Season 5 Episode 8

I have a bit of a puzzle for you in this episode. And I don't know the right answer to this question.

I was in a conversation earlier in the week with someone, and the question came up do you have your own domain name still? Does it even matter? Do you use it? Or do you have a domain name for a project, or do you no longer care about that?

Do you even have a Web site or just a social media account?

This bothered me greatly. Maybe it's because I'm old school. Owning my name as a domain name, peterwitham.com, is super important to me still.

I have several reasons. First, it's easy to just tell people, that's where you can find me. If people were looking for me, it's a safe bet they try a .com first, or it comes up in a search. They'll realize, okay, that's the guy I'm looking for. It's very recognizable and branded to me because it's my name.

I have social media accounts, but I don't consider them essential compared to a domain name because social networks come and go. What if I cannot get the username that I want on a particular network? It may be that a new network comes up, and I cannot get it.

Well, now I've got a problem because I'm going to have to use a different name. Whereas if I go the route that I do now, everything points back to my domain names at some point. It's not a problem. Right?

I may not get all the traffic that I want, but at least it points to a place that's mine. I own its destiny for the most part. I'm not reliant on a company, service, or something else that could go away in the future.

I do have some real issues with just having social networks as being your place for your content. Now there's nothing wrong with that. It's perfectly okay, and many people will be happy with it.

But I don't think it's an excellent online philosophy to take that approach.

What if, for example, you're using Twitter, then you get banned. Let's say you get banned by mistake. Well, while you're fighting to try and get that ban removed, or maybe never removed.

You've got this problem now that people knew to find you there and now they can't get to you. Whereas, if you have your own domain name, You are still in a position where they're going to find you or know that's you.

If you plan ahead and point your social media profiles back to your domain name, you're always telling them where your home is. Also, having this reliable home base that everybody can go to controlled by you.

So that's my thoughts on it. I understand that many people think, why bother, why set up a Web site? Just use a social media network, and you're good to go. I totally get that.

But if you don't put in the effort. You're not going to maximize the return on your time and effort. I think it's vital that you own your destiny as much as you can, and that still comes back to having a domain name somewhere if you can make that an option.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this because it's a very divided subject and it's a significant subject for us to think about and talk about.