comparing free domains-ssrn

Why should you take a Free Domain Name A comparative study of all the free domain names available on the net

by

Umakant Mishra

http://umakant.trizsite.com

Abstract: Not everybody can afford to pay for a TLD (Top Level Domain) name, especially the individuals who want to make their blogs, personal sites or host some kind of beautiful collections. For them, there are some free domain names available, which are second level domain names but sounds or looks very much like top level domain names. The articles compares the pros and cons of those free domain names.

Introduction Many people feel that free stuff are not good – similarly free domain names, free servers etc. This is true in many cases – as many free domain name providers and free hosting servers not only put their forced advertisements but also harass the users by various other means. Some service providers discontinue their service or block your sub-domain or doesn’t renew the domain etc. There can be problems like Google decides to de-index the whole domain on the ground of spam, as it did for all .cc names. The fact of the matter is that even similar kinds of problems can happen in case of paid domains. For example, sometimes it is too difficult to transfer a name from one registrar to another – although they are legally bound to unluck the domain they can show different reasons to delay the process and harass the customers who want to leave them. Free domains are not always bad. There are many free domain providers who just provide it generously. Many of them also provide DNS supports and work exactly like .com domains. If you are not commercially hosting or not sure about the future of the website – it is not a bad idea to take a free domain and avoid the investment. We will make a comparison of various free domains provided by different service providers.

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1948145

1. The tk domain names Dot TK is a free domain registry having the same power as other domain extensions. This is a top level domain which millions of people are using since 2001. TK stands for the country Tokelau and dot TK is a joint venture by the Govt. of Tokeau and a private company. The .tk domain names are registered by http://www.dot.tk/ The primary goal of Dot TK registry is to increase the awareness of Tokeau in the world, establishing relationships with larger corporations who can provide communication, education and medical expertise to the region and directly fund the island of Tokelau with royalty fees paid over domain names sold. This way the Government of Tokelau can grow towards a more financially independent situation. Advantages - This is a top level domain like .com and very short to write too. - It provides DNS configuration, A, CNAME, MX and NS. Disadvantages: - It requires minimum 25 hits per 90 days. Failing to comply this requirement your domain will be cancelled. - Many people say that dot tk is a big scan and they take back the domains after your site has become popular (ref: http://dottkscam.blogspot.com/)

2. The co.cc domain names These are one of the most popular free domain names on the net. One of the reasons is that it sounds very similar to the paid domains like co.uk, co.in etc. The domains are issued by a Korean company http://www.co.cc. As per the statistics in their website, there are more than 11 million co.cc domain names issued to more than 6 million users. Advantages: - You can configure your domain name in all possible ways that is usually available for paid domain names. You can (1) redirect a the URL to an existing site, or (2) configure DNS servers just like .com and other TLDs, or (3) can set DNS service with full MX, CNAME, A and SOA records. Disadvantages: - You can get maximum 2 domains. For more than 2 domains you have to pay a donation of around 3$ per domain. - The co.cc domains are not searched by Google search engine. As per Google’s policy decision in June 2011, millions of co.cc weblinks were immediately removed from the search engine because a large percentage of the free domains were spammy and hosting objectionable content.

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1948145

3. The Cu.cc domain The cu.cc is also a free domain name registration service provided at http://www.registry.cu.cc/. You can register up to 5 domain names for free or purchase a domain name VIP account to get up to 100 domain names. The name cu.cc also small and sounds good, although more people feel that co.cc looks better than cu.cc. Advantages: - The service offers dynamic DNS service just like .com and other TLDs. You can set DNS service with full MX, CNAME, A and SOA records. - You can register up to 5 domain names free per person. - You can register for 2 years at a time (compared to the general convention of registering for 1 year and then renewing after that.) Disadvantages: - The cu.cc domains also suffer from the same disadvantage of co.cc. Those are not searched by Google’s search engine. All cu.cc domains were removed from google search database because of google’s policy decision to prevent spam and malware.

4. The cz.cc domain names CZ.CC is similar to co.cc. The CZ stands for the country Czech Republic. The domains are available from http://www.nic.cz.cc/. Advantages: - They allow taking short-3 character names (whereas others generally don’t allow 3-4 character names). - The domain name configuration includes all variations such as, A, CNAME, MX, NS, SOA, TXT, AAAA. - They allow 2 years registration in advance. Disadvantages: - CZ.CC is also removed from the Google search list. If you give a search on site:cz.cc, you will not find a single site searched by Google search engine.

5. The ce.ms domain names The CE.MS domain names are similar to CZ.CC provided by http://www.freedomains.ce.ms/. The dictionary names are available for a price, odd names are available free.

Advantages: - You can register for 2 years at a time - Provides full DNS support – including A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, NS, TXT records. - No special conditions to fulfill Disadvantages:

6. The eu.org domain names The eu.org is one of the free domain pioneers, started since 1996. As they mention in their website- The goal of EU.org is to provide free subdomain registration to users or non-profit organizations who cannot afford the outrageous fees demanded by some NICs, which sounds very noble. Only 4 characters and above names are allowed. 3 character names are reserved for internal use and future extensions. Advantages: - There is no special conditions like minimum number of hits etc. - Supports NS, MX for DNS services. Disadvantages: - Their website is text based and looks primitive, the registration process appears to be complicated.

7. Usa.cc domain names .ibiz.cc and .usa.cc are also free domain names. usa.cc stands for Cocos Islands. The domain names are registered by http://www.freeavailabledomains.com/. You can register up to maximum 5 domain names. Advantages: - Supports URL forwarding and full DNS management through A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, PTR, SPF, SRV, TXT records, all that is available in most paid domain names.

Disadvantages: - usa.cc is not accepted by Google search. All .cc domains are barred by Google.

8. The .pro.tc, .net.tc domain names The registrars also allow various other types of subdomains such as, net.tc, .eu.tc, .us.tc, .uk.tc, .au.tc, .shop.tc, .edu.tc, .int.tc, .de.tc, .at.tc, .ch.tc, .it.tc,

.es.tc, .ru.tc, .ua.tc, .se.tc, .dk.tc, .be.tc, .no.tc, .pl.tc, .bg.tc, .cz.tc, .hu.tc, .ie.tc, .mx.tc, .br.tc, .hk.tc, .kr.tc, .th.tc, .ph.tc domain names. The service is provided by http://www.smartdots.com/. Since 1998, they have accumulated about 50 domain names, on which they allow free sub domains. As their website says, more than 8 million domain names have been registered so far. Advantages: - They provide URL Forwarding, URL Cloaking, PathForwarding, Full DNSManagement, Access Statistics, Favicons, AccessProtect etc. - They also provide 300 MB webspace with unlimited traffic (currently under progress), unlimited bandwith, FTP login and unlimited email accounts/ mailboxes, anti-virus/ anti-spam protection. - You can register as many domain names as you wish, and manage all names from one single login. However, not more than 3 domain names should point to the same URL.

9. The .int.tf and .net.tf domain names These sub-domains are freely available from http://www.unonic.com/. They provide a lot of other .TF subdomains, such as, .net.tf, .eu.tf, .edu.tf, .us.tf, .ca.tf, .bg.tf, .ru.tf, .pl.tf, .cz.tf, .de.tf, .at.tf, .ch.tf, .sg.tf. They are a sub-service of interdots (providers of .net.tc, .pro.tc domains). Advantages: - All the advantages of .net.tc / .pro.tc sub-domains, such as, URL forwarding, URL clocking, PathForwarding, Full DNS-Management, Access Statistics, Favicons, AccessProtect etc. - they also have plans to provide 300 MB webspace free with unlimited traffic, FTP login and unlimited email accounts/ mailboxes, anti-virus/ anti-spam protection etc. for future.

10. .Free domain names FREE gTLD is the latest initiative of the dotFree Group. This is a future project and the domains will be available after 2012-13. Preregistrations of FREE domains are now open. The registration issued by http://www.dotfree.com/ Disadvantages: - As it is a future project the possibility depends on various factors such as initial financial investments etc. their website assures that the name service will be available by November 2013.

11. The co.nr domain names .NR is the country code top level domain name (ccTLD) for the country Nauru. CO.NR is an Internet Project to create sub-domains under CO.NR domain name. yourname.co.nr is a 3rd level domain name within CO.NR zone (domain name), or in other words, it is a subdomain of CO.NR domain name. The co.nr sub domain names are issued by http://www.freedomain.co.nr. Advantages: - You can redirect your URL to your existing site- known as "Free URL forwarding" Disadvantages: - You cannot take the name unless you already have a site. That means you need to have a site prior to booking a domain name. - You cannot setup DNS servers or Zone records in co.nr subdomain. That means you cannot use it for a full fledged sub-domain name. - You have to put a Link-Back to CO.NR saying that the website uses co.nr domain - and that to on your very home page. They give you an exact code to put the ad on your home page. - The service is given to those who want to ACTIVELY use it. If the account is account is inactive for more than two months, then it is automatically deleted without sending any alert or warning.

12. The ZA.NET and ZA.ORG domains ZA.NET and ZA.ORG domains are available free from http://www.za.net/. Currently they have more than 30000 registrations – mostly through word to mouth – as they don’t commercially advertise their services. The ZA NiC service is currently run and funded by volunteers who are mostly the people at PLiG. Disadvantages: - No name server configuration features. - The process is semi-automatic (as their site says) and may take about 3 days for completion of registration. - As a policy decision they refuse all registrations from gmail.com and yahoo.com email addresses as they find a huge influx of unscrupulous users try to mass register for spamming purposes. - Registration of a subdomain of .za.net and .za.org is restricted to individuals and organisations with a presence in South Africa, having valid South African contact details. Note: Similarly ORG.UA domains are also available free for individuals and organizations from Ukraine. They also provide no DNS configuration services.

Summary: - Some domain names are just free without any condition, and some others are free with certain conditions. The conditions are sometimes like, certain number of hits during a period, putting a link back on the home page, no commercial use and similar. - Some companies allow a limited number of domains per person, such as 2 domains for co.cc, 5 domains for cu.cc etc., and some others allow unlimited number of domains per person. - Some of them provide partial / full DNS services, some don’t. However, if they don’t provide DNS services, there are some free or public DNS services which can be used. For example, the following name services can host your name services free. Granite Canyon- http://soa.granitecanyon.com/ Mydomain.com- http://www.mydomain.com/ Freedns - http://freedns.afraid.org/ - Some domains are available to people of specific countries, such as, za.net, org.ua etc. Many of those are not listed in this article as they are not of much interest to the general. - Some domain names, co.cc, cu.cc, cz.cc, usa.cc etc, although sound good, are rejected by Google search engines.

Conclusion: Now has come the time to evaluate what is good and what is not – the most difficult job. There are several criteria to consider – the level of domain (whether 2nd or 3rd), the conditions to the met for retaining the domain, history and reputation of the provider, whether searched by Google or not etc. In my consideration co.cc sounds very good. But at this point of time all .cc domains including cu.cc, cz.cc, usa.cc etc are abandoned by Google – the most popular search engine. If a domain is not accepted by search engine then people cannot find it, the whole purpose of building the website is gone. So I would rank them low at this time as there is no point taking a domain which cannot be known to others. If you have a genuine traffic to your website then .tk is definitely good. This is the only top level domain that is available free. But if there is a shortage of traffic (less than 25 in 90 days) then you might loose your name without notification. This seems to be too risky a condition to accept. I should now say the best names are (1) .eu.org names from http://www.eu.org/ (2) the .pro.tc/ net.tc / .int.tf / .net.tf domain names provided by interdots – providing a wide range of options. (3) ce.ms names provided by http://www.freedomains.ce.ms/. These domain names are the safest among all, as there is no

special condition to retain them. Besides the language on their websites don’t seem to be aggressive about taking back your domain for no or petty reasons.

Reference: -http://www.getfreedomain.name/ -An extensive list of all free domain registrars on the Internet, -http://www.dot.tk/, for registration of .tk domains -http://www.co.cc. the registrars of .co.cc domains -http://www.registry.cu.cc/ the registrars of .cu.cc domains -http://www.nic.cz.cc/ the registrars of cz.cc domains -http://www.free-domains.ce.ms/ the registrars of ce.ms domains -http://www.eu.org/ the registrars of eu.org domain names -http://www.freeavailabledomains.com/ the registrars of usa.cc domain names -http://www.smartdots.com/. The registrars of .pro.tc/ .net.tc domain names -http://www.unonic.com/. The registrars of .int.tf / .net.tf domain names -http://www.dotfree.com/ the registrars of .free domain names -http://www.freedomain.co.nr the registrars of .co.nr domain names -http://www.za.net/ the registrars of za.net / za.org domains