I switched domains from cowboyfunk.org to edwardp.me
Due to my upcoming book, I realized that I needed to rebrand my website. You see, when I first started it, I was very reluctant to attach my name to it because I wanted this place to be about the content, not the person writing the content (me). Besides, my name is such a mouthful that I had no idea how to name my website in a way that was short and snappy but still had my name in it.
T’is the struggle of not having a generic name like Chris Johnson, because then my website would just have been chrisjohnson.com. But edwardpatrickakinyemi.com doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue, now does it? Anyway, these thoughts prompted me to shy away from branding my website around myself and instead to pick a name like Cowboy Funk.
However, when I did this, I hadn’t anticipated that I would write the book that I’m currently writing. I mean, I had little thoughts in the back of my mind about writing books, but I hadn’t thought in extensive detail about what that would entail. But hey, the book is a month and a half from publishing, so I realized I should probably think all of this through.
The key thing I realized, then, was that a book is an extremely personal creation/product. A bit of a no-brainer, I know, but hear me out. The book is tied to me, the author, so If I’m going to publish a book, my website has to be branded accordingly. That is, if the book is tied to me, the author, then my website has to be tied to me just as closely.
It doesn’t make sense to have a book but then have the site that I use to advertise it be almost entirely devoid of my name (which also really hurts my SEO). And since I plan to write another book after this one, I simply have to put my name on my website so that people can find my books and website more easily.
This was the thought process that prompted me to change my domain name. Hence, the old one of cowboyfunk.org is officially history. As I’m sure you’ll have noticed, the new domain name is:
edwardp.me
Edward is obviously my first name and P is (one of my numerous) middle initials, which stands for Patrick. My last name (Akinyemi) is simply too user-unfriendly to use as a domain name so I disregarded that. Lastly, the .com extension was taken (because I procrastinated too long to buy it), so I went for .me
The domain for my Facebook page has changed accordingly. It is now facebook.com/edwardp.me
A BRAVE NEW WORLD
If you use the old domain to look for my old blog posts, you’ll land on this 404 page because I tinkered with a few more things on the back end of my website. What was previously:
www.cowboyfunk.org/blog-posts/[insert everything else]
now becomes
www.edwardp.me/blog/[insert everything else].
For example, www.cowboyfunk.org/blog-posts/podcasts/recommend becomes www.edwardp.me/blog/podcasts/recommend on my new domain. So just copy-paste the old link, replace “blog-posts” with “blog”, and change “cowboyfunk.org” to “edwardp.me” That’s all you need to do. This applies to all blog posts.
For all other links besides that, just replace “cowboyfunk.org” by “edwardp.me” and leave everything else the same. For example, “www.cowboyfunk.org/useful-stuff” is now “www.edwardp.me/useful-stuff”
As long as I pay for (and own) both domains, SquareSpace should automatically redirect most links to my new domain (except the blog posts because I tinkered with that extension after the switch). However, I intend to eventually stop paying for the cowboyfunk.org domain, which is why I want you get used to the new name before I cut the cord.
ONE MORE THING!
I’m also in the process of switching (design) templates for my website, so things might look a little wonky for a month or so as I tinker around with the layout. I promise things will be perfect once I release the book!
Please leave a comment or contact me if you have any questions!
See you, Space Cowboy.
