It’s offering free domains, but not if you use the “standard domain squatter holding page”.
Mailchimp, the marketing platform best know for email marketing, launched a free new website builder last year. Now, in response to the Covid-19 outbreak, it’s offering free domain names, too.
Customers can register a domain name for free for up to five years as long as they publish a website using Mailchimp’s website builder. Mailchimp obviously looks at this as an onramp to its paid services.
I read the fine print on the free domain offer to see what the catch was. There’s no catch, other than having to keep a published website on the platform. What caught my attention was how Mailchimp describes the holding/domain parking page for registered domains that have not been attached to a website yet.
“Use of Mailchimp’s standard domain squatter holding page on your domain (which is provided automatically to all domains) shall not suffice for meeting the publish requirement.”
Domain squatter holding page?
Mailchimp is a Tucows reseller.
I thought this was very interesting, Andrew, so I did a little digging in my own Mailchimp account.
Here’s their process: https://mailchimp.com/help/about-domain-purchasing/
Some interesting notes from that page:
1. At this time, domains in Mailchimp do not include Domain Name Service (DNS) management or an email inbox. If you’d like to request updates or changes to your DNS records, please contact our support team.
2. Once you purchase a domain, it will be available to use, but if you do not respond to the follow-up domain verification email within 15 days, the domain will be suspended until verification is complete.
3. To transfer a domain you purchase out of Mailchimp, or to transfer a domain you already own into Mailchimp, the initial domain purchase or the last domain transfer must be more than 60 days prior.
All available TLDs are listed, with their pricing. The discount is up to $25 from Mailchimp, so I assume you pay the difference if you want, say, an .agency for $26.49.
That’s interesting that they don’t allow you to connect it to email, at least without contacting uspport. I imagine they’re working on that.
The other two items are in line with most registrars, I believe.
You can only build the website using their builder, which is very very limited. Just a primitive website builder, where you can’t even write custom html.
Redirect to existing website or embed it? Not possible.Do DNS management, nothing.
It’s really just a website builder offering free domain (which can only connect to it), rather than an actual free domain like what any registrar would provide.
You have to contact support to make DNS changes, but you can’t contact support unless you have a paid account. Website editing is super limited, to be almost non-functional for anything other than a ‘poster’ website.
Uh… I think I’ve made a mistake, how am I going to be able to retrieve my domain name?
Support is free, i have chatted with them on the live chat. Check again.
Wait for 60 days (from registration). Then ask support for transfer code and transfer it to a different registration.
*registrar