In February 2024, more than 12 million websites stopped working within a few days. There was no hack and no warning. They all used free domains from Freenom, and when Freenom left the domain business, those domains went dark.
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What was Freenom?
Freenom gave away free domain names ending in .tk, .cf and .gq (the country domains of Tokelau, the Central African Republic and Equatorial Guinea). Millions of people used them for personal sites, small businesses and projects.
Why it went wrong
Free domains also attracted criminals. Freenom names became a favourite for phishing and scam sites. In March 2023, Meta sued Freenom for cybersquatting, and Freenom stopped taking new registrations.
The shutdown
According to Netcraft, the shutdown took effect between 8 and 10 February 2024. On 12 February, Freenom announced it was leaving the domain name business and had settled the Meta lawsuit. By the next survey, 12.6 million domains had stopped resolving, a 98.7% drop. Cloudflare, which hosted many of these sites, saw 22% of all its hosted domains disappear in one month.
The real lesson
Cloudflare did nothing wrong. It only hosted the websites. The domains themselves vanished, because their owners never really controlled them. When the registrar shut down, their websites and email addresses went with it.
Why use a registrar you can trust, like Cloudflare
- At-cost pricing: Cloudflare Registrar charges the wholesale price with no markup, so renewals don’t jump.
- Security built in: WHOIS privacy, DNSSEC and Cloudflare’s DDoS protection.
- All in one place: your domain, DNS and SSL managed together.
How to transfer a domain to Cloudflare
- Add the domain to Cloudflare and point its nameservers to Cloudflare DNS.
- Unlock the domain at your current registrar (and turn off DNSSEC there first).
- Request the transfer code, also called the EPP or authorization code.
- Enter the code in the Cloudflare dashboard, confirm payment and approve the transfer email.
Most transfers finish within five days and add one year to your registration. The domain must be at least 60 days old and not transferred in the last 60 days. Some country domains can’t move to Cloudflare’s registrar yet, so check Cloudflare’s supported list first; those domains can still use Cloudflare’s free DNS and protection.
Need help?
Moving a domain the wrong way can take a website or email offline. Talk to Elgon Web Hosting and we’ll move your domains safely.