Get a free domain name care of Microsoft

Filed under: Business, Internet, Windows, Microsoft

Get a free domain name care of Microsoft

by Chris Gilmer Dec 9th 2006

Microsoft has an incredible offer on the table right now. Free domain names! Can it really be all that? Microsoft is offering free domains through its Office Live program for businesses. The free package consists of:

Free domain name and web hosting
Web site design tools
500MB of web storage
25 email accounts
Web site reports
Search engine advertising tool

So what about the domain name? Does Microsoft own it? I dug a little bit to find out that no, Microsoft indeed doesn't. Its you who is the registered owner. It is registered through Melbourne IT, who is owned by Microsoft, but the domain can be transferred after 60 days of signing up with Office Live, with no penalties.

After checking to see if your domain of choice is available, you do have to provide payment information for verification. Follow the steps, and you are hot on the path to some nice free web space, and domain name. Way to go Microsoft! Who doesn't like free domains?

There are additional offers in the mix as well. A Live Essentials offer for $19.95/month for 1GB of storage, and an Office Live Premium offer with 2GB of storage and 50 email accounts for $29.95/month.

[Tip from Deran Decker]

Tags: domains, email, microsoft, office live, OfficeLive, storage, web space, WebSpace

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

James said 8:22PM on 12-09-2006

Requires Internet Explorer :(

Chris Gilmer said 8:44PM on 12-09-2006

ya, it seems like any area you check out on microsoft.com besides the homepage requires IE.

Qwfwq said 9:07PM on 12-09-2006

Unfortunately, the Office Live Basics (the free offer) is not open outside of the USA (although the other services seem to be available to a few other countries). Also Office Live Basics won't let you edit the HTML code directly or use design tools other than the online site designer. And, as typical for Microsoft, you'll need IE to access the site.

Nevertheless it's a nice offer and seems much more complete than Google's Page Creator, etc. I hope that Google takes notice and offers a similar service ( perhaps a little more open in the editing department).

Ryan said 9:18PM on 12-09-2006

I signed up for this when it came out a few months back.
Received a bill about 2 months later for the domain registration. The price was ridiculous, around $30 bucks from what I remember.

nizzy1115 said 9:30PM on 12-09-2006

"Okay so I digged a bit more and the story seems very interesting, its not that simple, it’s a marketing scam where they make money one way or another ….. here is how it works, first your register a free top level domain for your company to run business and make money and the domain becomes property of Microsoft as long as you use there Office live, if you cancel your office live subscription(free or paid) then you get to keep the domain but you can get it back after 60 day (now in 60 days you will be out of business you domain will have no ranking and will be approximately useless for you) so either use Microsoft or get bank corrupt  also the story does not end here once you cancel your subscription your domain will be in the hand of Australian company www.melbourneit.com.au/ who will charge you $35.00/per year for domain $7.50 for transfer and $155.00 redemption fee so the question is “IS MICROSOFT OFFERING FREE DOMAIN FOR HELPING YOU OUT or THEY ARE MAKING MONEY ONE WAY OR ANOTHER"

from http://blog.zeeshanhasan.com/?p=218

thank goodness the site was so slow and my connection kept timing out! i almost got signed up for it!

Qwfwq said 10:02PM on 12-09-2006

@nizzy1115

I don't agree about it being a scam - they offer you the domain name for free while using the Office Live service. If you cancel the service you can still keep the domain name but Microsoft will no longer pay the registrar fees, so you'll have to pay them yourself just like you normally would if you had registered it yourself. That to me seems fair.

My only problem with this service is that it locks you too tightly with Microsoft products (IE) and has very limited editing options - but that was to be expected.

Chris said 11:27PM on 12-09-2006

How dare Microsoft?! Offer a free domain and web tools, only to put restrictions on it like using the services of the company who's giving me these FREE features! Ridiculous! When will someone come along and give me these things truly free? I want someone to give me a free computer, with free Fios service, a free website that I can do whatever I want with and never have to pay a penny to anyone, and I also want free daily starbucks delivered at 9 AM by a trained mongoose.

I guess I agree with nizzy, Microsoft's terms seem pretty darn fair to me.

zed said 11:49PM on 12-09-2006

I knew this was a scam :|

How do i cancel everything? Theres no links on the site at all

Shady said 12:06AM on 12-10-2006

Too bad. I don't wanna give my personal details :|

james-42 said 12:19AM on 12-10-2006

This is not a scam, I started testing the service nine months ago and have not been charged a penny to date. The biggest drawback is that the WYSIWYG editor creates pages that only display properly in IE. I have little doubt the MS did this on purpose, but it makes it a deal breaker. If you have any intention of having anything but a limited US audience, IE only sites just won't fly.

Other then that, it is a pretty nice setup, comparatively speaking, the WYSIWYG editor is not too bad. That is not to say that it is good, but in comparison, it is not as crappy as the rest.

TheBlunderbuss said 3:31AM on 12-10-2006

I would rather not be under Microsoft's thumb any more than I am, thank you.

Danish Munir said 4:27AM on 12-10-2006

Been testing this for 7 months now. Haven't been charged a penny.

E.J. said 4:55AM on 12-10-2006

@4. Ryan

what you get in the mail is a solicitation from a different domain company trying to get you to transfer your free domain to their company, not MS.

D said 11:03AM on 12-11-2006

I had the feeling this was free for just a trial period when I signed up. The words beta trial appear all over the site.

liquid said 5:21PM on 12-11-2006

you dont have to use the WYSIWYG online editor. Ive been using this for months (no charges) and built the site in MS Frontpage. You cant edit it in dreamweaver or anything else like that, but for free domain name, hosting and no ads, what else do you want.

liquid said 5:22PM on 12-11-2006

also, if your hellbent on not using Frontpage, you can create your site in whatever package you like, then simply copy and paste the code into FP

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters