The .PRO Discussion

[InvisionTech]

It seems .PRO is slowly coming out of the cage with cheaper reg prices than they were a year ago and major registrars like netsol taking notice of the extension and promoting it.

Here are some that I picked up in last couple of days:

Alexandria.pro

Anchorage.pro

Arlington.pro

Belfast.pro

Birmingham.pro

Budapest.pro

Durham.pro

Fairfax.pro

Italian.pro

Lisbon.pro

Fire away with your regs after the relaunch on September 8th, 2008.

 

[sky]

Afilias acquired .mobi two years and a half ago.
Did anything special happen in .mobi since then ?
Four years ago, .pro was relaunched with relaxed requirements. Did .pro become more mainstream or raised its profile significantly ?
Is there anything particular that is supposed to happen in the last quarter, that we should know ?

EnCirca's fee for .PRO's is $3.49 now (for the first year). A wake-up call for me and no doubt many others. No one will know how effective it is until months later when the resulting reg count results are posted. Maybe at that price a threshold is crossed where domineers say "what the hell, worth a try/"

When .pro was $15, from my standpoint, it was still too expensive to invest in enough fresh reg domains to be worth the trouble. But at a 78% price reduction, things are looking rosier. At $3.49, less than 1/2 the price of a .COM, and cheaper than you can get a .INFO, .CO or a ccTLD for, I'm sure many domainers will take another look and can get the message out to end-users as well. I've reg'd about ten new keyword .PROs in the past couple of weeks and even found a couple that had some very solid stats, where all had well-above average value. At $3.49 a pop, I can afford to do some domain tasting and expand my portfolio, and just absorb the losses, chalking it up to entertainment.

I'm completing development on a pro site. About 70%, and it will probably be up in a month or two. So, I assume other people w/day jobs are in the same boat - committed to development but taking more time than they'd like it to. When those efforts complete, it could help reach critical mass too and we could see .pros starting to make a showing.

Since the COM situation is forcing people to look for cool sounding names for their sites in other TLDs, what needs to be communicated to potential .pro buyers is that getting getting legit to own one or more 2nd level .pro domains is as simple as getting a business license or an LLC, or a notary license. Well within the grasp of an individual or small business.

The domain industry is changing - we can all see that. .COM space used up, over-priced (from the standpoint of the average Jane), the gTLD rush coming down the pike. This is not the time to close the book on .PRO, this is the time to hang tight and watch, maybe pick up a few for speculation, like a lottery ticket - you don't really expect it to pay off, but if you don't play, you can't win. And keep developing. But don't mortgage your house for it.

 

[JoeBiz]

Please don't say this, as it is ridiculous.

I wouldn't expect any professional site, or build by a professional, or even about a profession, or anything related to this, if everyone can register a .pro domain.

There are a number of sites built by professionals using .pro. And Golf.pro is worth a small fortune.

---------- Post added at 06:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:51 PM ----------

The sensible thing to do would be pursue whatever strategy is profitable to you but not necessarily to anybody else, while having an exit strategy and keeping in mind .pro has no future :gl: :imho:

And that's exactly what I'm doing. Thank you.

Can you tell me with all honesty, briefly, concisely why you spend so much time telling everyone that Pro is a dud? Why do you care?

And ... with all of the knowledge that you spread throughout the Pro thread, you should have, by now, applied this knowledge in the real world and be sitting on your private island drinking fresh coconut milk. Is that where you are now?

Both of these questions apply to the discussion and are serious questions. Please don't divert from the questions with an ambiguous ramble.

Gotta go. Everyone have a good Labor Day weekend !!! 8^X

8^X

 

[sky]

Please don't say this, as it is ridiculous.

I wouldn't expect any professional site, or build by a professional, or even about a profession, or anything related to this, if everyone can register a .pro domain.

Huh? Any domain name can be registered by anyone, and not live up to the name's potential. But if the site provides a good service and has a sexy memorable name, that site is setting pretty. So, what's ridiculous about saying that PRO sounds good? It does. It just sounds cool and always has.

Testimony to that is when you consider how many .COM domains have the word PRO in them. End users are not thinking about how much a domain name sells for when they decide whether a URL is worth clicking on the name in SERP. They look at what sounds right and looks acceptable.

 

[-EM-]

Huh? Any domain name can be registered by anyone, and not live up to the name's potential. But if the site provides a good service and has a sexy memorable name, that site is setting pretty. So, what's ridiculous about saying that PRO sounds good? It does. It just sounds cool and always has.

Testimony to that is when you consider how many .COM domains have the word PRO in them. End users are not thinking about how much a domain name sells for when they decide whether a URL is worth clicking on the name in SERP. They look at what sounds right and looks acceptable.

"registered by anyone"
That is the main problem IMO, their "restriction" should be more effective.

"if the site provides a good service and has a sexy memorable name, that site is setting pretty."
This can be said about any TLD.

"So, what's ridiculous about saying that PRO sounds good?"

Whereas "golf.pro" sounds even better than "golf.com", *unless* your site is selling golf supplies.

I was referring to the bold text.
Any TLD sounds good if it is pronounceable.

"Testimony to that is when you consider how many .COM domains have the word PRO in them. End users are not thinking about how much a domain name sells for when they decide whether a URL is worth clicking on the name in SERP. They look at what sounds right and looks acceptable."
There are also lots of .com domains that have "web", "host", "news" etc. Are you going to say the same thing for .web, .host, .news etc?

 

[sky]

"registered by anyone"
That is the main problem IMO, their "restriction" should be more effective.

Or just not be there at all. .COM doesn't need any restrictions. The good and/or strategic sites win, the others wither.

"if the site provides a good service and has a sexy memorable name, that site is setting pretty."
This can be said about any TLD.

Definitely; but it helps if the TLD (extension) has that quality inherently, and tends to be more complimentary to more strong keywords.

"So, what's ridiculous about saying that PRO sounds good?"

I was referring to the bold text.
Any TLD sounds good if it is pronounceable.

I disagree. .pro sounds better than .mobi or .me because it is a venerated colloquialism.

"Testimony to that is when you consider how many .COM domains have the word PRO in them. End users are not thinking about how much a domain name sells for when they decide whether a URL is worth clicking on the name in SERP. They look at what sounds right and looks acceptable."
There are also lots of .com domains that have "web", "host", "news" etc. Are you going to say the same thing for .web, .host, .news etc?

Absolutely! It is testimony to the value of the term that it is in so many URL's. Web is the all-out winner there, when you enter allinurl: web, allinurl: host, and allinurl: pro into the URL field of the browser.

But they're valuable for different reasons. Pro is valuable and popular because it implies skill, experience and the elite and has always been a high compliment in popular culture. That explains why it is found in so many URLs. The other ones are present in a lot of URLs for different reasons.

 

[Kate]

Can you tell me with all honesty, briefly, concisely why you spend so much time telling everyone that Pro is a dud? Why do you care?

It's not about .pro in particular, I criticize other TLDs as well and I point out the flawed logic and the wishful thinking where I see it. Domainers are losing money because of being delusional. But why not give it another 10 years just for kicks.

And ... with all of the knowledge that you spread throughout the Pro thread, you should have, by now, applied this knowledge in the real world and be sitting on your private island drinking fresh coconut milk. Is that where you are now?

From my island I can see the raft of the Medusa domainers are clinging to

Gotta go. Everyone have a good Labor Day weekend !!!

You too %%-

 

[mwzd]

Well, so far that's true, but it doesn't mean that will persist as the ability to hand reg a .COM anywhere near reasonably fitting for an arbitrary endeavor is becoming nearly impossible.

It already is impossible, why brandable .coms are selling, people w/ the .com blinders on think followersheep.com is a viable business name.

Okay, say that .com is saturated and will no longer grow (not true). It's still 104M registrations, a number of which are still coveted domains.

As a percentage I'd say a LOT more registered .pro would make business sense than .com equivalent.

I wouldn't expect any professional site, or build by a professional, or even about a profession, or anything related to this, if everyone can register a .pro domain.

You mean "just like .com"? Read this next quote again, in case you missed out...

Or just not be there at all. .COM doesn't need any restrictions. The good and/or strategic sites win, the others wither.

With 1900 new extensions, restrictions are only here for some time, eventually they'll all be free to reg, or closed namespaces, as the case may be.

Domain names have no built-in value, especially outlying extensions.

I'm going to disagree with this, a good domain has inherent value, even in outlying extensions. Try and find "insurance" or "casino" or "poker" in any of the 300 or so extensions active today.

I'd for example look at how many .pro are actually developed and not in domainers hands.

This is a complete BS argument, one could ask the same of undeveloped .coms and come away with a similar answer.

and keeping in mind .pro has no future :gl: :imho:

Since you're not invested in it, there is no future for you in .pro, otoh, the extension itself has just hit the base of an exponential growth curve and top domains are that much more valuable because of all the new registrations.

That is the main problem IMO, their "restriction" should be more effective.

Why? So it doesn't offer competition to crap keywords in unrestricted namespaces like .com / .net / .info / .biz? ICANN did remove restrictions from .org, why not the same for .pro?

Again, get a .pro if the same in .com would cost you 100k or more and you will benefit, if you register imacooldentist.pro - you should go for the .com, at least it has enough users at the bottom of the barrel to accept it just because it's a .com

 

[-EM-]

mwzd, Can you please tell me what kind of sites should I expect from .pro?
I don't know who's the owner of this domain, but here is camera.pro, great keyword, fits with .pro, but where is the pro site? It is only a noomle site.
"So it doesn't offer competition to crap keywords in unrestricted namespaces like .com / .net / .info / .biz? ICANN did remove restrictions from .org, why not the same for .pro?"

I don't expect organization sites from .org. IMO, .org lost its meaning.

 

[mwzd]

The bottomline is that the kind of site you can expect on .pro would be dependent on the development budget of the company that owns it, just like .com or any of the other tlds out there.

Some people can only afford noomle, so that's what they do.

Could me more for legal protection than actually for revenues, who knows?

 

[Kate]

I'm going to disagree with this, a good domain has inherent value, even in outlying extensions. Try and find "insurance" or "casino" or "poker" in any of the 300 or so extensions active today.

As for the casino.tld or poker.tld sales, almost all are still parked, inactive, unresolving, undeveloped. A few are affiliates redirects but there is almost none that is developed properly. That should come as no surprise.
Why would any self-respecting gambling company want to brand around .tk, .io or the obscure extension of a remote territory that is inhabited by penguins ?
Seriously ? The best you should expect is a crappy MFA site, with very few exceptions.

But as long as domainers are buying, it could be argued that there is a market for those domains. A market of suckers (looking for another bigger sucker ?).

This is a complete BS argument, one could ask the same of undeveloped .coms and come away with a similar answer.

It isn't a BS argument.

The share of domainer ownership should certainly be taken into account. Because a disproportionate amount of speculation can actually be detrimental to the development of an extension. In general domainers do little to enhance an extension, they resell, they park, they do some light development (sometimes) but they do not contribute like normal end users.
End users (and consumers) will shun any alt extension that they perceive to be 'squatted' and lacking bona fide development.

Speculation works when the extension has already been embraced by end users, but when speculation takes a foothold early on, it has a repellent effect.

Any interest in .eu has been killed by the excessive speculation and gaming of the sunrise TM system. Same thing had happened with .info years earlier, .biz to some extent. Few domainers remember of have done research - back then confidence in new TLDs was badly shaken because of the opportunists gaming the system. Little has changed since then.

The bottom line is that the figures alone don't tell the whole story, but they can reveal troubling trends as I've seen with .co & .xxx.

 

[mwzd]

The share of domainer ownership should certainly be taken into account.

I'll ask around for stats but you can be rest assured as an absolute number, the number of parked domains in .com will far outnumber the total registrations of all other gTLDs combined.

Even as a percentage of the total domains registered, .com will have a substantial % parked.

Because a disproportionate amount of speculation can actually be detrimental to the development of an extension.

Who decides what is proportionate?

Can you really compare 50 million undeveloped .coms or 50k undeveloped .pros.

Also, people develop sites, not extensions, most don't care beyond if their brand makes sense.

Which is why ccTLDs have seen rapid acceptance, in 2007 people used to laugh at me when I said ccTLDs were the way forward for people who missed the .com bus.

See where we are now, ccTLDs routinely feature in the Top Sales Charts at DNJournal and on a regular basis too.

End users (and consumers) will shun any alt extension that they perceive to be 'squatted' and lacking bona fide development.

You say "no one knows .pro" then from where would a pre-concieved notion come about?

Development builds extension visibility and hence credibility, 90% of web users today still don't understand how the entire domain system even works, let alone have any perceptions to its 'squatted' value.

The bottom line is that the figures alone don't tell the whole story, but they can reveal troubling trends as I've seen with .co & .xxx.

Not every extension will be successful, that's a given, but even in the most unsuccessful extensions you have breakaway sales like meet.me and soci.al - who's to say investing in them is a bad idea and why?

Though as a domain investor, you should be more worried about whether the keyword.tld you own works or not, that's about it.

These are the most recent domain counts, as you can see .pro still has plenty of headroom:
.com 104,049,840
.net 14,768,502
.org 10,042,245
.biz 2,257,811
.info 7,736,175
.mobi 1,025,797
.asia 199,279
.tel 267,505

 

[sky]

Careful! I think EnCirca's $3.50 .PRO sale just ended. The month changed.
I bought a new .PRO and I didn't notice until I got way into checkout that
it was back up to $15. I got it, but that's the end of my .PRO tasting purchases
this season. At $3.49 it was fun. At $15 it will add up way too quickly.

---------- Post added at 12:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:29 PM ----------

Any interest in .eu has been killed by the excessive speculation and gaming of the sunrise TM system.

Yeah, but EU is also having economic problems and uncertainty about the 'brand' or collaboration itself. How do you know you've pegged the correct factors as causal?

Same thing had happened with .info years earlier.

Resale value is just one way of valuing a domain name. Development for a good .INFO would work as well as a com if the INFO fit the service, right? People looking for INFO would click on a .INFO, would they not?

The bottom line is that the figures alone don't tell the whole story, but they can reveal troubling trends as I've seen with .co & .xxx.

What's the troubling trend you see with .CO? Are you saying there are CO-conspirators? I haven't written CO in or out. Registrars are pushing it. I haven't bought any, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't keep one or two in my back pocket if I found a really strong keyword (not sure if any are left). I'm really on the fence with that one.

Are you saying we should spend $5000, $10,000, $25,000 to get a strong .COM as a 'deal'? If that's your case, that's a whole 'nother investment class. The profits might be bigger but the investment is too. That doesn't mean there isn't profit with 'penny stock' domains.

 

[Kate]

Which is why ccTLDs have seen rapid acceptance, in 2007 people used to laugh at me when I said ccTLDs were the way forward for people who missed the .com bus.

See where we are now, ccTLDs routinely feature in the Top Sales Charts at DNJournal and on a regular basis too.

Absolutely. But ccTLDs were already valuable before 2007 but domainers, or more precisely American domainers have been slow to catch on. Many still believe that .de and .co.uk are the only valuable ccTLDs. I guess it's outside their comfort zone.

But when .pro and a couple other TLDs were released a decade ago, the landscape was different. The Internet was less mature and ccTLDs were not as powerful. Now the situation is different. ccTLDs are already dominant in the developed world. The US is an anomaly.

In 2002 gTLDs had a chance to mold the Internet landscape but they missed the bus. I think it's too late to make up for the time lost. The world has moved on and voted for .com + ccTLD.

IMO the era of opportunity for gTLDs is over, 2012 is not a better time than 2002, it's the opposite. It's just my opinion but I have in fact adjusted my strategy years ago, and shifted focus toward ccTLDs. They are the future. New extensions are the mirage (generalization).

Not every extension will be successful, that's a given, but even in the most unsuccessful extensions you have breakaway sales like meet.me and soci.al - who's to say investing in them is a bad idea and why?

The domains of the caliber of meet.me have never been available for regfee, you had to bid at the landrush auctions so it was a huge gamble in an unproven extension. Sometimes the strategy pays off, but many people leave their shirts in the process. Lots of money wasted at the .asia auctions too, and the others.
soci.al is a domain hack, so it's a gamble. Wouldn't call that an investment or business plan when luck is everything.

These are the most recent domain counts, as you can see .pro still has plenty of headroom:

That's what is worrying. The fact that a lame TLD like .tel has twice as many regs than .pro, for example

Resale value is just one way of valuing a domain name. Development for a good .INFO would work as well as a com if the INFO fit the service, right? People looking for INFO would click on a .INFO, would they not?

I appreciate that, but we are domainers too. An extension that needs to be developed because a raw domain doesn't sell in that extension is just another extension. Nothing special.

What's the troubling trend you see with .CO? Are you saying there are CO-conspirators?

No conspiracy, but a serious lack of development. As eloquently said above: "Development builds extension visibility and hence credibility".

 

[jmcc]

Yeah, but EU is also having economic problems and uncertainty about the 'brand' or collaboration itself. How do you know you've pegged the correct factors as causal?

I do. Eurid, the .eu registry does a little 5000 domain survey of website usage every now and then. The last .eu web usage survey that I did covered 2 million .eu domains. In terms of development, .eu is very much like .biz and the non-core TLDs. It is dead in the English speaking areas of Europe. It has a high (not as high as .co or .mobi) level of PPC parking and holding pages. It is a gateway TLD that is used by EU businesses and large brands for redirecting users to the relevant ccTLD website. It is very far from the .com competitor that it was intended to be when it was proposed. What is very odd about .eu is that Greece has had a largely stable level of .eu registrations.

What's the troubling trend you see with .CO?

A lack of development and widespread usage. COinternet used some utterly bogus figures based on flawed methodology and classifications to claim that web usage was high in the ccTLD. It was not.

Any new TLD has a very limited window in which to get development, and subsequently usage, kickstarted. With .com, there was no real competition. The problem with .pro was that it was proposed and launched in a .com only market. This meant that the logic of a TLD for the professions was sound. However the rise of the ccTLDs meant that it was important for a professional targeting a specific market to use the local ccTLD - it identified the professional as being local. The repurposing of .pro as a general TLD is a direct result of it losing its local markets.

Regards...jmcc

---------- Post added at 01:06 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:38 AM ----------

I'll ask around for stats but you can be rest assured as an absolute number, the number of parked domains in .com will far outnumber the total registrations of all other gTLDs combined.

It is one of the hardest things to measure accurately due to the bandwidth and registration volume. Verisign does some regular survey but it is limited and it only publishes multipage/single page stats from what I remember.

Even as a percentage of the total domains registered, .com will have a substantial % parked.

It does but it varies from country level market to country level market.

Who decides what is proportionate?

Me? The Search engine developers who really analyse this kind of thing?

Can you really compare 50 million undeveloped .coms or 50k undeveloped .pros.

There's a pairing effect with .com and ccTLDs where new businesses will register both their ccTLD and the .com if it is available. This is what may have been driving .com registration figures for the last few years.

Also, people develop sites, not extensions, most don't care beyond if their brand makes sense.

For small businesses, they develop in the TLDs that are most common and most widely used in their market.

Not every extension will be successful, that's a given, but even in the most unsuccessful extensions you have breakaway sales like meet.me and soci.al - who's to say investing in them is a bad idea and why?

This is the domainer/developer dilemma. Development is essential for domaining.

Regards...jmcc

---------- Post added at 01:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:06 AM ----------

Absolutely. But ccTLDs were already valuable before 2007 but domainers, or more precisely American domainers have been slow to catch on. Many still believe that .de and .co.uk are the only valuable ccTLDs. I guess it's outside their comfort zone.

Many of the domainers who were financially massacred in .eu were non-EU (US and Canadian) domainers and cyberwarehousers (Dotster, Enom etc). They applied the .com rule to .eu speculation thinking that if it was valuable in .com, it would be valuable in .eu ccTLD. The problem was that it killed natural development in the English language areas. Something like 80% of UK and Irish businesses that applied for their .eu domains in Sunrise 2 did not get them due to the banjaxed, bogus, mickey mouse "regulation" of the .eu ccTLD. That killed .eu in Ireland and the UK. It had no credibility and it still has no credibility in those areas.

The EU has over 27 languages and most of these domainers were primarily hitting English language terms. They broke one of the primary rules of good domaining - know your market.

Regards...jmcc

 

[mjnels]

Can you tell me with all honesty, briefly, concisely why you spend so much time telling everyone that Pro is a dud? Why do you care?

And ... with all of the knowledge that you spread throughout the Pro thread, you should have, by now, applied this knowledge in the real world and be sitting on your private island drinking fresh coconut milk. Is that where you are now?

Both of these questions apply to the discussion and are serious questions. Please don't divert from the questions with an ambiguous ramble.

this gets brought up on domain forums ALL THE TIME! here is the HONEST REAL explanation:

because they are interested in the domain name world.



Example: you are genuinely interested in CARS and a member of a CAR FORUM - lets say you only own gas powered sports cars. does this mean you will not have an opinion about electric cars (retail prices, reliability, other features, etc) ???

the key here is INTENT and whether you are being GENUINE with your opinion - or just trying to piss people off. maybe some people are just new to the internet posting world and cannot tell the difference or have just closed off their minds to the possibility that others who disagree are not always "trolling" but trying to have a for real conversation about something you just happen to disagree on.

asking "why do you care" is not a counterpoint. besides, i find it incredibly pathetic and boring to read 10 pages of a thread where everyone is just cheerleading and high-fiving each other.

 

[gkjunior]

Now selling premium generics in all tlds to endusers

I saw this a couple of weeks ago and thought I would share it here

Over at Hover dot com when an end user is looking for an available generic descriptive domain and it is taken....they are given choices of available tlds or aftermarket domains for sale.

A smart move by a registrar that understands supply and demand and wants to keep the customer there to convert them.

If all registrars started doing this I would think acceptance by the masses of other tlds would increase.

Seems like a positive for .pro and other tld portfolio owners

I tried typing in "snitch" and thought the results where interesting

 

[sky]

I saw this a couple of weeks ago and thought I would share it here

Over at Hover dot com when an end user is looking for an available generic descriptive domain and it is taken....they are given choices of available tlds or aftermarket domains for sale.

A smart move by a registrar that understands supply and demand and wants to keep the customer there to convert them.

If all registrars started doing this I would think acceptance by the masses of other tlds would increase.

Seems like a positive for .pro and other tld portfolio owners

I tried typing in "snitch" and thought the results where interesting

How is that different than http://name.com?

 

[gkjunior]

How is that different than http://name.com?

Had not noticed the name dot com results..my bad..i generally use the bulk search at name so I missed this...both are every similar

maybe if the "backorder" results at name where not included in the same column of results it would give the enduser a clearer picture of whats available to purchase now

but this type of conversation does not have anything to do with the .pro .....other than the registries are doing a better job putting available tlds front and center...which should make them more widely acceptable

 

[mjnels]

How is that different than http://name.com?

i dont recall them saying it was... did you actually want an answer for "how is it different" or were you just mentioning in a friendly way that name.com does this too

 

[sky]

i dont recall them saying it was... did you actually want an answer for "how is it different" or were you just mentioning in a friendly way that name.com does this too

I wasn't trying to be unfriendly, but what I guess I meant, is that Name.com is (I think) a better known registrar. I've never heard of hover.com, and it provides that service, and I think a lot of registrars do. So I was trying to figure out what might more might not distinguish hover.com from the crowd.

 

[gkjunior]

I wasn't trying to be unfriendly, but what I guess I meant, is that Name.com is (I think) a better known registrar. I've never heard of hover.com, and it provides that service, and I think a lot of registrars do. So I was trying to figure out what might more might not distinguish hover.com from the crowd.

I myself have a few names at name and none at hover. I have watched Hover a bit as they are owned by Tucows who is publicly traded and figure that they have some marketing muscle behind them and hover appears to sell quite a few premium names....so i figure they get a lot of attention...but i am not really sure about that. When I put snitch in at Hover the number 3 or 4 result was a .pro

 

[uncia]

I have 2 single word .pros I really like:
carpeting and tiling
they fit the extension perfectly and can be fairly easily developed.
.pro is like every other new tld which is coming to the market, when it makes sense in a sentence it is definitely has value.
It is not the extension to use for some long tail keywords.

 

[Edward Smeu]

I was wondering if the guy who made me an offer on CarSales dot pro on sedo is around here.

 

[gkjunior]

web hosting company advertising .pro

http://webhostingserviceindia.blogspot.com/2012/08/its-time-to-go-professional-go-pro.html

http://webhostingserviceindia.blogs...ge-on.html?goback=.gde_43496_member_155113317

 

[webdomain]

follow the .pro registry on twitter. http://twitter.com/registrypro

They have some good tweets