FRIDAY EVENING ANTICS

Status: On vacation

Doing: Writing this blog; finished cleaning the office; gone to the AM/PM for a 64 oz OJ, Pink Lemonade and Rico Hatchata (a milk, rice, cinnamon drink) combination. (Interesting taste.)

Watching: NOW and Washington Week; Bill Moyer

Listening to: "The Fine Art of Killing Yourself" by Terror Phat; "Stripper" by Lords of Acid; "I Ran So Far Away" by Flock of Seagulls

Reading: Resistance by J.M. Dillard (ST-TNG)


TOPIC: DOMAIN NAMES--ARE THEY NECESSARY?


I've had this argument before with a few people: Why is it so important to have a domain name?

And the answer I kept getting was: So people can find me easier.

Really?

So...is it that hard to type in Schuyler Thorpe?

Or The Starchild?

Let's see.


Schuyler Thorpe turns up 96,500 entries on Yahoo!

Schuyler Thorpe turns up 9,167 entries on MSN.

Schuyler Thorpe turns up 67,100 entries on Google.

The Starchild turns up 1.1 million entries on Yahoo! (Keep in mind, not all of them are mine.)

The Starchild turns up 132,802 entries on MSN.

The Starchild turns up 1.3 million on Google. (Keep in mind, not all of them are mine.)


The issue isn't whether I need to have a domain name, but whether or not it'll help me reach out to my readers.

And it brings me back to the previous post of whether or not contests are equally beneficial.

Domain names can be a great help for those big name authors like Jacqueline Carey, but what about no name authors like myself--whom have a dozen of websites that aren't so isolated, aren't unknown--but have gotten quite a bit of traffic off of?

Are domain names still necessary?

The answer would be no.

After 5 years of being part of the internet experience, having a domain name is essentially null and void.

I already have exposure. People know me through my various sites. Why do I need to make things more complicated by having another add-on?

Especially one that can be hacked rather easily?