Daily Domain Name Registration Blog

The only completely free second-level domain names in the world are available from Dot TK, the official domain registry for the Government of Tokelau, a tiny island in the South Pacific which is a territory of New Zealand. So do you still get what you pay for?

Dot TK has been around for a while (I have fond memories of using a Dot TK address for a project at secondary school). Over the last couple of years, various studies have shown that, unsurprisingly, .tk is the most malware-ridden, pornographic, spam-sending top-level domain in the world. Since anyone can register an address for free, without any questions asked, it is only too easy for the unscrupulous to get hold of a domain name and use it for nefarious purposes. In recent months, Dot TK has valiantly attempted to improve this situation by monitoring the content of .tk websites and taking domains away from any who break its rules. Since this decision, .tk has seen a slight improvement.

However, although it’s slightly less frustrating than it was back when I was using the service several years ago, there are still various disadvantages to opting for a freebie. In exchange for your free domain name, you agree for Dot TK to splash advertising all over your website, in the form of a frame at the top containing banners. The frame makes navigation difficult, of course, not to mention making your website look cheap and unprofessional. If you want, you can pay for premium ownership of your domain, and that means you can remove the advertising - but who would want to pay anything for a worthless TLD that everyone thinks of as ‘the free one’? The system for ad removal is misleading, too, as the Dot TK website claims that you don’t have to pay to get rid of the advertising.

Aside from the advertising, there are also problems with the Dot TK service in general. For example, visitors will sometimes be presented with a Dot TK registration page instead of the site to which a .tk address points. Also, occasionally Dot TK will get visitors’ IP addresses wrong and display pages in the wrong language.

On the plus side, Dot TK has now introduced a free advertising ring called TiKinet which links together all .tk websites displaying the top-of-page banner. Rather like AdSense and similar text-based advertising systems, TiKinet allows users to write their own short text advertisement - called a TiKilink - which will appear on other relevant .tk websites. Dot TK also claims that creating a TiKilink will automatically optimise your website for search engines, although goodness knows what that actually means in practice.

So, do you still get what you pay for with a free domain name? Well, you get slightly more now, and that’s good, but free domains should certainly only be used as a last resort. They can be useful if you want a quick address for your friends to find your free journal or social networking page, or if you really are strapped for cash, but no one will take a business seriously if it uses a .tk address. The only exception is if you manage to bag a really unbelievably good keyword, but Dot TK seems to be hoarding all the good ones and selling them off at a premium rate. I suppose it might be worth registering the .tk version of your domain name, and you may as well sign up for the TiKinet advertising - free clicks are always welcome!

Resources:

Dot TK.

Domain Registrar, Dot TK, Unveils Network Technology.

Free Domains Cost, by Stephen Pope.

TiKinet advice and information on the .tk wiki.