[This is part of the Blogging Foundations Starter Kit Series.]
I’ve gotten an incredibly large amount of emails recently about people wanting to re-brand their blogs for the 2011 year. If you’re in the same boat then now is as good of a time as any to do it!
For most of the inquiries I simply point them to this blog post here: The Ultimate Guide to Choosing the Right (and Best) Name for Your New Blog, which took me a long time to write (and I believe serves 99% of most people’s questions), but more than a few have recently emailed me about #10, Violating Copyright.
What a bummer! That’s definitely not the reason you want to (or have to) re-brand your blog!
You must do your research to see if you are, in fact, violating any trademarks and/or copyright that currently exists. The worst thing that could happen is for litigation to arise from your blog name, especially if it’s been growing like a weed! The longer it takes for the issue to arise the more damage (and hassle) it’ll be.
Remember: There is nothing wrong with renaming your blog or even re-branding it entirely. Unless you have some strong ties to a brick-and-mortar institution or there’s significant collateral material out there surrounding your blog I typically am very ok with people significantly re-imagining their digital footprint.
Heck, I recently did it with my Twitter change from @Human3rror to @TentBlogger primarily! Some of you who have been following me for some time know that this is literally like a “death” in the family!
But the internet is a very forgiving place and it’s memory is pretty short.
The point is that it really does pay to do your research when naming your blog – you’ll either pay now (a few bucks buying a new domain name) or later (potentially a lot more with litigation).
[This is part of the Blogging Foundations Starter Kit Series.]
I totally have no idea what you are talking abou… I WISH!
Hopefully new bloggers can learn from my and others mistake. The Internet makes the world very small and people get very protective of their SEO.
I found that out firsthand, luckily avoiding litigation. I will be interested to see how this plays out in the future, there are only so many words with which to name your blog.
John, you are so right about this. I for one am not going to re-brand or anything. However, I am launching a new property that will be be the site for all my “dev blogging, CMS, app review,” etc. posts will be going. I want to use my blog as my own personal space that I can be free one. The other site is where I will be niche’, direct, and on task contextually. Plus like in your previous posts, it wont be my name or personal identity. So, if I ever wanted to collaborate or sell it or whatever, it’s all good.
sweet! can’t wait to see it!
“But the internet is a very forgiving place and it’s memory is pretty short.”
Well said, John!
Very true. I sometimes wish I could turn the clock back and pick a better name for my blog. I have the name because I brought the domain name and didn’t want to waste it.
this post isn’t about regretting and not doing anything about it… “not wasting” a domain name is a pretty weak excuse not to re-brand and use a better one!
Sure wish I had found your site before. It’s a little
painful to think about how far I still need to go, thanks for the
info.
dan, better late than never!
John…
Youthworktalk.com or YMtalk.com for my youth ministry blog? Thoughts?
… i think ymtalk is better!
I’m confused… Is the goal to find a name that doesn’t have any search results at Copyright.gov? For example, I know A Stranger in this Land is a song title by Waterdeep and also found out that it is a book or article title. Does this mean I need to find another name for my blog? If so, I need to start brainstorming!
jenni,
as long as you’re not attempting to “steal” or rob those authors of their profit margins (i know, so business-y) then you’ll probably be ok. it’s a bunch of gray here but i think you’ll be fine. now, if you BLOW UP then you might have some issues…!
Well, I don’t expect to get too big as more of personal blogger, but I may consider changing anyway just to be safe. I have an idea of another name to use and know that it hasn’t been taken… My concern is that I will lose readership by starting a new blog with a new name instead of transferring my old blog from Blogger to WP.
good for you!