Holiday gift guide: domains for the whole family

\n A domain can be a wonderful, touching gift for the right friend or\n family member. I’m thinking of that creative sibling or friend of yours\n who you think ought to share their work with the world. I don’t mean\n {\" \"}\n work{\" \"}\n in the sense that it must be polished or professional, or feel like\n “work” at all. By work{\" \"}\n I mean writing, music, photography, drawing, dancing, recipes, a\n tutorial on replacing the headlights of a 2005 Subaru Forester—whatever.\n

\n You can buy domains for your children, too! They might want it (someday)\n to publish their art or music, write, or do something else entirely that\n we can’t yet imagine. Setting up a website could be a fun project to\n work on together with them.\n

Your corner of the internet

\n A personal website can be literally anything you want it to be. And\n that’s the point—it’s yours.{\" \"}\n \n Your corner of the Internet¹.\n {\" \"}\n The walled gardens of social media will come and go, but a domain is\n your space. The algorithm won’t change on you overnight.\n

\n If you don’t own your{\" \"}\n own domain yet, I hope you’ll buy one as a gift to yourself first. I\n feel strongly that you should own a personal domain, even if you don’t\n know what to do with it yet. A personal website can be a low stakes\n creative outlet, a powerful career building tool, or anything in\n between. At worst, it’s ten dollars a year for a blank canvas waiting\n for you whenever you’re ready².\n

\n I often tell people that no one will visit your website at first,{\" \"}\n and that’s a good thing. People will only go there if you send\n them a link. When you start out, your website is a little forest where\n your trees fall silently. Or a{\" \"}\n digital garden\n {\" \"}\n where you can plant seeds, water, prune, propagate, and re-pot. That\n means you have time to explore, experiment, and tinker. You can find\n your voice and style over time. Again, you’re not beholden to that\n algorithm everyone is always talking about.\n

Same day delivery

\n Unlike many holiday gifts, this one takes five minutes, and there’s no\n shipping involved. Go to porkbun.com\n {\" \"}\n or your favorite registrar³ and look up{\" \"}\n firstlast .com. If it’s available, grab it! Or better yet,\n if you can get lastname .com, then you can have{\" \"}\n first @ lastname .com{\" \"}\n as your email (and so can everyone in your family)⁴.\n

\n You don’t have to go with a dot com, of course. There are{\" \"}\n \n hundreds of expressive alternatives\n {\" \"}\n to consider: .art, .food, .me,\n {\" \"}\n .mom, .dad, .beer,{\" \"}\n .cool, .earth, .wtf,{\" \"}\n .fyi,{\" \"}\n .christmas, and on and on. I love the artistic touch of\n choosing a domain ending that fits your taste, but I do also like owning\n my full name dot com because it’s my name and my identity.\n

\n I’ve bought domains for a handful of friends and family members over the\n years (which, btw, if you’re keeping track, was well before I had the\n idea to write a book about domains). My brother spent an hour or so\n setting up a simple website where he can share videos of himself playing\n guitar and singing, for example. As far as I can tell—and I do think\n it’s hard to pretend liking a gift—the domains I’ve given have been well\n received. When I gift a domain, I always tell the recipient that it\n includes me as a consultant of sorts for website building and\n brainstorming purposes. If I have given you a domain and you’re reading\n this now, that offer still stands!\n

Footnotes

\n \n (1) I love this phrase, “your corner of the internet.” I saw it first\n on my friend Danny’s website,{\" \"}\n dannyguo.com, but it’s also the\n tagline for{\" \"}\n mmm.page, a website builder/internet\n canvas (and one of my favorite projects on the internet).\n \n

\n \n (2) A domain is a gift that keeps on giving—er, that you keep on\n giving—because domains must be renewed yearly. $10.46 for a dot com is\n not bad (cheaper than most burritos), so hopefully the financial\n burden doesn’t stop you.\n \n

\n \n (3) I usually buy domains on Cloudflare, but there are tons of other\n registrars (Porkbun, Vercel, Squarespace, etc.). A dot com should cost\n you about $11. I also like{\" \"}\n instantdomainsearch.com\n {\" \"}\n for searching domains.\n \n

\n \n (4) It turns out millspaugh.com\n {\" \"}\n is owned by a furniture company in Hudson Valley, New York. They’ve\n been in operation since 1858! I’d love to pay a visit to the store\n someday. I’m not aware of any relation, but it’s run by a father and\n his son, whose name is...Pete. As much as I’d love to own the domain,\n I’m at peace knowing it’s in good hands.\n \n