For those with a better memory than a goldfish on crack, a year or so back I wrote an article about Co.cc and how you can use them with email and I also did a Co.cc referral review but it seems as of today they might have pulled the plug.
For those that may not know, Co.CC was a free subdomain service that gave you a subdomain (like snat.co.cc) and then gave you full DNS access so you could use it as you would a normal domain and the service worked great – even I used them for a few throwaway domains but that is where the problem came in.
Due to its free nature (and it’s $10 for as many as you want), Co.CC was abused and used for scams and spamming and was even de-listed by Google at one point although they did re-enable it. Getting back to the article on hand a few days ago Co.CC seems to have removed its DNS records which ultimately has stopped its site from working and every subdomain it provided.
The reason why this happened isn’t known and I tried looking everywhere. Could have been disabled due to an attack and yet to come up, could have exchanged ownership and yet to come back online, could the owner no longer want to run the service or did the folks behind .cc want it gone?
At this point, I do not think we will ever find out but still sad to see a good service gone. For those that used Co.CC, I doubt it will be coming back online or at the very least not coming back online any time soon. For anyone looking for a replacement service, I would advise getting an actual domain but if you can not afford that (or simply do not want to pay) I would recommend you either go with a Dot.TK domain or pick one of the many subdomains on FreeDNS @ Afraid.org.
If I learn anything else about this I will update this article but if you do know something then please do comment below.
Edit
16 November 2012
It has come to my attention that the domain itself may have been suspended as the domain as of right now is “Status clientHold” when you check the Whois for the domain. This is often used when a domain has been suspended. I am guessing that the abuse issues they had in the past became such an issue, the people that run the .cc domains may have had enough of the co. cc domain and have it turned off. In other words, the people behind Co.CC itself may have not shut it all down but rather have issues with the people that run .cc. If this is the case, there may be a chance the domain will come back up.
If it will come back is something no one knows yet.
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What can I say, it has hit me hard. My website has gone down and so did the mail with it. I have purchased a new domain and already uploaded my site onto it but some major tweaking remains. Plus, I lost the Google apps email now. Even with the new domain, my email id will still change. I am so sad. I hope it comes back online though so that my old email comes back online.
I know that feeling quite well. I had quite a few websites I was trying to start up and well, any traffic they had is long gone now. In regards to your email that as much as it sucks, at least with Google Apps you can keep the emails and you can always email anyone to knew that had it and say you updated the email.
Still a lot of hassle though.
I wouldn’t ever depend on a free domain service to run anything you really care about. Same goes for free web and email hosts. It’s so cheap to buy a real domain and rent a decent server, there’s no reason to go free on anything you really care about.
Couldn’t have said it any better myself.
It’s hit me hard too. I had all my emails hosted by google apps. Best bet is to backup (http://www.gmail-backup.com/i-want-migrate-google-apps-gmail-account-standard-myalias-gmail-com-account-how) and restore to your new domain.
While it is sad to hear about the emails, that is a useful link!
One thing to bear in mind- It doesn’t appear to backup sent mail.
Oh that sucks. Thought it may have, pretty sure all Gmail does is tag every sent mail with the label “sent”.
Sad thing, thanks to your link, i just moved to dot.tk
Hopefully Dot.TK works better for you. Make sure to visit your site though often, they do suspend domains that gets no traffic over X amount of days.
I’ve been using both co.cc and .rk..
.tk is used to deleting popular domains :t
I have heard this from a lot of people but I still do run quite a few .TK domains that gets a lot of traffic. I do know though they are very rough on renewing it, even if you miss a day it is gone.
its truly verry sad i also lost but you can create on .co.nr domain just what i did. or you can also try .cu.cc but then also i wish it soon back on web
It is highly unlikely Co.CC is going to come back and even if so people will not trust the service in future.
Better to just get a domain or at most a free .TK.
I want my $10 back
It is a real shame no one will be getting any money back from CO.CC. You are best to move on and forget about them.