I’ve just returned from the .nz Registrar conference in my old stomping ground: beautiful, windy Wellington.

Takeaways from the event? A woollen scarf and .nz hoodie—perfect for the Wellington weather. And the .kiwi notebook? Ideal for jotting down Zoom call notes.

Besides the swag, another takeaway was the shock to hear of the burgeoning demise of domains and websites.

Coming up with names is fun. Over the years, I’ve created a few services. Each one needed a name. Rarely did the first name stick. Usually, there were a few iterations, and each iteration meant searching for an available domain name. Before I had bakop.com, there was effteepee.com. Before pingability.com, there was serverchecks.com.

Choosing a name and securing a domain have always felt like critical steps in the early stages of building a service or business.

But for many, that seems to be changing.

The death of websites? There’s a new breed of entrepreneurs starting businesses without their own website. Instead, they rely solely on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook pages.

Why focus on social media?

It’s quick and easy. Post a couple of photos with captions, or let AI do the work. Engagement—views, likes, comments, and followers—flows in for those who crack the algorithms or pay for promoted posts.

No need for branding or design. No need to build a website. No hassle finding a web host. No worrying about DNS (whatever that is), SSL certificates, or even setting up your own email—just stick with Gmail.

It sounds great, right? What could go wrong by skipping a domain name?

Is it stolen if you never owned it? At the conference, Andy Ellis, of hello.kiwi and 2011 Rugby World Cup fame, shared a cautionary tale. A local business had a visitor who took extensive photos and details of their unique product. A few weeks later, the business discovered that same visitor was selling a knock-off version on Facebook—under the visitor’s new business name—undercutting the original business. The upstart didn’t have a website or domain, which was unfortunate because the local business swooped in, registered the domain, and redirected it to their site.

This story highlights the risks of relying solely on social media. You’re giving up control. You’re at the mercy of the platform. Will your posts get promoted? Can you directly communicate with your customers, or must everything go through the platform? What happens when the platform changes its business model, potentially impacting your business?

Go buy a domain. If you haven’t already, secure a domain name for your business. It’ll cost you between $20 and $100 per year. You don’t have to use it right away—just hold onto it. Down the line, when you’re ready, you can set up a website and email. There are plenty of companies that can make that process simple for you.

With your own domain, you’re in control. You have a reserved space for your website, an email address you can keep for life without worrying about an ISP shutting it down, and the ability to brand your vehicles, buildings, and uniforms with your name—not Facebook’s, Instagram’s, or Google’s.

Get a domain name. Take control of your business’s future.

.nz Insights report:

• the number of registered domains has been flat for the last few years.
• 71% of .nz domains are .co.nz. 22% are more recently introduced .nz domain names – like our own netvaluehosting.nz domain. Half of businesses said they’d likely purchase a two-domain name bundle and around 4 in 10 a three-name bundle.
• 80% or more of consumers and SMEs know what a domain name is, but only around half of these know how to purchase one. Approximately 20% have experience setting up a domain.
• only 75% of businesses have a domain name.
• When people are overloaded by choice, there is a tendency towards indecision. My advice: consider reserving a generic top level domain (gTLD) like .com; grab your name for your country – aka ccTLD – e.g. a .nz; and there may be one of those new fangled domain names – aka sponsored TLDs aka sTLDs – like .kiwi that is a great fit for you.