Generally, no. Think about it – how is giving away free domains a sustainable business model? But there are exceptions. I’ve been using a free domain, mostly successfully, since 2015.
Freenom famously allows domains to be registered and used for free. There are restrictions; among them …
- Top level domains are limited to a few Country Codes, dot TK being the best known.
- “Special” names are not available for free. These include common dictionary words and names with three or fewer characters.
- Free use is limited to a maximum of 12 months, but can be renewed.
- I have to point the domain to an actual web page. I like this last rule, I wish mainstream registrars would adapt it.
But the biggest limitation is that I am only borrowing the domain. Freenom retains ownership and all rights. They can take back my domain at any time for any reason. For example …
- If my site gets too much traffic Freenom may take it back and put up ads. (I’ve cleverly avoided this trap by getting almost no traffic.)
- If I use my domain for several years Freenom may deem it to be “Special” and require payment for further use. (This has happened to me. I declined to pay, the domain became available for free again in a few months. I simply re-registered it for free.)
- If my site is down, even briefly, and a Freenom bot happens upon it, the domain will be deleted as not pointing to an actual web page. (This has happened to me. I simply re-registered it for free once my site was back up.)
- Freenom uses a metric date format – Day/Month/Year rather than Month/Day/Year. My domain was set to expire on 07/06/2019. I logged in around the first of July to re-register it, and found it was already deleted. It had expired on June 7. Again, I re-registered it for free.
Angry rants about Freenom are abundant on the interwebs. Which makes me wonder – what did these people expect? Superb reliable service for no money is not a reasonable expectation. The folks that run Freenom gotta make a buck somehow.
So, I would never use a free domain for a site that I care about. But for an experiment, or to try out some things, or a short-term announcement site, or other things that don’t involve me fretting that the site could disappear at any time – why not?
