COVE presents The Great Domain Name Giveaway on Monday August 11 where 2,500 free domain names will be given away!
There are 2000 gTLD domains and 500 .AU domains to be give away.
All domains come with free DNS hosting, free URL re-direction, free URL cloaking and free email forwarding.
$50 cash in VIP Wallet for the referrer after referee signs up to a new hosting service and either a new domain name or transfer an existing domain name, and remains an active customer for at least 60 days
and the catch is?
There is no catch! It's being done as a promotion to celebrate the launch of the business.
Sounds good to me :)
do we need to know what domain we want beforehand ?
Tempting deal.
Anyone how to claim the domain? I registered but I couldnt find the code
I thought you have to wait until next Monday before they start publishing coupon codes on their website so you can use them to get free domain names?
The free coupon codes will be released on Monday. They will be released in lots of 500, but to access them you will need to be a registered member of the COVE forums.
I would recommend you register before the day, as you will get first dibs on seeing the coupon list and I think the website is going to be a little flooded with last minute registrations. :)
And yes, you should probably have a fair idea on what domain name you want before the day. You can use the search tool on cove.com.au to see if the one you want is available.
Cove, I'm guessing its a free domain name for 1 year? Then after that its normal rates or what's the go there?
EDIT: I just read the forum and it appears to be 1 year for .com etc and 2 year for .au.
After the first year on gtlds or the second year on .au's, you can either ditch the domain or renew at our standard prices (which are pretty cheap anyway!!). Entirely your choice. :)
We say on the day there could be over 10,000 people trying to access the coupons because on the day the offer is being "plugged" on a Sydney and Melbourne radio station, as well as a couple of large websites that we sponsor which have 14,000+ members each.
We also say that we would like people to register on the forums BEFORE the day, because there will be a huge rush of people trying to register on the day and we can't guarantee that the forum registration won't be closed to stop traffic flooding the site.
If you don't want a free domain, don't get one, it's pretty simple really. :)
Cove,
As staff/owner representing their company here, I find that your response to my sincere questions earlier is just simply appalling and unprofessional. I was even being apologetic for being doubtful about the offer and apart from your elaborate explanation, and I got 'in your face' response :) .. it's all right, I am not offended :) just surprised to see what kind of response from this so called company rep :)
Cheers
elcheapo
I'm not sure why you think it was "in your face", but it certainly wasn't intended that way. If you -were- offended, I sincerely apologise for that.
Most people who have "doubts" about special offers can often miss out on something good. My mother is like that, and then when someone else she knows gets the offer, she screams blue murder because she missed out!
I do get a little annoyed when people question my sincerity though, and this offer is very genuine and very sincere. We are trying to build our brand and show off our best feature, our domain system, something 90% of companies in this particular industry don't seem to pay much attention to. :)
If you don't get a free domain on the day elcheapo, feel free to send me a message and I'll make sure you get one hey? ;)
I don't think your reply was 'in your face either', some people can just be easily offended
BUT offering to supply a free domain if the user doesn't get one on the day isn't a good thing to do. Sends out a bad message, it just isnt fair. They should have to go through the same process as everyone else.
Just my 2 cents.
@unitedbythemoment: Thanks for your considered response :) as said by unitedbythemoment above, I also don't expect any special treatment and if I missed out, then I missed out.. that is what we called 'Bargain'..
Cheers
elcheapo
Looks good to me! Also checked out their Australian web-host plans, some really good deals there (50% off for personal use and a $200 Virgin Blue voucher). If the last bit is for real ($200 voucher) I just might have to sign up right away..
Unfortunately for you, you can only use one coupon in the order form. So you can choose the 50% off for personal use coupon, or the Virgin Blue coupon. Also note the offer is for up to $200 in free flights, you can check the table at http://forums.cove.com.au/showthread.php?t=87 to see which plans gives you what amounts.
Either way it's a great offer, but we only have 8 of those voucher spots remaining. :)
Just a quick question — as your domain price is actually quite good, I am wondering who is your registrar? Don't think Cove is a auDA accredited registrar as you guys are so new, so who is your registrar for .au domains? What about gTLD domains?
Thanks!
Our registrar is Bottle Domains. Our new system is purpose built for us, and is ready and waiting for our auDA accreditation as soon as auDA allow new registrars.
We use eNom for gTLD domains. :)
The only reason I can see that they are giving free domain names is to make you stick with them after the first year. I mean, after a year of promoting your website with that domain name, you would of course want to pay for another year or so to keep it as it is too bothersome to just change it. And you would have to buy it off them as they will own the domain name
We all agree that it is marketing, but for domain names (1) it is trivial to transfer to another registrar (2) COVE seems to have pretty good price in Australian standard.
For example .com.au is having promotion now for $16.95/2 years. It is already a loss leader.
The main benefit from this exercise is the exposure of our brand. The only time we will make money from people who get a free domain is if they renew it after 1 or 2 years (depending on the domain), or they decide to purchase a hosting account from us sometime over the next year or so.
You don't have to buy it from us, as you can update the nameservers and point it to any hosting account you like, but I would like to hope that if we have given you a free domain that you would support our business in return. :)
The real challenge is keeping the site up. Jetstar couldn't do, let's see how your servers purr on Monday.
Completly agree! Some pretty good prices there, now all I have to do is wait till Monday to see if I can get on the website ;)
monday 1am and yet no codes?
It starts at 10 a.m. AEST.
Acutally 10:30am, because the codes are still not there. (Waiting… Waiting…)
Says 379 members so I reckon we all have a good chance at getting a domain.
You now have to go to their forums and under "Great Domain Name Giveaway" there's a post with a special landing URL which you can use to register the "request" for the domain name.
I've just done mine (4 minutes after that post was up). So head down there guys! (And remember to put OzBargain as your source of referral :)
Hey neil, I think cheyne has specifically asked in his post to not link the URL directly. I think we should respect his request in that way. :)
My bad, took it out.
Looks like registration has been opened. You need to select a domain, then register your interest and they'll tally up at the end of the day.
Also from their site:
At 8:00PM when registration closes, if there are less then 2,500 registrations everyone will get their domains. If there are more then 2,500 registrations, our script will randomly select 2,500 which will be automatically sent across to our billing and domain platform.
From a business perspective, it's actually a very smart move. Get as many registrations as possible, then randomly give out 2500 free domains as oppose to restrict registrations to only 2500 accounts. But hey, as long as I get a free domain (hopefully I don't be one of the unlucky random ones to miss out), can't complain about that. ;)
Hmm. Being non-deterministic is a bit of worry especially I put in a name that I really wanted and has just expired and went back into the free pool. That means if Cove decided that I am not in the random 2,500, I'll have to wait until 8pm to find out and then register it elsewhere…
the only code available untill today at 5pm is only FREEVALUE1
cant believe it. it said that it will be announced many codes and yet i can only find one!!
anybody knows other code?
There are other codes but it's only 1 domain per person. I believe everyone has different codes. There are only 400 members on the forums which means there are 2000+ free domains left in the promotion.
They didn't give out 2500 as they advertised!
@10:55 AM
Our first free offer for today is for 10 FREE AU-VALUE-1 accounts for 12 months.
@ 11:56 AM
This coupon has been EXTENDED to allow 5 more FREE accounts!
@ 05:26 PM
Coupon is now set to allow 20 accounts!
So they only release 3 time with total 35 not 2500! Am I missing something here?
Could that be a .au account?
There was an offer earlier in the day with COVEROCKS which was the 2500 free domains.
I think these are free hosting accounts that are not related to the free domains that are (supposed to be) given out today…
It's almost 9pm AEST now. Still waiting to see whether I got my free domain. I wonder whether they have ran out of entropy. Picking 2500 random winners from 400 entries are not hard!
Who knows, maybe the script is running on an old 386 PC? Also, I think it was mentioned that Cheyne will have to manually pick out duplicate entries (i.e. unique IP) and only give away 1 domain per IP. I won't be surprised if we only get the email tomorrow. :(
Ahhh…in that case I miss out on both offers. Didn't know sign up for domain is in different link.
anybody has been approved yet?
Doesn't look good :( http://forums.cove.com.au/showthread.php?t=132&page=21
Apparently, all the successful registration emails have already been sent out. The "unsuccessful" emails won't be sent until tomorrow. I've just checked my email and still none from cove. So looks like no free domain for me.
Hope some of you people manage to get one.
Wow. 500 members but 9,000+ registrations for the domains? No I did not get the free domain. I thought it would not be "fair" so I only requested one. Maybe I should have registered more…
Now heading to my favourite registrar to get my domain now (just in case) that the list got leaked and the domain I wanted get squattered by someone else.
I didn't get one too, and I smelled something fishy !!
I suspect someone posted the direct link to the deal which bypasses the forums.
@neil: Same here, only registered 1 & didn't get it. Though only for registered members but agreed POORLY setup!
I was on the forum and looked under 'forum only offers'. That gave me the 'FREEVALUE1' code, but it seems like there was only 35 on offer. And there was so few each round that I didn't bother. It feels like a big waste of time and it was just a big marketing hype! (trying to make their company appear 'bigger' than it really is). Unless I missed something perhaps….
To hear that none of our members obtained a free domain name just proves that this was a scam!!! Maybe elcheapo was correct from the beginning…'too good to be true'!
This is really dodgy…..
Yups…that's what I though too. Waiting for them to release the code is a pain in the @ss but no luck.
Agree with elchepo, i didnt get one either, looks like a big stunt, marketing hype.
Well. Check out this thread at COVE forum. Looks like a contest that was supposed to be for registered-members only, but the code was posted on various online forums and blogs (although doing a Google Blog search I can't seem to find that much coverage). There are also people who registered 23 domains using different email addresses (which seem to be the only unique identifier), and those email addresses were never checked against their forum users' database.
A contest done wrong basically.
agree, SO DODGY. I dont even get an email, a few friends of mine dont even get any.
I think it is a scam.
COVE IS SCAM with no doubt
i doubt cove is a scam.
but yes i agree completely that yesterdays giveaway clearly wasn't thought thru properly - and probably worked against cove, just pissing off their potential customers
I got my domain.
A poorly set out contest as it allowed people to cheat the system.
@Demarco — lucky you! How many requests did you put in? :)
@krescent2 — COVE is definitely not a scam because these people have been in business for a long time. It's just a poorly executed contest and that's it.
I ended up buying a .COM.AU domain from Name.com.au and a .COM from DreamHost today…
That's what my friend thinking & told me best not to register with them cuz you don't know who's the ownership of your domain. Now I totally agreed with him.
Scotty, good that you act fast!
I requested the one I wanted at about 11 in the morning, then when I logged on at about 8:20 the posters in the forum all indicated multiple requests from a single ip, so I threw in a request for a domain that my mate wanted.
My original domain request didn't happen, but my second one did.
I'm guessing they sifted through requests by ip later on.
They should have organised the contest in a way that only forum members would have won free domains, but maybe that's easier said than done.
I thought this was very dodgy after not receiving any emails. Poorly set out contest & all round marketing ploy. I did eventually get an email saying they'll give me a free domain with their hosting package. Bad.
If they can't set up something simple like this properly imagine what their service and products will be like! No thanks. Cove you suck.
Agree, very dodgy indeed!
hmmmm
good stuff!