Is it better to use a custom domain with micro.blog? Am I really surrendering any control of my content by not using one?
I like the simplicity of being myusername.micro.blog/ and I’m not seeing any tangible benefit to moving the account behind a custom domain. Custom domains can create all sorts of issues, and they’re issues I don’t need.
I could use a custom domain if there’s a specific, real benefit to doing it, but I don’t understand what that might be.
I’m genuinely puzzled by this question, and I’d love to have some insights on it from the community.
A custom domain is useful if you ever decide to move away from Micro.blog. That way, your readers don’t have trouble finding your new home (or even notice that you have changed homes). I’m sure people on here can help with setting up your custom domain. Once it’s set up, you can simply forget about that setting. Also, domain names are cool and sound pretty impressive when you tell people where to find you
Hey, thanks for the answer, Pratik. That’s certainly one tangible point in favour of a custom domain. I’d like to think I’m with micro.blog forever, once I get my head round the platform and sort out how it can best serve my purposes, but who knows what the future holds?
The cool factor doesn’t phase me I’m more about simplicity these days - just finding something that works and sticking with it. I have too many domains running around already
The idea of having your own domain is to own your own creation. If you post on social media website like Twitter or Facebook, you don’t really own what you write, in the sense that the host can filter out your posts for other people, unless you pay them.
With a site like micro∙blog you are a true independent content creator, and could easily change hosts if micro∙blog for some reason doesn’t do it for you anymore. By having your own domain, your readers won’t notice how the sausage is made, so to speak, nor would they probably care to know about this.
Yes, having your own domain name is a bit of a bother, and that’s why @manton has made it as painless as possible to create your own domain. Even so, I made my own domain and gone with my own domain name registrar, Hover, who have a great reputation, and an easy way to add a domain name to your micro∙blog hosted blog, an option in a selection box.
OTOH, my second blog is still with micro∙blog as a subdomain, renevanbelzen.micro.blog, because it’s a kind of a hobby/throwaway blog. To be honest, the other blog is a hobby blog as well, but obviously more serious, because I bought a domain name for it. People seem to like that I post on there, so it’s obviously of some use to both me and handful of people.
Thanks for joining the conversation, Rene. Owning my own work, yes, that’s important to me. I think the sticking point I had was that micro.blog lets me own whatever I post on micro.blog, whether I use a custom domain or not; but your point about the sausage is well made, and reinforces what Pratik and David (abc) have to say on the point. It’s much clearer to me now, the whole custom domain issue, and many thanks to you all.
If I understand you correctly, the domain registrar Hover has a checkbox option to add whatever domain you buy at Hover to a micro.blog blog. That’s pretty amazing. I wonder if other registrars do this as well. Or maybe Hover’s the only one?
Thanks again for your input. It’s been really helpful.
