Though this used to cost over $35 per year, competition among domain name registration services has forced the price down below $10 annually. E-mail hosting too has dropped to the same price, making it affordable for most people to own an e-mail domain with their own name on it.
Personal domain names aren't just for Web sites any more.
Growing numbers of Net users are registering domain names so they can create and control their own e-mail addresses.
It's a smart idea and one that's increasingly affordable, as both the price of domain name registration and the cost of e-mail hosting have plunged.
Domain registration lets you create an address for yourname.com --- or virtually anything else you please --- on the Internet.
Competition among companies that register domain names has squeezed the annual cost of owning a domain name to well below $10 in most cases, a sharp discount from the $35 a year it once cost.
A domain name alone isn't much good, however.
In fact, it's rather like having a phone number and no phone.
What you need with it is some Internet real estate, a place where messages directed to your new address can go.
For those who don't want a personal Web site, Internet hosting companies are pushing e-mail-only hosting services that simply catch the e-mail sent to your domain name until you come to collect it.
Domain registration companies sometimes use e-mail hosting to drive more domain business, so you'll often find e-mail hosting services available from those providers.
Some offer e-mail hosting for less than $10 a year.
What that means is you can have your own Internet e-mail address --- let's say, somebodysomebody.com --- for under $20 a year.
That sure beats hanging on to an old e-mail address that you once got stuck with.
E-mail hosting accounts are cheaper and, therefore, less profitable, than full Web site hosting, so you have to dig a little to find these services, but they are out there.