TL;DR All previous .ga domains have been deleted and any websites ending with .ga will stop working.
Some of the Spookhost users have been using the .ga domains from Freenom. It is crucial for them to get notified of this issue.
Please note that this is not a Spookhost issue, but it's worth mentioning.
What happened?
The National Agency for Digital Infrastructure and Frequencies (ANINF) has reclaimed the ownership of the .ga Top Level Domain (TLD). Starting from 3 June 2023, the .ga TLD will no longer be controlled by Freenom, instead, it will be managed by Afnic, a France domain registrar.
An official document from Afnic: https://www.afnic.fr/wp-media/uploads/2023/05/ga-domain-names-soon-to-return-to-Gabonese-management-1.pdf.
How will it affect Spookhost users?
This currently only affects users with the .ga TLD.
All domains ending with .ga have stopped working, this includes both Spookhost-hosted and non-Spookhost-Hosted .ga domains.
Please note that this is not a Spookhost issue, this change to the .ga TLD was done by ANINF.
How about other Freenom Domains?
All other Freenom domains are currently unaffected. However, Freenom is currently in an awful situation as they are being suited by Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. All Freenom domain registrations have stopped since March 2023. It is likely that Freenom and its domains will not a good future. If you are a Freenom domain user, please prepare for the event that your domain getting deleted.
How to solve this?
You have two options,
- Use a Spookhost Subdomain. Use this option to avoid the worry of renewing the domain, while keeping everything free.
- Register a paid domain. Use this option to get full control of your domain, and unlock benefits such as Cloudflare Support. To get a paid domain, we recommend using Namesilo. You can use the coupon code
Spookhost at Namesilo checkout to get a $1 discount for your first Namesilo domain!
In conclusion, you should taken the actions listed above if you are using a .ga domain. We highly recommend that you move off Freenom's services since they are in a bad condition at the moment, and they will likely shut down.
