Hubbry Logo
search
logo
.tk
.tk
current hub
2173482

.tk

logo
Community Hub0 Subscribers
Write something...
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
See all
.tk

.tk is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Tokelau, a territory of New Zealand in the South Pacific.

The .tk TLD is managed by Teletok, a local telecommunications company who outsourced the domain registry operation to a Dutch company Freenom, who was additionally also acting as a registrar. As Freenom offered free registration, the .tk ending was often associated with malicious activities like phishing, spam and cybersquatting. In 2023, Freenom stopped offering new .tk registrations in their registrar business as a result of a lawsuit with Meta. Their registry operations for other registrars were not affected by this. Freenom announced it would exit the domain registry and registrar business in February 2024.

Teletok opened negotiations with the domain registry operator of .nz, for help in managing .tk after Freenom's exit.

Tokelau allows any individual to register domain names. Users and small businesses were able to register any number of domain names free of charge (with some restrictions). In addition to the name itself, users can opt to forward their web traffic using HTML frames and their email traffic, with a maximum of 250 addresses per user log in, or use full DNS, either via their own or third-party servers, or by using Dot TK's servers. There are content restrictions for free domains, banning sites containing sexual content, drug use, hate speech, firearms, and spam or copyright infringement. Dot TK requires free domains to have a regular traffic of visitors, and if a domain's redirect target does not work (even temporarily) the domain is taken offline. If a domain violates any of these terms, it is replaced by a Sedo advertisement page, and no advance warning is given.

Dot TK also provides .tk websites with the option to join a network called TiKinet, a close-knit network that links sites to each other based on keywords called TiKilinks. The network is expected to increase traffic to the websites, many of which are personal sites and blogs operated by individuals who otherwise would have no way to advertise their sites.

To be able to get a "special" .tk domain name the user must buy it. This includes trademark domain names for most Fortune 500 companies and common dictionary terms. Paid domain names cost US$19.90 for the first two years. Potentially valuable names with fewer than 4 characters are similarly unavailable for free registration and must generally be purchased at a premium price of over $1000.

Dot TK launched a new service called TweaK for Twitter users in April 2010, offering a URL shortening service that uses less space than many others, and for Facebook where the user can rename Facebook account pages with a .tk name.

In 2016, Nominet released a world map where each country was resized according to the popularity of its top-level domain. The .tk domain ranked first worldwide with 31,311,498 registered domain names (China (.cn) ranked 2nd with 16,810,737 registered domain names). The revenues from the .tk top-level domain business represent about 16 of the island's annual income.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.