Never buy a .online domain • Hacker News Board

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#51

Post by ranger_danger » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

palad1n wrote: post #6

Are there any other TLDs that are of this ilk or are we saying nothing but .com will ever do? Or .org, perhaps?

The ones used by freenom were particularly abused:

https://prezkennedy.com/2026/01/15/the-free-domain-trap-the-...

> Freenom’s terms of service allowed them to “cancel” a free domain at any time without warning. Users reported for years that as soon as their free site started getting significant traffic (and becoming valuable), Freenom would reclaim the domain and fill it with ads, effectively hijacking the user’s hard work.

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#52

Post by dizhn » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 2:17 PM UTC

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #18

> The domain ... has been suspended due to its blacklisting on Google Safe Browsing Et voilà ... ! this is precisely the slippery slope I warned about a decade ago. The indirect censorship becomes direct censorship, defeating all the arguments about the morality of such a list. And: > Not adding the domain to Google Search Console immediately. I don't need their analytics and wasn't really planning on having any cont…

That is the bit that jumped at me immediately too. Why would a registrar take it upon itself to suspend a domain that another entity entirely blacklisted as part of their own completely opaque process? Who is Google? God?

On the flip side of the coin I cannot get a site removed that is a blatant rip off of one of our websites being actively used for invoice redirection fraud.

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#53

Post by ghoshbishakh » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 2:17 PM UTC

We posted this warning on HN before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40195410

We struggled a lot when we opted for the .online domain for https://pinggy.io urls

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#54

Post by aitchnyu » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 2:19 PM UTC

timpera wrote: post #32

palad1n wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, what the heck happened to Gandi? It used to be my go-to, but nowadays... yikes!

They got sold to private equity, unfortunately. I switched to Bookmyname (by Scaleway) for some TLDs, and Infomaniak for others.

Can we trust Cloud registrars like Bookmyname/Scaleway, Amazon Route 53, Cloudflare more than Namecheap, Gandi and co?

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#55

Post by basilikum » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 2:21 PM UTC

This sounds like something ICANN should prevent. Is this not against ICANN rules? These fuckers ban emoji domains, maybe they should ban registries from arbitrarily stealing domains with no recourse. Maybe write to them and see if they can move something.

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#56

Post by RHSeeger » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 2:21 PM UTC

iamnothere wrote: post #20

The registrar relying on Google Safe Browsing as a “trigger” for suspension is the most horrifying thing I’ve seen in a while. This basically makes the entire TLD unviable for serious use.

The followup from that would appear to be don't use any domain that Radix controls.

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#57

Post by nguyenkien » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 2:22 PM UTC

blenderob wrote: post #49

Why was the domain blacklisted though? What can we do to prevent blacklisting in the first place?

From false alarm to something previous owner did. Remember domain is recycled.

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#58

Post by cmsp12 » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 2:23 PM UTC

honestly all of these weird tld are expensive in the long term i dont see the point of getting them

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#59

Post by nguyenkien » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 2:26 PM UTC

eappleby wrote: post #21

Unfortunate story. It wasn't clear to me that the .online TLD led to Google blacklisting the site. Why did you think that was connected?

The registrar suspense domain because it on Google blocked list. And Google refuse to review the ban because he can't prove he own that domain (because it suspended :D).

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#60

Post by g947o » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 2:26 PM UTC

merek wrote: post #11

The TLD owner in this case was Radix, which also owns .store .online .tech .site .fun .pw .host .press .space .uno .website https://radix.website/

They seem to be almost always associated with scam sites.

So, might as well to block entire TLDs and never buy a domain under those TLDs