We’ve discussed blogging privacy before (and let me say that the discussion was way better than the post that sparked it!). But there was something I should have mentioned the last time around in protecting your family’s safety and privacy.
I know that many of us don’t feel comfortable using our children’s real names, or posting photos of them on your sites. But if you’re really worried about something bad happening to your family because of your blog, this is the number one issue that I think you need to take care of.
If you have your own domain (i.e., thisismyblog.com instead of thisismyblog.typepad.com), get private registration. It costs extra, but I think it’s worth it.
What is private registration and why would I want to pay extra for it?
Private registration means that your name and address (which you supplied when you registered your domain) will be kept private from anyone who searches for them. If you don’t use private registration, anyone can find your name and address if they have your domain name.
I know you’re wondering how they do this. It’s called a whois look up (pron. “who is”). Whois.net is just one of dozens of sites where you can look up domain registration info.
When I look up, for example, Marketing Pilgrim, the Internet marketing news blog I work for, I am directed to a page where I can find this (his old office address):
Registrant:
Andy Beal
6512 Six Forks Road
Suite 502B
Raleigh, North Carolina 27615
United States
This goes on to add his telephone number.
Now, if I look up my domain, I get:
Registrant:
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(Note that the fact that this company is located on Hayden Road has nothing to do with my son’s name. Eerie, though, don’t you think?)
Through my domain registrar, private registration costs about $7 a year. I don’t think that’s too much to pay for that modicum of privacy, do you?
7 replies on “Protect your family and your blog”
This is actually free at most hosts, including BlueHost. I think it is one of the features that new host customers should be looking for. Have a great day…
Thanks Jennifer, I’d never even heard of hosts doing private registration. I registered this domain long before I had hosting; generally I don’t register through a host because I have a couple dozen domains, but not nearly as many actual sites.
If you register multiple domains (including the .com, .net and .org TLDs of one name), private registration is also free from my registrar.
I’m going to look into this with my host. Thanks for bringing it up.
Thanks for this info. It is very helpful.
Thanks, I’m emailing this to my husband for his blog.
I use Blue Host for my hosting and they offer this service for free. I imediately signed up for it because I think it is very important (and I would have paid for it if it had not been free!). Thanks for mentioning this!
Jordan – Thanks for posting this! I have a domain name that I had requested privacy registration for and thought is was in effect until I checked the link you gave. I found out I had to go in and manually enable the privacy feature. So glad you shared this!