by: AskPat 505 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: What's up everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 505 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. If you've been listening to me for a while, you might notice that my voice is a little bit different, and that's because it is. I'm a little bit under the weather, but you know what, that's not stopping me. We got some episodes to record. Here we go. Let's keep going.
All right, here's today's question from Jackie.
Jackie: Hey, Pat. This is Jackie Bolen from JackieBolen.com. I have a question for you about hosting your own websites. You know when you're on something like Bluehost and you're signing up for a domain, you have the option of choosing privacy. For that, you have to pay something like $12 a year more. I'm wondering if you do that, is it worth the money? I have a bunch of domains and a bunch of websites, so it actually would add up to be a decent amount of money, so I'd appreciate your thoughts. Thanks very much.
Pat Flynn: Hey, Jackie. What's up? Thank you so much for the question. I really appreciate it. The domain privacy that you can get, which yes if you start on Bluehost and you get your domain there, they would ask you for that extra payment for that. If you get it on Go Daddy, it would ask you there. Wherever you get a domain, you can have the option of purchasing domain privacy, which means that your address connected to your business or your website that you sign up with doesn't get shown. If somebody were to look up in a whois search, which is a search essentially where you could look up all the information like address, even phone number, email address for a person who owns a particular website, the domain privacy just makes it not happen. They see other information related to the domain host, but not you. I, of course, have that on a number of my websites, but here are my thoughts on it. If you have your home address—if you're the sole proprietor and you have your home address—I feel like it would definitely be worth it, especially if you have a site that is big and it gets a lot of people on it, I think it would be smart to do that.
However, if you have a business and you don't mind your business address being out there, and it might actually be worth it because people might want to inquire about your website and all that kinds of stuff, then it's not necessary. I don't feel it's very necessary for that situation and that could work out. For example like me, a lot of my websites that I've built since starting Flynn Industries, LLC, I haven't done domain privacy especially for the smaller niche sites which I know aren't going to be quite as popular, but for a lot of larger ones, I still do it. Yes, you're absolutely right, it can get to a pretty large amount of money every year when you do that, but again, you have to ask yourself how important is it for you to have that information private. If it is, then I would either consider paying for it or you could also have a business so that you don't have to worry as much about it and the address and the phone number is all your business address, your business phone number if you have one and all that sort of stuff.
Now if you do get a lot of domains, you might actually benefit from going through a service like Go Daddy, and if you get a lot, a lot, a lot of domains, they actually have services that you could subscribe for every year that'll save you money on things like privacy and other tools and things related to website building. Just keep that in mind. Go Daddy is a great place to get domains and it just takes a little bit to hook up that domain to your website. It does take a little bit longer, so if you're a beginner you might just want to start on Bluehost.
Yes, you can get new domains on Bluehost as well, but it's a little bit easier to set up. You just kind of have to weigh the pros and cons there. One trick that I learned from Noah Kagan is just look up 99 cent domains, Go Daddy. I believe you can get a couple there depending on what those domains are. Check that out and that'll save you some cash too.
Jackie, I hope that answers your question. Again, it's going to be up to you, but I would recommend going for privacy if it's your home address and your home information and all that stuff. If it's a business address, you could still do it and, of course, it's a write off when you think about it in that way, but it's not quite as important in my personal opinion. All right, Jackie, thank you so much for the question. I appreciate it. We're going to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show.
Thanks so much. I appreciate you and I hope I feel better soon, although the next few episodes you'll probably hear this voice because I do record in batches.
Anyway, this quote to finish off the day like we always do is from somebody unknown, but I like it a lot. That quote is, “I've never met a strong person with an easy past.”
Take care. Thanks so much for listening in and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye.