Can someone offer insight into purchasing a new domain please?

  • Unknown's avatar
    cpanay1 · Member ·

    Hi

    I’ve finished my portfolio website and am ready to buy a .com domain.
    I just want a simple .com domain, no frills or spills and at a cheap price…
    I dont need any extra trimmings either. Just a .com domain.

    I believe I have 2 options?:

    1) But a domain from an external site, e.g GoDaddy/Google Domains and divert/ domain map back to wordpress.com.
    Which could total around £10-£20 p/year. That’s it. No more. Good price

    OR

    2) I have to buy a plan + a domain (!!!) on wordpress.com.
    Which could total £20 p/year for domain (free for 1 year), + e.g Personal plan for £36 p/year annually. Totalling £56 p/year!!

    Have I understood my options correctly?

    As I said I want no frills and trimmings, if I go for the ‘free’ plan (£ 0), can I just have the domain right??? What are the cons of that? (Apart from ads…!)

    Thanks!

    C

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    themagicrobot · Member ·

    (Apart from ads…!)

    That’s the crux of the matter really. Are you happy with the ads? If not then you’ll need a Personal plan or higher here. And buying a .com domain from somewhere else without a plan here and just pointing it here will mean folks will just see the .wordpress.com subdomain address anyway(and the ads) as it won’t be the primary domain here.

    Personally I think .com domains are over rated and am happy with my .wordpress.com subdomain. Dotcom domains need to be renewed annually for the rest of your life (especially if they include your name or nickname or some wording that is important to you). Failure to renew will most likely see someone else buy the domain address to try and sell it back to you at an inflated price, or worse, contain scams or pornography hoping to piggy back on the viewers the domain had previously.

  • Unknown's avatar
    bookstooge · Member ·

    If you plan on using the name/brand for many years, it is worth it to go dotwhatever. But as @themagicrobot pointed out, if you let it lapse, it will be snapped up by scavengers and either re-sold back to you or repurposed.

    I experienced this with my dotcom. I had so many problems that I let it lapse and then some company in the philipines bought it and tried to sell it back to me for 3K. It sat dormant for quite a while and is now a german or russian clothing site. So I went dotblog and won’t be letting go of that address, for as long as I can.

    I do recommend going dotwhatever, if you can commit. If not, stick with the free and let the dice fall as they may.

  • Unknown's avatar
    aisajib · Member ·

    Hi there!

    I understand you may be all set based on the latest replies on your other post here. To avoid duplicating efforts, I’ll be closing this topic for further replies. If you still have more questions related to your earlier queries, please reply to the other post.

    If you have a new question, feel free to create a new thread or contact us here (now that you have a paid plan). :)

  • The topic ‘Can someone offer insight into purchasing a new domain please?’ is closed to new replies.