Guides
A .blog of Your Own
2026-11-12 · OSIR Team
There is a particular feeling when something you made lives somewhere that belongs to you.
Not a post that scrolls past in an hour. Not a page with a platform's logo sitting in the corner of your own work. Somewhere with your name on the front of it, that will still be there in five years, that you can give to someone as one short line they will remember.
That is really all a .blog is. A little space to share your world in, and an address that says what it is before anyone clicks.
What you share
How you see things. The opinion that is too long for a comment and too considered for a thread, written out properly, with the reasons underneath it.
What you love, in as much detail as you like. The food you cook and why you cook it that way. The films, the records, the routes, the one niche subject you could talk about until everyone else leaves the room.
What you are planning, said out loud so it becomes real. The move, the book, the first half marathon, the year you finally learn to throw pots.
What you have actually lived through. The trip as it really was rather than the version that fits a caption, and what you would tell someone doing it after you.
Somebody out there is looking for exactly what you know, in your words. They are not going to find it in a feed.
The name is the easy part
maria.blogwhen it is youthekitchen.blogwhen it is the projectonrunning.blogwhen it is the obsession
It already reads as a place where someone writes, so you never have to explain it, and you will never spell it out twice down a phone line.
The short, obvious ones are still there, which is a sentence that stops being true at some point.
You do not need a plan
Take the name now and work out what goes on it later. Plenty of people hold a domain for a year before they publish anything, and that is a perfectly good use of it.
When you are ready it goes wherever you want to write: WordPress, Ghost, Substack, a site you built yourself, or a single page with three sentences and a photograph. Change your mind in three years and the address comes with you, so nobody has to be told the new one.
.blog FAQ
How much does a .blog cost?
$21.00 a year, or $21.50 once the $0.20 ICANN fee and payment processing are added at checkout. Renewing costs the same, so it does not change in year two, and there is no cheap first year that quietly becomes something else later. Every extension's current price is on the pricing page.
Do I need to have a blog already?
No. There are no rules about who can register one, nothing to prove and no documents to send. Plenty of people take the name first and work out the rest later.
Can I use it with WordPress, Ghost or Substack?
Yes, any of them, and you can change your mind later without giving up the name. Managing DNS records explains the settings each platform asks for, and web forwarding will send it to something you already have in the meantime.
Is my personal information public?
No. WHOIS privacy is included rather than sold as an extra, so your name and address stay off the public record.
How long can I keep it for?
One to ten years at a time, and paying for several years up front holds today's price for all of them.
What happens if I forget to renew?
There is a grace period, and after that getting it back costs $40.00, which is double what renewing would have been. Auto-renew is the cheap way to never deal with this. The domain lifecycle post explains each stage if you want the detail.
Why do some names cost more than others?
Very short names and common dictionary words are priced higher by the registry, and that higher price applies every year rather than just the first. The search shows you the real figure before you commit.
Can I just ask an AI assistant to find me one?
Yes. Claude or ChatGPT can go through a shortlist and tell you what is free and what each one costs before you sign in to anything. Registering a domain with Claude shows how it goes, including the bit where nothing gets paid for without you saying so.
Image generated with AI (Higgsfield).