Many years ago I got mylastname.com for a normal price (like $20 a year or whatever) and then forgot about it. It helps that I have a very unique surname.

A few years afterwards, I woke up one morning with the bright idea that I should probably secure mylastname.com in case some jerk off domain name squatter grabs it. I do a whois from the command line (I don't trust the online domain name search sites anymore) and saw that it was already taken! What the hell! My last name is so unique, how did anyone know, let alone a domain name squatter, to snap this domain name from under my nose!

I go to try and find more info about the domain outside of what was in the whois info (eg. who should I contact to try and negotiate a price for mylastname.com) but the domain didn't go anywhere when typed into my browser. Bummed out, I go into my usual domain name registrar dashboard to try and perhaps get the .net version or something, and there I saw in my list of currently owned domain names, the very mylastname.com domain I was looking at buying.

The squatter was me all along! </callWasComingFromInsideTheHouse>

Why are online domain name searche sites untrustworthy ?

Some domain companies will buy the domains you searched and try to resell them for a premium. Happened to me just a few months ago. I was using a GoDaddy search since it seemed like a useful way to bulk search some tlds for what I wanted. Looked up a few things that I'm almost 100% sure nobody else was looking for since they were very unique. Didn't buy them that day, but spent a while browsing them using the GoDaddy search tools.

One day later I decided I was ready and went to buy one, but everything I had searched was suddenly only available to buy jacked up with a huge "premium" fee and seemed to be owned by GoDaddy. Never again will I search using their console.

So GoDaddy still does this, huh? I was stung in the very same way over 15 years ago, looks like their business practices haven't changed much since.

Some registrars have done something called "domain tasting", where they will register a domain when they see interest via their web whois tool. Then they will offer it for a higher price. They were able to register it for five days without paying anything, and then cancel the registration if they didn't manage to sell it.

This has mostly stopped since about 2010 when registrars had to start paying a few cents per transaction. Since the overwhelming majority of those never converted to a sale, it's no longer really economically viable and I don't think it's much of a worry today.

I admire your decisiveness on the email branding. I own a few domains I could use for such a thing, but I'm still trying to figure out the best local-part.

Consider the possibilities! Sure, you could go classic and timeless, like yours, with FirstName@. But what about cool and terse, like initial@firstnamelastname.com? Or something unique and artisanal (that will hopefully never get old), like io@firstnamelastname.com?

(I've even seen a few people do hello@firstnamelastname.com, though I could never bring myself to do such a thing.)

I have a domain hack of my name so I use firstname@firstnamelastna.me

I wish I could get just lastna.me or lastname.com but I share the name with someone who's worked at icann, google and the white house at various points. I never had a shot.

For long names I'd suggest the [a-z][0-9][a-z].tld abbreviated form. Those three char domains with a digit tend to be readily available, don't command premium pricing, and are very convenient when you need to type an address in or verbally tell someone how to contact you.

that's been a big thinker for me as well; wth no real solution yet..

first@firstlast.example seem rather redundant; like saying "John John Doe". I guess if it was a business it would make more sense; like "John, owner of John Doe Inc." and "Bob, assistant for John Doe Inc." but for a personal domain... eh.

Similarly mail@ email@ seem 'too obvious' since.. of course it's email? Directional local parts like talkto@ to@ only make sense for inbound-only or outbound-only.

I do like io@! hello@, contact@, note@, or communique@ also seem more neutral but at this point I'm getting dizzy lol.

first@last.example seems more simple in retrospect but also harder to get.

How about something like me@firstlast.com?

Hmm, for me that falls into the directional problem of 'which me'? The sender or the recipient? Haha. God I hate naming things

I committed to contact@firstnamelastname.com which looks the most professional to me.

I own firstn@melastna.me, that's optimal if your surname matches a ccTLD.

Mine does, but I don’t think you can just buy domains from Eritrea right now unfortunately.

I went with “hello”,”contactme”, and “contact”

Funny enough, I'm also the owner of firstnamelastname.com: I bought it when I was first in college, and sold it for $300 or so to an actor of the same name when I was entirely broke. For some reason, he let the domain expire, and I bought it again a few years later at the registration price. $5k at this point wouldn't be nearly enough for me to change email addresses again, that's an absolute pain.

There's no time like the present.

Finally got around to putting together my personal site this past weekend. Just a simple blog and centralized place to post updates and photos for family. I was dragging my feet for a while but finally made a big push.

Nostalgia for the simplicity of the GeoCity days made me apprehensive over the years.

$5000 can do a lot of good in the world. But it’s your property to do what you will with, for sure.

If someone offered you $5000 to change the email address you've used on every website for a decade, would you? All of your banking and financial accounts, your phone and utility bills, your doctor. Could you even identify every place you've ever used it?

That sounds like an awful lot more than $5k worth of work to me

Think of how many people still use their ISP's domain for their email address...