Can someoene explain the "free .info domains from Dotster" ?
 

Ok, I know I am late with this question but I neever paid attention to it, and I am just interested in it from the business perspective.

So Dotster not only gave away free .info domains, they even registered for me .info" names that match my .com domains.

Problem is that I am sure I won't renew them, so I will either let them expire, or sell for 5 bucks, or give to a friend.

So why Dotster did this? Did they have to pay for them from their own pocket ( I know that would be a huge bulk deal, but still it would cost them some $$$ ) and now they hope, I will renew them in 1 year, or buy some additional features?

What I am missing here?

Hoping for renewals?

I'm not too sure myself, but .info domains are being sold cheap/free by most registrars. I know registerfly are selling them for $1 each. I'm guessing something happened and they either lowered the price of the extension or it's a ploy to get people to register and renew and a heightened price?

all the big registers are offering them cheap or free to encourage a new extension. all the good .com and .nets are practically gone so if it catches on with webmasters in the end there is more money for the registras...

think out the BOX :-d

I was pissed when they did that, I only like to collect .com's, and I had about 70 domains with them before I became a reseller from enom, I moved everything out of dotster as of last week.

probably they're hoping for renewals and generally increase the popularity of .info domains...

Because it cost Dotster, and the other registrars, nothing. The free names were being offered by Afilias to all registrars. This one came from the top. Some of them passed along the free price while others just offered great discounts.

Besides the obvious renewal fees, registrars jumped at the chance to increase their client base and sell more services. Domain fowarding services, email services, hosting services, WHOIS identity protection, etc.

Thanks, this answers my question