Jun 24 2009
Choosing my TLD
I have been asked a few times why I chose the .eu TLD for this blog. Originally I considered a range of different TLDs, and the domain names that I was interested in were wildly available. Ultimately, my choice came down to the following factors (in no particular order):
- Cost: Everybody loves a bargain, and .eu domains are excellent value, as can be seen on Blacknight’s domain pricing web page.
- Simplicity: I love the fact that I can buy a .eu domain online in under 3 minutes.
- Privacy: I love my privacy! The only publicly available information about a person who owns a .eu domain is a contact email address and a contact language preference, as described in Can you remove my contact information from the WHOIS database?. It is really important to me that I remain anonymous, so that I do not get into difficulties with my employer! Also, I would not like somebody to be able to link my domains together due to the fact that they are all registered to me! The privacy policy of the .eu TLD is substantially better than any of the other domains that I considered using.
- Significance: I like what the EU represents, and this blog has an EU focus, so it makes sense to use a .eu domain.
Overall, the .ie ccTLD seems to be the worst TLD that I considered. It is very expensive, and I do not see any return for this extra cost. They are very regulated, and hence they are awkward to register. Yet this does not seem to prevent the registration of almost any domain. For example, and individual cannot register his/her first name (see IE Personal Domain Names) yet many first name domains exist because they were registered as sole traders!
I would be very interested in knowing what reasons other people consider important or unimportant when choosing TLDs for personal domains!