I started making money online sometime around 1996 I’m guessing, and before I ever came up with the name MoneyReign, I had a whole stream of free hosted sites and usernames I would use. When I first started to make a few bucks online, it was through AOL internet access. Whenever you made a new account with a free AOL disk, you’d have to make a new username. The first few years passed, as did many free AOL accounts (remember those free AOL disks!) as did many various usernames. None of the usernames really stuck, and the money wasn’t in serious amounts yet, so any checks coming in would just be made out to “Zac Johnson“. It wasn’t till I finally came up with the name “MoneyReign” that I would finally stick with my company name, eventually incorporate it (around 2000) and buy my first domain, moneyreign.com, in 1998.

Today I was doing some domain research and looking to pick up any nice domains I could find for sale, or that were about to expire. I then did a few data reports on a bunch of domains that I own. To my surprise, the one day I’m actually pulling some stats on my domains, I see that MoneyReign.com was registered 10 years ago TODAY! I remember how cool it was to finally have my own domain and finally get off the crappy AOL member pages and Geocities/Tripod sites. I also remember how we were all hostages to Network Solutions and their $70 domain registrations, and that $70 was so expensive!

Over the years, MoneyReign.com has been everything from a free stuff site, a stock site, an online book store and a portfolio/directory for my other sites. Recently it’s just been a placeholder site for my company name/site and a listing for this blog and contact info. I’m sure I have most of the versions all saved on my old computers in my basement. It’s so funny to see how things change over the years. (I should throw up one of the old school designs and see what people think! )

Setting up your web site and buying a domain is easy now a days and only takes a few bucks, but if your old school, you probably have some stories to tell! What are some of your oldest domains and how long did it take you to go from a free hosted web site, to your own domain?

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