How And Why Of Giving Away Free Domain Names

by: Stephen Pope

Perhaps you already know that it is possible to get a free domain name. However, have you ever wondered how a country can afford to give away its domain names for free? Why would a country just give away its domain names instead of charging for them?

1. Free Domain Names from Dot TK

It is possible to get a free top-level domain name from Dot TK (www.dot.tk).

According to their website, "Dot TK is a joint venture of the Government of Tokelau, it's communication company Teletok and Taloha, Inc., a privately held company. The Government of Tokelau has appointed Taloha, Inc. as the exclusive registration entity."

Of course, for free .tk domains, ownership remains with Dot TK. This means that you can't sell it. As well, there are other restrictions and disadvantages of free .tk domains, including:

-You can register only a maximum of three free domain names;
-You need 25 visitors within a ninety day period;
-You need to have existing web content somewhere so that your dot tk name can be forwarded to it; and
-Dot TK uses frames to show your website. This being the case, you may have issues with navigation (bookmarking or finding specific pages) and search engine friendliness.

For serious business use, you might want to pay the nominal cost for a domain name.

2. Why Do They Offer Free Domain Names?

Still, it is free. Why would they do this when they could make money from the sale of domain names?

According to their website: "Why does Dot TK give away free domain names? We believe that the Internet was supposed to be 'Free'. Meaning no charges, payments or expected return favors."

3. How Can They Afford to Give Away Free Domain Names?

This logically leads us to our next question: How can they afford to give away free domain names?

Dot TK makes money from paid domain names, including some special and trademarked names.

To help support Dot TK, you can optionally have an ad displayed on your website. Thus, they do receive some advertising revenue from this. However, the big money would be in the sponsorship by large corporations.

4. Other Free Top-Level Domain Names

By the way, this is not the only ccTLD (country code Top-Level Domain) that gives away some domain names for free.

As just one example, cg is the ccTLD for the Republic of Congo. Each of its citizens and lawful residents are allowed one free .cg domain name.

5. Free Subdomain Names

Additionally, subdomain names are also available for free. For example, eu.org states on their website that their goal "is to provide free subdomain registration to users or non-profit organizations who cannot afford the outrageous fees demanded by some NICs, especially in Europe."

As well, nr is the ccTLD name for the Republic of Nauru. You can receive a free subdomain name from co.nr. Thus, your domain name could be something like yourcompany.co.nr.

Why do countries give away free domain names? They want their citizens and others to be able to enjoy the benefits of domain name use without cost being an issue. It can also be a promotional method designed to get the word out about their ccTLD.

How can these countries afford to give away free domain names? Advertising revenue and the sale of paid domains are two ways of funding free domain names.

About The Author

J. Stephen Pope, President of Pope Consulting Inc., has been helping clients to earn maximum business profits for over twenty-five years. To learn more about domain names and other profitable Work at Home Small Business Ideas, visit http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/domain-names.html.

Turn Domain Names Into Cash

by: Brian Pubrat

Internet domain names are a hot commodity. Everyday thousands of people are cashing in on the domain name business. I'm not kidding when I say that there are people who are raking in millions of dollars each and every year just be registering domain names.

I'm sure many of us read the headlines a few years back when the domain name, business.com, sold for a whopping $7.5 million! Like time, the domain name business has evolved and matured. The days of snapping up web addresses and waiting a few months for an incredible "retirement" offer are over. Today the domain name game is played via the pay per click parking and affililate marketing models.

For many years the tools and techniques used by successful 'domainers' utlizing these parking and affiliate services have gone unnoticed - flying beneath the radar. That is until now.

Now, there is a blueprint of the most highly recognized tools and laidout plans that domainers have been using for years. In fact, a number of prominent news and business publications like the Wall Street Journal, Forbes magazine and CNN have all reported on the tremendous growth in the domain name business. In short, the mainstream media have finally caught on to this multi-million dollar industry that is gaining popular attention.

See for yourself at www.domaincashvault.com, and learn everything there is to know about the domain name business.

About The Author

Brian Pubrat is the author of Domain Cash Vault - How to unlock the money-making secrets to the domain name business. For more information, please go to: www.domaincashvault.com.

How to Earn Dollars on your Free Website

by: Romeo Palmares

Before I became a dot com I used to invest my time on free websites and studied everything needed to make it work and as much as possible make it earn at the cost of only my time and effort.

After several months of promoting my free website I was surprised to see the flow of free traffic rushing in, but there is always a downside to free website - bandwidth. My free webhosting gave me about 2 gigabytes of bandwidth every month which cannot compensate to the flow of my traffic.

My free website shuts off for atleast 30 minutes everytime it reaches its bandwidth limit which was divided every hour. Well anyway I was thinking at that time what to do with my traffic and how can I convert this traffic into cash. I researched everyday until I caught google's cash making machine - the adsense.

At the expense of my time and effort I had made some cash in return. Needless to say that free websites not only gave me a lot of fun but it payed off really well. Up to this day I already have my own dot com the http://www.info20.com but I still maintain my free website the http://www.exotic-cars.official.ws.

If you want to read more about this article visit http://www.info20.com now and read the full article.

About The Author

Romeo Palmares is a network administrator in one of the government agencies in the country and he is also a webmaster of http://www.info20.com and http://www.exotic-cars.official.ws.

Information on Domain Names: Multiple domain hosting, Domain parking, Sub domains, WhoIs Record, Domain Renewal

by: Priyanka Agarwal

It’s been two years since John started his online business. He is very much satisfied with his current web host whose services he acquired one year ago. Today John is relaxing in his chair and thinking about the initial days when he spent many hours on the Internet collecting information related to web hosting. Like him there are many John’s out there who are in search of information everyday, visiting this and that website hoping to find the most illuminating advice. The problem is that common topics of interest can be found on most of the websites whereas other relevant issues are not dealt with everywhere. This article is going to touch on one of those areas: various concerns related with domain names.

What is multiple domain hosting?

Many times you will see that a web host offers multiple domain hosting. In simpler words it means that on buying an account you will have the ability to get multiple websites. For instance, if the plan provides you with five domain names, you can use one domain for your website and you will still have four domain names leftover to use. The advantage of this scenario is that you can resell these four domain names to your clients.

What is Domain Parking?

If you are planning to build up a website and have decided on a name for it you then must purchase that domain name from a domain registrar: i.e. your domain name gets placed on a name server so that you can use it later on. This is known as domain parking. Even if your website content is not ready, it’s better to park your desired domain name. Otherwise, it might be possible that in future somebody else acquires that particular domain name.

What are sub domains?

Sub domains are ‘third level’ domains in the sense that they are used solely to organize your website content. They are simply folders under your root directory, but to access them a special URL is used.

For instance, http://www.m6.net is a regular URL without a sub domain.
http://features.m6.net is an URL with the sub domain name: "features".
Here the:
.net: is the first level domain,
m6: is the second level domain,
features: is the third level domain

For how long does a domain name belong to you?

Generally when you register a domain name it is registered for a minimum of one year. However, you can register it for more years, as there is no hard and fast rule as such.

What is Domain Renewal?

After one year you need to renew your domain name so that your website doesn’t get lost. Generally when your domain is about to expire your domain registrar will send you a reminder mail regarding the domain renewal.

What happens when your domain name expires?

When your domain name expires you can renew it within one month. If you don’t renew it in this period it goes into a redemption phase. It stays in this redemption phase for 15 to 30 days before it is then available for purchase again at a normal price. Getting a domain name out of redemption phase is like buying fifty domains as it can cost around $200!

How to find out the owner of a domain name?

To find out the owner of a domain name, use the WhoIs search tool on the Internet .For E.g. Go to http://centralops.net/co/ and type the domain name under Domain Dossier. It will show you the name of the registrant/domain’s owner/web host.

What is WhoIs record?

WhoIS record is a domain name search engine/Internet program where users can enter an Internet entity (e.g. a domain, a network, some hosts) and it will give detailed information on the domain registrar, the owner of the domain, and respective DNS records.

About The Author

Priyanka Agarwal
Hosting evangelist
http://www.m6.net