Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Free Domains: Where to Find Them

By Matt Hedges

With more and more costs involved in getting a web presence started, and those costs rising rapidly, clients are looking to saving money in more ways than ever before. There are many types of fees involved in creating a website. With web hosting space, software to create the sites, email costs, and other recurring monthly and annual costs more companies now look for ways to save money on domain names and registration services. This is a small yearly fee but it adds up when considering the other costs involved even for a small company. Large companies are often faced with the need for multiple domain names and that only serves to compound the yearly cost of operating their online site. Free domain names can be found, but it is wise to study the pros and cons of these services and what they imply.

There are a few methods of obtaining a free domain name registration. Finding out what they are is not difficult. With the use of a few strategies a business or organization can by-pass the difficulties and extra fees charged for registering a domain name. There are many online and also local companies that offer domain name registration along with a hosting service for a website. The features of both are very similar.

Tips for obtaining a free domain name:

* Always do plenty of research when looking into companies that offer free domain name registration. You will get the best deal for your company if you chose a web host with the provisions you require that offer free domain name registration. Large companies often get this given to them even with large hosting companies for the volume of business.

* One of the easiest way to get a free domain name from a web hosting company is to use the same organization for domain registration as well as for web hosting, email registration and even web design in required.

* Hire a local domain registration and hosting company as it is always a better option as they function from within spitting distance, which enable more human contact. Unlike their online counterparts, the local web hosting companies provides the probability of face to face negotiation and bargaining.

* Ask or check the FAQs section of a web host to see if their service offers free domain name registration with privacy. This protects the website from having outside sources attempt to view their privileged information. Many of these companies will alert the client if anyone tries to abuse the service and hack into the customer's information. This is a great protection for being online.

* There are some free TLD domains which you can obtain for viewing a provider's offers and signing up for what you can use thereby gaining points. The more points you earn the more likely you are of obtaining more free TLD domains.

There are a number of online domain name service providers that offer free domain names. Some of these kinds of online service providers offer free sub domain redirection whereas there are others who enable a business organization to get even a free top level domain name. These include:

Freedomain.co.nr

This domain name provider has a lot of great features for the website owner. They offer no-cost redirection that are more commonly known as Domain Forwarding services. They also provide URL masking, URL cloaking, and the ability to use Path Forwarding and some other services. One of the many other cool features of this host is their offer help with Meta Tags, and Favicon. The only requirement for the free services is a link back directed at their main site. That is a small price to pay for all of the free options.

Dot.tk:

This may be one of the leading free domain name providers. It a top level domain name provider and they also offer free .tk names. The biggest drawback to this service is it is only temporary free service. It lasts for 90 days if you have less than 25 page views during that time. It also has popup advertisements that are beyond the website owner's control making this a less popular option.

Uni.cc

This company provides terrific tools for site building and TLD domains as well as their free domain names. The also offer redirection and other options. The only drawback to Uni.cc is that they do not provide hosing, ftp, or email hosting at this time. They are a great source of domain names and redirection for free if you already have website space.

GeoCities

GeoCities is a Yahoo company that offers free sub domains with advertising on the websites, and they also offer cheap web hosting solutions where you can obtain top-level domain names for free and no ad websites. Both of the fantastic offers from Yahoo come with a great many features including multiple email capability, excellent site builders, and large space even on the free sites. They are bolstered by the public's perception of stability because of their branding.

Google Page Creator

Google is another free sub domain provider if you use their new page creator to build a website. This is still in Beta but it allows for great flexibility and function in order to put up a free web space. There are some drawback such as limited site pages per account, and some occasional bugs due to the development process but it offers many useful tools for building your site. You can also obtain a number of Google emails for use.

Fadlan.com

This free domain name service provider offers .fadlan.com domains. They provide free URL Redirection service and free Domain Forwarding service. The site also offers several other services such as free DNS that enables a website owner to run their own web server on any sub domain provided they have a static IP address.

Afraid.org

One of the best features of Afraid.org is the ability to pick from several extension sub domains. You need to sign up at their web site and they will give you many services such as updating your IP redirection. There is a 50 sub domain limit for each individual user. They are often used for domain hosting, free DNS and Dynamic hosting.

C-o.in

C-o.in offers free and effective domain name service. They also include free redirection and forwarding service as a part of their free services. A good feature is the availability in several different formats for ease of use by anyone.

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