People are always searching for ways to save money; sadly this is happening more and more with online business ventures... not gonna lie, I was one of them... But trial and error teaches lessons.. Recently, a lot of internet marketers on Facebook were promoting products/services, etc. using the dot.tk free domain service... I was warned and now I'm warning you [h=5]If you are someone that has a FREE domain with .TK, please keep in mind that some of these domains are randomly and intermittently being redirected to other locations (the penalty of having a free domain name) so traffic being sent there MAY never see your page. These sites often redirect to pages full of spam, spyware, malware, etc, causing the visitors to sometimes report this and you may end up with your domain removed unbeknownst to you or what it may be doing. You can offset this by getting your own official PAID domain name.. If you Just want to use a .TK domain, at least register and PAY for it to avoid this problem. But there IS Domain DNS Hijacking that is going on, and with free domains, you lose any ability to correct this.. Trust the Certified Ethical Hacker on this one, we deal with this stuff at work on a regular basis with DNS Poisoning.[/h] Best wishes...
+1 for this post. I just use the domain for a trial and error setup of my website. Never made it public! Google never supports free domains.
I am sharing this as a story of warning for those looking to register new domain names. Most of my domain names are registered on godaddy.com. I have registered and non-renewed dozens over the years without incident. Recently I decided to try something different. I had an idea for a class and looked to see if a domain name was available. The domain name _____.com was available and I registered it for $.50 on register.com (Some of you already know where this is going.) Looking at the fine print after registering it (duh, after...), I saw that after the first year of this smoking deal, renewal would set me back $38. Oh, oh. I called up and talked with a very nice fellow, who told me he could cancel the domain registration and return the $.50 to my account and the domain would be freed up for me. Should take 24-48 hours. Okay, great. What a nice guy. Next day, I find that the domain is now for sale by register.com. I call Adam, he says no problem, he will unblock it and get it freed up, in 24-48 hours. Next, I get an email from Kathy at register.com who says it will cost me $125 to have the name restored to my account. I call Adam, who says oh, knowing you wanted to retain use of the name, I should have told you you could ask for a transfer authorization code instead of cancelling the sale. Let me see what I can do. Next, I get a pleasant phone message from Jill at network solutions (come to find out both register.com and network solutions are owned by web.com) and she can return the domain name to my account for $79 dollars. Jill does not know the history of my interactions and I fill her in. She is sympathetic and says she will see what she can do. The next phone message from Jill says she is sorry, but there is nothing she can do and if I want the domain name it will cost me $79. Moral of the story: If the deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. Buyers beware. Other lessons: There are wolves on the web, it is the law of jungle. Just because the rep's of wolf, inc are nice, don't kid yourself. (register.com prides itself on its reputation for customer service.) The wolves will eat your lunch and your breakfast and dinner too. Nick of the Desert
Previous google removed co.cc domains from its search index and next may be .tk. They have to stop free domain service ASAP.