July 18th, 2014
Some website hosting providers offer free domain names. This sounds great, but there can be drawbacks as well.
Let's say you want the domain name: "catfood.com". A good free domain name would be what you actually want: "catfood.com". A bad free domain name would be what you want but a little different, like: "catfood.hoster1.com". The difference is clear. One domain name places a hosting site name at the end of the name you want and the other one doesn't. Let's explore what the results of using a "bad" domain name vs. a "good" domain name are.
There are a number of reasons why someone wouldn't want "hoster1" added to the end of their domain name. One reason is because people generally want their domain name to be short. If you put it on a business card, or any kind of print advertising, you typically want something short and sweet. After all, who'd want to go through the trouble of typing in a long domain name when you're competitor's is so much shorter and easier?
Talking about a cool website can get people interested to visit. Let's say you're excited about your new site that sells quality cat food. Someone asks "what is the website?", you say: "catfood.com". It's simple and easy to remember. An interested person could easily remember catfood.com. Now let's look at the same situation where someone asks what the website is and you say: "catfood.hoster1.com". It doesn't have the same ring to it, people won't remember it, and you'll have to write it down or give them a business card. And as mentioned before having a long name on a business card doesn't do you any favors either.
The way domain name registration works is you pay a registrar to register
a name for you in a domain name registry. Then, you are the official
"borrower" of a domain name. This is how people
typically obtain a domain name.
Some hosting
providers offer a good free domain name (like "catfood.com") as part
of their hosting package. This is fine. The
domain name will be registered to you and you will have all the
privileges that go with it. However, when a company offers you a bad
free domain name (like "catfood.hoster1.com"), you are not really registering
the domain name. They're lending the name to you. This can become
a problem because you are now dependent on them instead of an
official registrar. They've inserted themself as the middleman
between you and the registrar.
The problem with borrowing a domain name instead of registering one
is that it opens you up to a number of issues.
What if the lender's server goes
down? What if they go out of business? If anything happens on
their end, it affects you. The reason why is because they own
and control your domain name. There is no outside party you can go to if
something goes wrong. They are the final say. With some looking
to create a site for their business, it should be clear that
this situation is not ideal.
Finally, there are certain privileges you have
when you register a domain name. Some of these privileges include the ability to
switch registrars, and an exclusive window for re-registration when
the registration period is coming to a close.
When you opt for a lent domain name, you don't have these same privileges.
You no longer have the flexibility to
switch the domain name to another registrar. After all, "catfood.hoster1.com"
isn't really yours, they're just lending it to you. Further, there's
no governing body to tell them what rights you have concerning this
name. That places them in a very advantageous position. Should they
decide to use this advantage to charge extra for next year's use of
the domain name, you'll have few options. A contracted
registrar could try taking advantage of you, but you can always switch to another
registrar. To depend on a company that merely lends you use of a domain name,
might not be the best idea.
The final reason why I'd be concerned with using a domain name with "hoster1.com" added to the end is competitors. What if a competitor saw that your site "catfood.hoster1.com" was doing well and they decided to register "catfood.com"? It's hard to say exactly what would happen, but it's possible that they could begin to take visitors from search engines away from your site. After all, if google ranks "catfood.hoster1.com" well, wouldn't it give a chance to "catfood.com" to rank equally as well if not better? It's probably wise not to take that chance.
Just because something is free doesn't make it good. Research always needs to be done to determine what free really means. Hopefully, this article has helped shed some light on some of the downfalls of free domain names and can help people make better decisions as they pursue quality website hosting.