Free Domain vs Paid Domain — Should You Use .tk or Just Pay for a Real One?

When you're just starting out and want a website, paying for a domain feels like a commitment you're not ready to make. You find Freenom, see .tk or .ml domains listed for free, and think — I'll use this for now and get a real domain later.

I did this. Most people who've spent any time in web development did this at some point. Let me explain how it usually ends.

.tk, .ml, .ga, .cf — these are country-code domains for places like Tokelau and Mali that partnered with a company called Freenom to offer them free. You don't actually own them. You get a temporary lease, and the registry can reclaim the domain.

And they do. People have had free domains disappear — you go to your site one day and it's gone because Freenom decided to reclaim it, or the free period ended with unclear notice, or for no apparent reason at all. No warning, no recourse.

A huge percentage of spam sites, phishing pages, and malware use free domains because there's no accountability requirement. Google knows this and factors it in. Your .tk domain starts life with a reputation disadvantage — harder to rank, harder to land in inboxes, and people who see the URL in a link will often just not click.

You can't get AdSense approved on free domains. Most ad networks won't touch them. If the plan is to build a blog and monetize it, that path is blocked before you start.

Some SSL certificate providers won't issue certs for free domains either, which means your site shows as "not secure" in browsers. That's a trust problem with no good solution.

A .com domain runs about ₹800 to ₹1200 per year depending on where you buy it. Namecheap, Hostinger, and GoDaddy all have first-year sales. That's less than ₹100 per month.

If you're building something you actually care about, that's not a real barrier.

If you're doing local DNS testing or a completely private experiment, maybe. For anything public — a portfolio, a blog, a project you want people to find — use a paid domain. The cost difference is not worth the credibility hit and the risk of losing the domain without warning.

.com is still the most recognised and trusted extension. If the .com you want is taken or expensive, .in works well for India-focused content, .dev is good for developer portfolios, and .io has become standard in tech. Stay away from .xyz, .site, .online for anything serious — they carry some of the same spam associations as free domains.

One thing to check before buying: the renewal price, not just the first year. Some registrars offer the first year cheap and charge 3-4x on renewal. Always check the renewal price before committing.