Free domain names

We often find freebies of different kinds being offered on the Internet. It is another story that very few of them are really free. Those making the offer certainly expect something quid pro quo.

Under normal circumstances, you are required to pay a certain amount of money to have your domain name registered. In recent times, however, some companies are offering domain names for free. In exchange, they may require customers to add banner ads to their websites or to take part in other marketing schemes. The provider of the free domain in most cases remains the owner of the domain. Among the defunct companies that offered free domain names were NameZero and Freeservers (a subsidiary of NetZero at present).

In Europe, Belgium is a country that offers free domains in the .be TLD. This might well be a temporary promotional offer, with a renewal fee to be charged in the future for the registrants to maintain their domains.

However, compared to other offers, there are relatively few that offer you free domains when you sign up for an offer. One likely reason is that the costs of these services or products are too low to create much interest. There indeed are a few free domain offers on the Internet, but they expect you either to buy hosting or to sign up and post at forums. But what you should keep in mind is that most web hosting companies will register the 'free' domain in their own name. If you are dissatisfied due to some reason and want to change the web host, you end up losing the domain name. That means all the hard work you put in to develop the brand image goes up in smoke. However, it is not exactly an intelligent move to turn down a free domain name offer provided there is no catch involved.