The decision to build a website featuring The Black Bullet was driven by outcomes from a Google search for my own blog. This conceit led me to compose a rather pointless email to Google customer services, as follows:
“Why in the first 20 pages of your results for a search on “The Black Bullet”, is there no reference at all to the blog entitled, “The Black Bullet”? There was a random post, from 2003, with a passing reference to Royal Enfield motorcycles, but nothing on the currently active blog named in inverted commas in my search terms. How can this be?”
Inverted commas are supposed to prioritise occurrences that match the sequence as well as the words used in any search, so The Black Bullet doesn't exist as far as the search engines are concerned. Of course, there is the issue of popularity to consider and balance against relevance. In this case, the most relevant and popular listing reads:
“The black bullet, which is exclusive to Ann Summers, now has 3 speeds. It is quiet, waterproof, travel sized and designed for precision pleasure.”
I’d like it noted that The Black Bullet actually has four speeds, it is definitely not quiet, or waterproof, but it is designed for travel and pleasure. “It’s also more of an all over vibrate,” added Jane helpfully, “so, in that sense, not really ‘precision’”.
There were some other notable references; a band called the Kidney Thieves, a prototype fighter called the Northrop XP-56, Teflon coated actual bullets, of course, and a web media company, but nothing much relevant to motorcycling. This is when I thought perhaps a simple website would be easier to find, and went looking for a domain.
Buying an address was straightforward, despite the rumours concerning domain name speculators. The advice is not to shop around, just in case an unscrupulous operator registers your interest and cadges the name, or bumps up the price after the initial enquiry. I didn’t find this out until I’d shopped around but although prices were very different between registrars, I managed to go back and secure the cheapest option after completing my research. And as soon as I’d bought www.theblackbullet.net it became unavailable – so job, apparently, done.
Domain registrars typically offer hosting services as well but in my ignorance I split the two interests up. Transfer of the URL from registrar to host turns out not to be all that straightforward, you have to wait 60 days for some reason. It took some digging to find out that changing the nameservers allocated by the registrar allows the two to function as one and the site is now live. At first it looked as if I'd have to wait two frustrating months, or change tack and buy both services from one provider.
It is typical of any venture undertaken in ignorance that the questions you'd most like to know the answer to don't appear until later. In this case, questions like; what should I bear in mind when shopping for a name? Is any particular reason why registration and hosting should be held under one roof? And, why doesn't Google like me? I have only myself to blame for jumping without looking but it would be naiive not to surmise that some things are purposely kept quiet when in the interests of business.
There is a business case that cheap registrations might be offset by more expensive hosting and vice versa, as a kind of loss leader. I was almost surprised to find a way to usefully combine the two when this fact dawned on me. My site is a simple portal and not worth the kind of hosting being offered by the cheapest registrar. Conversely, the name would have been more expensive bought through my chosen host.
There are bound to be exceptions to this but 'don't shop around' was the advice, when I bothered to look. I could have shopped around with a dummy URL, I suppose, but with eyes on the prize this didn't occur to me.
It's early days yet but www.theblackbullet.net is still invisible to Google. Notwithstanding this, I’ve added some META tags in an attempt to raise its profile. Again, I don't know if this is the right approach, I guess that traffic would make all the difference, but it's pulling yourself up by the bootstraps isn't it. When I've figured out how to do this, I'm sure someone will have some good advice.
Heck, well why didn't you ask?
