Slashdot Mirror


Why One Tiny Island is Still a Domain Name Giant (zdnet.com)

The small Pacific island Tokelau is still the most populated country-level domain in the world, outnumbering the 20.8 million domains that use China's .cn. From a report: UK registry for .uk domains has published its latest topsy-turvy map of the world, with land mass weighted according to the number of registered country-level domains. As it was two years ago, Tokelau remains the world's 'largest' country, thanks to its free registration policy; the number of .tk domains reaching nine million in 2012 and from there tripling to 31 million by 2016. Today, the number of .tk domains stands at 21.2 million, but it still remains the largest, just ahead of China. The number of domains with China's .cn has increased over the past two years from 17 million to 20.8 million, making it the second most widely used country-level domain in the world.

52 comments

  1. Free Tokelau by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For a long time they were the only free domain name that cheap ***ks like me could get.

    1. Re: Free Tokelau by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    2. Re: Free Tokelau by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh how that brings back memories

  2. Tk widgets? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Someone can put up a site about the Tk GUI library under "tk.tk". I checked, nothing of note.

    Just don't pronounce it at the airport, that sound makes them nervous, unless you like free medical exams.

    1. Re: Tk widgets? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh you want a free medical exam? You gonna go first? Just ease into it one step at a time. Go ahead =)

  3. What's the strategy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why is it in their interest to be free, what's the upside? Tech island advertising?

    1. Re:What's the strategy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You promote a free domain and then they take it away and sell?

      I had free domain with them for 5 years until it was suspended for a day with some BS excuse. Random squatter bought it right away, and now it is displaying ads with no content whatsoever. Support said we can't do anything because it is already sold. Oh, well.

  4. I’m surprised by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    There are almost two million “.us” domains. It surprises me that more than a handful of people have bothered to register one.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re: I’m surprised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Heh bebeh want to come to my private island domain (name)? Merry Christmas hottie

    2. Re:I’m surprised by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      I have one. It's just a personal domain, not something I'm interested in driving traffic towards. My name was taken in .com land.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    3. Re:I’m surprised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. I'm surprised there are not more. Think thesmiths.us or the thejones.us.

    4. Re: I’m surprised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I almost bought one yesterday, but then I found out you need to be American or they can take it away from you.

      I suppose there would be more if they relaxed the rules a bit.

    5. Re:I’m surprised by jon3k · · Score: 1

      I am too, especially because .us specifically disallows whois privacy.

    6. Re:I’m surprised by mobby_6kl · · Score: 1

      I know of only one .cx domain site but it's the one that really counts!

    7. Re:I’m surprised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not there any more, sadly. Apparently the Christmas Island people really didn't like it, so it moved. I think it's at an .info these days.

  5. Yep advertising. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Part of the free deal is you need a minimum of of unique hits a month (on which they serve an ad over), or you lose the URL.

    1. Re:Yep advertising. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had thousands of hits and always renewed in time. After many years they said their trusted partner reported site as "security threat" (whatever that means). And, poof - it's gone. It was registered by another (paying) customer next day.

  6. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Since it was asked in the question and not answered in the summary: Because registration of a .tk domain name is free.

  7. Why by manu0601 · · Score: 2

    After reading the article (which just repeats legend from the map), I still does not know why .tk ccTLD is successful.

    1. Re: Why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HotMama.tk

    2. Re:Why by jemmyw · · Score: 4, Informative

      because you can get a .tk domain for free. So any time I want a testing domain for a site I'm working on I'll just grab a free .tk domain for awhile.

    3. Re: Why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This.

      When I was young (like 11 years old) and couldnt register a .com/.net because i didnt have a credit card, I used .tk a lot.

    4. Re:Why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Free domains. That doesn't explain why .tk (Tokelau) has such a big lead over .ml (Mali), .ga (Gabon), .cf (Central African Republic) and .gq (Equatorial Guinea), which also make second level domains available for free through the same registry. And be warned: Lately Freenom is rumored to take valuable domains from the registrants and sell them as "special" domains.

    5. Re:Why by supremebob · · Score: 4, Informative

      I think that .tk was the first country to offer free domains, which is why they had a head start. If I remember right, they reserved a bunch of "premium" domains (like cars.tk or movies.tk) that the country tried to sell for higher dollar amounts. That money seems to have gone for funding internet access and to help keep their island above sea level. I don't think that the latter is it working out too well for them.

    6. Re: Why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well since it came out in 2006, I'm going to say you're young enough you don't know much about the internet. So really your input doesn't matter. When I was 11, you had dialup at best.

    7. Re:Why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First hit is free. You've never heard of this? I'm guessing in a few years they'll say: "Ah. No longer free sorry. Just pay us a small amount." And then they'll rake in millions.

    8. Re: Why by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1

      When I was 11, we were raving about the first Star Wars movie in the theaters, the PET/Trash-80/Apple II, and CBs were the way you did any long-distance communications. Now get off my lawn...

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    9. Re: Why by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      There was a time in the past when I could hail a free ride using a handheld CB radio faster than calling for a taxi.

      And since it was real "ride-sharing," I only had to pay if I had some gas money. After all, we were just people using technology for sharing.

  8. www.tcl.tk by nuntius · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is the page you are looking for.

    http://www.tcl.tk/

    1. Re:www.tcl.tk by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Thanks!

      Careful, though, if you mistype that you get tickling smut. (Not that it's necessarily a bad thing, but some may be at work.)

  9. I was hoping for an Indian Ocean island instead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was hoping this would be about Christmas Island (.cx), so I'd have an excuse to post some goatse links.

    1. Re:I was hoping for an Indian Ocean island instead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Any excuse will do!

  10. Pointless by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    One to file away in case you're ever on Pointless and can't remember Vanuatu.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    1. Re:Pointless by glitch! · · Score: 1

      In my memory, the "alternate" registrar was .nu They advertised their domains as cheaper and "new" (a play on .nu) That was two decades ago, so maybe my memory is not exact.

      --
      A dingo ate my sig...
    2. Re:Pointless by tepples · · Score: 2

      Niue's TLD .nu became more popular in Scandinavia, as nu means "now" in Swedish, and it was open to individuals before Sweden's own .se was. At one time, many erotic sites for the francophone market were in .nu, as nu means "naked" in French.

    3. Re:Pointless by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      I prefer naked women, but whatever floats your boat.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    4. Re:Pointless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And all women prefer you stay fully clothed, and away.

    5. Re:Pointless by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      It's an adjective. Not a noun.

      You're welcome.

      This is the problem with incels; most of them don't even know what a woman is. I'll give you a hint; they're not a type of French horn.

      They're like human Ents; they're not even sure what the women look like, so they wouldn't know it if they did find them.

    6. Re:Pointless by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Adjectives in French decline.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  11. SIngle point of failure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Needs to be distributed, and put back in the hands of the people.

    1. Re: SIngle point of failure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh you would love that. Several days of full distribution with half the warranty ending in a big splash? No thank you - better to split the difference in the presence of evil nuances

  12. clickbait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Clickbait. The article claims to explain "why" but merely lists some stats.

  13. Recurring fee for domain and hosting by tepples · · Score: 1

    To run a web server on a personal domain (aka "IndieWeb"), you first need to be technical enough to do so, and then you need to pay a recurring fee for a domain and hosting. In many cases, this hosting can't be on a Raspberry Pi or other machine in a subscriber's home for any of three reasons:

    • The router puts the home network behind a NAT, and the user isn't technical enough to know how to forward a port.
    • The ISP blocks common inbound ports (particularly 443, 80, and 25), or the ISP places an entire neighborhood behind a NAT in order to conserve IPv4 addresses.
    • The ISP warns and then disconnects home users who "run a server" without first paying to upgrade to business service.
    1. Re:Recurring fee for domain and hosting by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      Even without the web server, it's useful as an email domain. When gmail goes away, I'll still have my own domain.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    2. Re:Recurring fee for domain and hosting by tepples · · Score: 1

      The ISP blocks common inbound ports (particularly 443, 80, and 25)

      it's useful as an email domain.

      How is your home server going to send or receive email if the ISP blocks port 25 "for spam prevention purposes"?

    3. Re:Recurring fee for domain and hosting by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      What home server? You can set the MX record to whatever you want. I certainly don't run an email server from my basement, though I do host a small website from there for family members.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    4. Re:Recurring fee for domain and hosting by tepples · · Score: 1

      You can set the MX record to whatever you want.

      Provided you pay the recurring fee for the domain and the email hosting.

    5. Re:Recurring fee for domain and hosting by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      Um, yeah?

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    6. Re:Recurring fee for domain and hosting by tepples · · Score: 1

      Most of the population doesn't see the benefit of paying for a domain and email hosting for the rest of their lives over just using Gmail.

    7. Re:Recurring fee for domain and hosting by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      Most of the population also pays a plumber $125 to install a $9 tube under their sink.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    8. Re:Recurring fee for domain and hosting by ncc74656 · · Score: 1

      You can set the MX record to whatever you want.

      Provided you pay the recurring fee for the domain and the email hosting.

      Not exactly a huge financial burden. My primary domain name runs me something like $12-$15 per year, and the offshore VPS that hosts my websites and email sets me back a whopping €15 (usually $17-$18) per quarter. I spent more taking my parents out to dinner recently than I spent in the past year on keeping a web-and-mail server up and running.

      --
      20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
  14. Deliverability from personal domains by tepples · · Score: 1

    Not exactly a huge financial burden. My primary domain name runs me something like $12-$15 per year, and the offshore VPS that hosts my websites and email sets me back a whopping €15 (usually $17-$18) per quarter.

    In other words, about $90 per year, plus however much it cost you to learn to securely administer this domain name and VPS. This is $90 per year plus hours of study more than just falling back to Gmail or Outlook.com.

    I spent more taking my parents out to dinner recently than I spent in the past year on keeping a web-and-mail server up and running.

    People for whom "out to dinner" means Chick-fil-A or Steak n Shake might not appreciate that analogy.

    I bring this up with respect to the non-technical majority of people, not only technical people such as yourself and myself, because of the effect that scale has on deliverability. In order for a substantial fraction of Internet users to switch from Gmail or Outlook.com to their own domain, each such user would have to either learn how to do so or pay for managed domain registration and email hosting that is one-click easy. And without wide adoption of email from personal domains, the too-big-to-fail email providers can decide it's more profitable to reject email from personal domains as acceptable collateral damage in the war against unsolicited bulk mail.