Free domain names
I can’t believe how many people are searching for free domain names. I was doing a bit of searching on Wordtracker today trying to find some topics to write about and couldn’t resist writing a post about free domain names… I did a Wordtracker search on “domain name” to see just what exactly people are interested in related to domain names and came up with a whopping 984 searches for free domain names. Scrolling down the list, there were 684 more searches for completely free domain registration, 504 more for absolutely free domain names, 492 more for free domain address, 350 more for free domain free registration no fees,… Totally free domain names, free domains no fees, free domain name without host and free website domain name added another 1161 free domain name searches. That doesn’t even include the people looking for cheap domain names, cheap domain registration, cheapest domain registration, cheap domains,… And then there’s pretty much all the domain name searches mentioned above with “domains” instead of “domain names”…
Since such a significant number of people seem to be looking for free domain names, let’s discuss a few ways to get free domain names in this post. The most commonly found free way to get a website online is through a subdomain (eg. domain.wordpress.com , domain.blogspot.com , etc). They might make a good choice if you’re only planning on putting up a personal blog (or website) and don’t want to worry about domain name and hosting costs. Subdomains are a bad choice if you plan to turn your website into a business at some point for a few reasons, not the least of which is getting visitors to come to your new website. Depending on who you create a subdomain with, it may or may not be possible to redirect traffic from your subdomain to your new domain name when the time comes to set yourself up on your own domain. If that’s not possible, all that link building will have gone to waste and even if you put a notice on your homepage that you’ve moved, many visitors may not notice that — especially if they’re search engine visitors or people who bookmarked their favorite pages. Your website is your brand — even if you’re not running your website, blog, etc with the goal of making a profit, you probably at the very least have a message you’d like to spread. Who do you think gets taken more seriously — the person writing on a subdomain or the person writing on a real domain name? The answer to that question really isn’t any different than the answer of who is taken more seriously between the person with a good domain and the person with a bad domain. Sure there are exceptions — people aren’t likely to stop visiting your website once you’ve established yourself because you switched to a seemingly less significant domain name, however if you have no reputation, don’t you want to build up as much trust as possible?
So we’ve looked at subdomains and why they may or may not be a fit for you. Let’s now look at free domain names — yes, there are free domain names out there. There’s one domain name extensions which always offers free domain names – Dot TK (www.dot.tk). Other than Dot TK, there are a couple others which appear to offer free domain names but are actually free subdomains on very short urls — FreeDomain.co.nr and CO.cc. Whether it’s a free domain name, a free subdomain, or even free web hosting, you can be sure there’s a catch — usually, it requires the display of third party advertisements on your website which subsidize the cost of offering free domain names, free subdomains, and free web hosting. First of all, you have no control over these third party advertisements, so they may very well be promoting services competing with yours. Second of all, the ads are usually downright fugly. I don’t know about you but I sure as heck wouldn’t put Adsense or something equally as ugly on a website I put hundreds of hours into. Third of all, these domain name extensions and subdomains are free for a reason — because nobody would be willing to pay for them. At the very least, get yourself a .info domain name when they have their $0.99 promo deals or wait for Register.com to offer free .com domain names like they do every once in awhile. If you’re that hard up for cash that you can’t afford to pay $1 for a real domain name, do yourself a favor and get a job. If you don’t have a credit card or don’t want to give out your credit card details online and that’s the reason for looking for a free domain name, open up a Paypal account and help someone out online for a few bucks. If you look at any domaining or webmastering forum, they all have a section where people offer cash for everything from forum posting, to social bookmarking, to directory submission, writing blog posts, etc — these are all things anyone can do. Free domain names aren’t worth it — like I said earlier in this article, they’re free for a reason. If you want a cheap domain name so you can try out some SEO experiments or keep your minisite costs down, just wait for a $0.99 .info special and buy all the cheap domain names you want.
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June 17th, 2009 at 9:16 am
Kind of funny, i will do keyword research for the domain industry and its all keywords like, “register a domain, domain register, free domains, cheap domains ect ect.”. The reason i think its funny is because our industry is searched and exposed very little in terms of the world, but everyone is trying to get a free or cheap domain go figure.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Hey Ross,
Yeah - it’s pretty incredible. With the number of people searching for free and cheap domains, maybe the best way to promote the domain industry is to rank high in the SERPs for these terms and convince visitors that free and cheap domains are the wrong way to go LOL
June 17th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Are the free domain good for SEO ?
June 17th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Hi Goldoase,
There’s a lot of talk in the SEO circles about how domain name extensions affect SERPs results — I’m really not qualified to talk about that based on my limited experience with it, however ccTLDs seem to very obviously rank better for people searching from those particular countries (eg. .ca definitely have an advantage in the SERPs on Google.ca). Some people talk about .com and .org having an advantage over other extensions however the only ones I’m reasonably sure that do have an advantage are .edu and .gov websites.
So with that said, I don’t think free domains are bad for SEO, however the question now becomes how you’ll monetize these free domains. It might make sense to use free domains until you can build enough enough traffic to be reasonably confident that your domain will be profitable and at that moment transfer the domain elsewhere, however sticking with that free domain registrar (and paid ads on your site) means any monetization method you attempt to employ is having only a fraction of the results it otherwise would have had because half the ads on your websites will be from the domain registrar and hence, won’t be making you any money. Visitors tend to only tolerate so many ads — it might be too much to put a lot of ads on a website that already has a lot of ads put on it from the domain name registrar. I can’t really say anything for sure as I’ve always stuck to regular and cheap domain names myself. I do think you’d be better off paying the $0.99 for .info domains — that’s a pretty low cost and not much of a loss if the minisite development doesn’t work out.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
I think it’s likely the younger generation looking to frugally setup blogs and maybe even an online business. If they’re smart… they haven’t gotten a credit card which leaves them unable to buy domains on their own.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Btw, I like your solution about the PayPal account and doing a quick online freelance job to get funds there.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Hi Mark,
Thanks for stopping by.
Yeah - I think you’re right on the money about it being younger folk without access to a credit card. I know some of the people on Namepros make a few hundred per month just doing stuff like directory submissions and social bookmarking, so there’s money to be made online doing some pretty simple stuff if people want to.
July 2nd, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Believe it or not, there are some forums where people just give out their old domain names for free. I always respond too late though, and miss out on these good deals!