.

    Thanks,
    Bablu

  17. Sourav

    Nice Article 🙂 🙂
    I have a question though…
    What if we Host our .com/.net domain on a free webhosting site like 000webhost or byethost.com ???Will it effect our adsense earnings ???and Does it Effects the amount of page views we get daily ?

    1. Vijesh

      You can host your domain on free hosting providers but only thing when you get tons of traffic and you run out of bandwidth then it will definitely be a minus point for your Adsense earnings as the page wont be displayed instead it shows some error messages.

      Apart from that if your free hosting does provide an ample of bandwidth for your traffic it wont effect any of your Adsense earnings. In case you run out of bandwidth better go for paid hosting and at times websites which run on free hosting do load slow . If you have no such problems you can do wonders even with free hosting and a custom domain.

  18. Amrik

    Well Harsh! It is good to have a custom domain when you blog for money and for your career. It is good to choose a domain name with less than 7 characters, ideally. A simple name will roll off the tongue more easily in conversation, I always look more professional, and have less chance of being mis-typed.

    Thanks for sharing.

    regards,
    Amrik!

  19. sahil

    @harsh, its really a nice article and i do agree selection of domain name very much helps for good blogging

  20. jayaar

    I underwent all the problems that had been mentioned. But how many of the newbies would be able to understand these points (since he is a newbie) unless he experiences. As a non techie, I would not have understood these matters if I had come across a similar article when I started blogging. (May be I would have stumbled upon and would not have realized the importance of it).
    Sure,it is a good article to be considered seriously by the new bloggers.
    Thanks for the article.
    Regards……..

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top
78 Shares