Domain Discrimination

An increasing trend among those who are fortunate enough to be able to afford their own domain name for their website is that a domain name is required to associate with them- either via link exchange, affiliation or reviews. This sense of elitism gives the wrong impression, and supports the idea that your URL determines the quality of your website. In short, it’s bullcrap.

The problem with such a rule is obvious. It’s the same problem with judging a book by its cover, or even judging a human by the color of their skin- one is getting impressions without ever looking at the site, or having anything to base assumptions off of other than a URL. That just isn’t fair, either to the maker of the website or the person viewing the website.

No self-respecting webmaster would ever turn down a request to look at a website based on its URL. Essentially, that would be saying that, as someone can’t afford paid hosting, that must mean that they can’t make graphics, or can’t write well. It’s like saying that because someone’s poor, they must be talentless. Or, on another level, that if they’re a certain race, they’re worthless (although hopefully, no one says that any more).

Most people, even those who currently own a domain, started out on one of those freeservers. If your website was ever hosted on a freeserver, it’s bordering on hypocrisy to start demanding domains just because you have one. It won’t make your website look any worse to have links that point to a URL on a freeserver- really.

I can understand that by not allowing freeservers to request affiliation or reviews, people are trying to block spammy/n00bish websites from their inbox. To some extent, it can help- many of the websites hosted on Piczo and Freewebs AREN’T of the highest quality. But some DO have quality content and are well thought-out. Why would a website owner want to miss out on the select few DECENTLY-MADE free-host websites just because they couldn’t stand to click through a few disappointing links?

It’s not as if a domain guarantees a decent website, either. Just as I’ve seen amazing websites hosted on Freewebs, I’ve seen appalling websites with domain addresses. Just because someone paid for some aspect of their website isn’t going to magically make said website amazing. Of course, occasionally, it can help- usually, hosting packages have much better features than, say, Piczo- but without the extra effort, it just isn’t worth it.

Granted, free servers do have some disadvantages. Many won’t allow PHP, and very few offer MySQL, .htaccess, and other important hosting features. But just because a website can’t take advantage of everything that regular, paid hosting has to offer doesn’t make it bad. And not every free server is featureless. Some are actually relatively close to domain and professional hosting.

I hosted RainysWorld on a free server for a very, VERY long time. The host that I use(d), 110MB, was very similar to professional hosting. They allowed flat-file scripts and PHP, and offered paid options that rivaled those of a paid hosting site (such as MySQL, .htaccess, and PHPSendMail). Naturally, this website was by no means perfect- and of course, still isn’t- but it was decent, and wasn‘t limited horribly by its host. I saw websites that paid for domains with quality significantly lower than that of my own website, and yet, they could have applied for a link exchange with one of the “domain-demanders” without any problem.

Since I’ve bought my domain name, has my website changed much? Well, it’s changed a little, I’ll give you that- but those changes (layout changes, and small site page corrections) would have occurred whether or not my URL had changed. My website is still the same website, despite having a .net name- and I’m sure that anyone elses website would remain the same if they were offered up a free domain name right this very second.

What’s the bottom line here? Domain discrimination is ridiculous. Just because someone can’t afford to buy a domain doesn’t make them a crappy website owner, and just because someone can afford to buy 10 domains doesn’t make them an amazing webmaster. So just take down that rule about needing a domain to affiliate or request a review. Is it really necessary? Is it even right? You can’t judge a book by it’s cover- and you can’t judge a website by its URL, either.