Ok I thought I might try and clear up a bit of the confusion that might be going around about the name of this blog and maybe explain why things have happened the way they have...
if you were curious (if not apologies for the forthcoming paragraphs, please feel free to skip onto something much more interesting! ;)
Originally when I started this blog in March 2008 it was named "Sewing For Sanity", which at the time (as far as I know) was a unique blog title. At the time I didn't think to register a domain name as I wasn't that social media savvy at the time and I didn't know where- if anywhere- this blog was going to take me. A year or so late I discovered someone had registered the domain www.sewingforsanity.com and had started a blog using it, of course I was upset that I hadn't thought of that first but decided to keep on as blogs come and go and you never know which ones might stick around (that one didn't).
It did make me think more about domain names but as it was registered for a long period (I think 3 or 4 years) I decided there wasn't really much I could do anyway as I couldn't afford to try and buy it off someone and after all this really is just a hobby.
Then recently the expiration date came up for the sewingforsanity domain name, I was soo excited - I circled the date on the calender and thought maybe given the fact that the previous users were not currently using it I might be in with a chance. I even put in a order to buy the blog once it expired, if it didn't get renewed.
Well the expiry date came and went and guess what? Whoever had it decided to renew for another 12 months- well at least that's how it appeared when my order didn't go through and the expiration date changed to sometime in 2014.
I was pretty crushed and my first thought was "maybe someone saw I had an order on it and decided to hold out to see if I would buy it off them". This would have involved going through a buying service and paying a $60 fee plus whatever price could be negotiated for the sale of the domain name, on top of the money I had already forked out to put a backorder in...
I felt like if the other party was waiting for me to approach them about buying the other domain name then they would have me over a barrel, as I already was using that name for my blog title. It wasn't a situation I wanted to (or could afford to) be in.
So I after a bit of looking around at blog names and available domain names I decided to buy katesews.com and change my blog title to Kate Sews.
I was pretty torn about doing this and truthfully felt like "Sewing for Sanity" had been my own little project/creative baby so was quite sad to let it go.
And this is where it gets a bit "weird" :
After randomly searching the domain name www.sewingforsanity.com to see if the renewing owners had done anything with it guess what I found out- it was available to buy! After all that stuffing around and changing everything over to the Kate Sews title the domain name suddenly pops up again as available to register- after being told that it had been renewed for another year!
So of course I snapped it up- even though I've changed my blog name the title Sewing For Sanity is one that I have used for the majority of my blogging and has a lot if history for me. Now I am trying to figure out what to do, not only do I now have two registered domain names but I also have attracted a few new followers since the name change. Would people still follow me if I changed my name again (albeit back to my original blog name)?
According to some blog advice I read somewhere (I can't remember where) it's an unofficial "rule" that you only get one blog name change before you start irritating people with your flitterness- does this count if you originally had the name to begin with?
In the meantime I have added my original blog title and tagline into the header, after the "Kate Sews" bit, to try and gear up for a possible change back. DH who insisted that I buy the Sewing For Sanity domain name when it came up (and who has watched all the agonising that occurred during the whole backorder saga) thinks I should go back to my original blog name, now I (finally) have the domain name registered.
*Sigh* so much to think about, and to tell the truth none of it will really make a difference in any earth shattering way to anyone but me!
So Things I Have Learnt From This:
Don't register domain names/change blog titles in a hurry- you never know whats around the corner.
Just because a domain name says its unavailable to register doesn't mean it actually won't be in the future.
Have patience (ahh that's a big one for me, have GOT to learn that!)
If you are starting a blog register the matching domain name if you can at the time- you never know what you may want to do in the future.
So I hope this helps if anyone wonders where "Sewing for Sanity" had gone or why "Kate Sews" started suddenly popping up. I will - at some stage- work up a redirection for the www.sewingforsanity.com to Kate Sews, if I don't end up actually using that title again (no promises I won't ;)
In the meantime have a good one!
Kate x
1 comment:
Hi Kate. So glad you explained this. I don't even know how to re-direct one blog to another, let alone a website to a blog. What an ordeal! I learned alot myself when I got a domain name nearly 3 years ago (went with the wrong host and was getting inappropriate spams to where I shut it down months earlier).
It can be very confusing, time consuming, and yes expensive when you're doing this as a hobby BUT at the same time, you never know if you'd ever want to turn it into something else.
Some sites and blogs lose followers when they switch b/ ppl just don't like switching (even though its not difficult to do).
I guess we have to do what we have to do if we want to keep our followers. I'm following you on both ends.
I was one of the ones wondering so I thank you for taking the time to explain things. Sewing for Sanity is a nice name. :-). It also goes to show you that some will do anything for a domain name.
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