Company offers first year free on up to 25 .biz domain names.
Web hosting company and domain registrar 1&1 is giving away free .biz domain name registrations for the first year. The promotion allows you to register up to 25 domains for free. Standard pricing applies after the first year. The offer includes free private registration and e-mail.
1&1 is known for its cut rate pricing on domain names including $6.99 pricing on most major extensions including .com. The company makes its money from web hosting and associated products, so you may find it difficult to manage your domain names through its web hosting-centric interface.
When I tested the system this morning, it appears that you have to place a separate order for each .biz domain you want to registrar. There may be a way to add additional domains to your account, but it wasn’t apparent during the initial stages of the checkout process.
According to RegistrarStats, 1&1 has about 4.5 million domains registered, including 85,000 .biz domain names. You can expect the latter number to jump significantly during this promotion, which ends October 31.
It’s unknown if 1&1 struck a special deal with NeuStar, the registry for .biz, to offer this promotion. If more cut-rate deals are promoted we may see .biz go the way of .info, which is a haven for sploggers and spammers that flock to the domain for its cheap registration cost.
In my opinion, accepting free domains from 1and1 is like Troy wheeling in the big wooden horse.
@Warth: Haha, that was a good one (and very true) 🙂
I went through the process to register 25 domains but I didn’t want to give a credit card info or enter into a PayPal purchase agreement for a “free” offer so I don’t think I will be getting them. It will be interesting to see if they wind up getting registered now, since they have been on my “buy someday if you can get them cheap” list.
There is no bulk add function, but add one domian to your shopping cart. Then go back to the “domain” page and enter the second one. When you hit the next page, use the menu link for “domain” again and you will be able to add another domain. When you have what you want, then continue the process.
In the past I have heard it can be difficult to transfer domains away from 1and1, so I would keep that in mind. Getting $175 worth of domains for free is pretty nice, but you always pay more than you expect to in one way or another with “free” offers…