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.

 

[Ben42]

Great sale and fantastic forsight AK. I wouldn't have seen the business side for touch. Nice work.

 

[akcampbell]

Thanks, to be fair it's a numbers game. Some things work, some things don't. Two days after regging Touch.pro, I regged 15 German keyword .pros at $99 and dropped the lot the following year. On the same day I regged Touch.pro, I regged Quick.pro, Scan.pro, Pearl.pro, Demo.pro, and Preview.pro. I haven't had any interest in those and have renewed them twice. The only positive I can draw is this is the first year I have covered my renewal fees.

 

[InvisionTech]

The Sedo commission on Interior.pro would be $150 or 30% commission on a $500 sale. I completed the sale of Touch.pro on Sedo today at $1,500. It was bought by a US company called Touch Screens Inc, they are forwarding it to TouchWindow.com.

Thats interesting... Good sale... why not register "touchscreens.pro," as its still available! I have Touchscreen.pro.

 

[akcampbell]

why not register "touchscreens.pro," as its still available! I have Touchscreen.pro.

There are 23 bids for Touchscreen.com on Sedo, 4 bids for Touchscreen.us and 2 for touchscreen.biz. With .pro it's not the .com bids that matter, it's the bids on alternative extensions because that's a better indication of how much competition and appetite there is for the keyword. On that basis Touchscreen is saleable in .pro. I also think tech keywords or anything technical, mechanical or electronic work very well in .pro so Touchscreen works from that angle. I attach more value to actual keyword sales in alternative extensions than Sedo bids in alternative extensions because the Sedo bids might be $60.

For example, Touch.info sold for $2,091 in Jun 08. The problem with Touchscreens is there are no bids on Sedo and no previous keyword sales in any extension, that combination makes the .pro difficult to sell. For example, Switch has average keyword stats but there are 2 bids for Switch.biz on Sedo so with a more brandable combination with .pro, that gives you some hope of selling. Another factor to bear in mind is plurals are harder to sell than singulars in .pro. For example, I sold Booking.pro for $7,500 but turned down an offer for Bookings.pro for $1,000 a couple of weeks ago.

Another downside with Touchscreen is it's a 2 word construct. I'm not a fan of these, the key strength of .pro is brandability and shorter is invariably more brandable so I regged Touch.pro and Screen.pro but not TouchScreen.pro. Touchscreen is more product focused but also more niche, there are more things you can do with Touch.pro and Screen.pro. My basic logic is if you are selling a niche extension, don't make life even harder for yourself trying to sell a niche keyword in a niche extension. I do sometimes buy 2 word construct .pros. For example, I bought Snowmobile.pro and Jetski.pro from BigJelly. I just checked and the plurals are still available in both but that's the first time I checked that. As much as I like the tech and hobby combo Pro branding angle with Snowmobile and Jetski, I think the split out keywords Snow.pro, Mobile.pro, Jet.pro and Ski.pro would be more saleable. What do you think?

 

[JoeBiz]

I renewed a Pro the other day and the "qualifications" statement was the weakest that I've seen to date. It pretty much just said that:

"We're now working on the Honor System, but just a loose Honor System." :ghost:

 

[namewaiter]

thx for the suggestion!

 

[srisri24]

I regged passport.pro for $99, then renewed it twice once for $99 and another time for $49. This year its going to be $19.. renewal Prices are dropping thats good sign

 

[akcampbell]

I sold 4 .pros on Monday. Two to one buyer on Sedo and two to one buyer privately. Modest prices considering the keywords but nice in combination.

Surgeon.pro $1,750 - Sedo
Surgery.pro $1,750 - Sedo
Template.pro $2,000 - Private
Calculator.pro $2,000 - Private

I handed regged Calculator.pro in Nov 07 for $99. I caught Template.pro for $64 at Snapnames in May 09. I was offered Surgeon.pro and Surgery.pro in a package of 7 .pros for $2,100 in Mar 08, turned it down, the buyer dropped the lot in Apr 08 and I registered the best 5, including Surgery.pro and Surgeon.pro. Template.pro was the original enquiry on the private sale, I threw in Calculator.pro to sweeten the deal for the buyer.

 

[b2b]

I sold 4 .pros on Monday. Two to one buyer on Sedo and two to one buyer privately. Modest prices considering the keywords but nice in combination.

Surgeon.pro $1,750 - Sedo
Surgery.pro $1,750 - Sedo
Template.pro $2,000 - Private
Calculator.pro $2,000 - Private

I handed regged Calculator.pro in Nov 07 for $99. I caught Template.pro for $64 at Snapnames in May 09. I was offered Surgeon.pro and Surgery.pro in a package of 7 .pros for $2,100 in Mar 08, turned it down, the buyer dropped the lot in Apr 08 and I registered the best 5, including Surgery.pro and Surgeon.pro. Template.pro was the original enquiry on the private sale, I threw in Calculator.pro to sweeten the deal for the buyer.

Congrats.

 

[Soofi]

I went t o renew my open.pro & address.pro at domainpeople, however it's showing me expiry date of 1969 and asks for 41 years of renewal money costing at around $840 or something.. lol

I have sent an email to support team, but did someone have similar experience?

 

[Kuli]

I sold 4 .pros on Monday. ....

Surgeon.pro $1,750 - Sedo
Surgery.pro $1,750 - Sedo
Template.pro $2,000 - Private
Calculator.pro $2,000 - Private

These are good prices! Congrats to you, Andrew.

I just sold independent.pro for only EUR 600 through Sedo, i.e. EUR 450 for me and 150 for Sedo. This is not perfect and could have been more, but I didn't need the domain on myself but needed the money now, so it is okay for me.

I hand-regged it in May 2008 for $225 for three years, when Euro was high, so I earned about 200 % of the registration fee, which is quite good.

All in all, I'm satisfied with the sale.

Greetings!

 

[terol]

Congratulations for the sales! :hehe:

 

[buckshotdots]

I had bought Finishing <pro> for a friend as he is a finishing carpenter and he has been using it for his business. He doesn't want to renew so he is giving back to me if I want it or letting it drop. The stats for monthly searches for Finishing are pretty nice (Estibot):

Average Monthly Searches: 682,000
Average Cost Per Click: $1.59 USD
Average Ad Competition: high

Can .pro's be parked now? Or just put on auction sites (Sedo)? I have been away from domaining for 6 months or so and I am out of the loop. Anyone want to tell me their thoughts on retaining this domain?

Thanks in advance, Gary.

 

[webdomain]

parking

yes, you can park .pros and I have at sedo.

However,

from my experience .pros rank well on yahoo and bing., but for some reason google is not recognizing .pros so no matter how much a site is developed they don't rise to top pages. I'd love to know why.

If you are generating traffic then parking seems like a good option. I typcally work towards developing the ones I own. for example if you search moms on yahoo. moms.pro shows up on the front page results. It's short keywords that are doing it.

k

ps. I own finish.pro that I thought was pretty good, but haven't developed that yet.

pps. Guns.com Gives Moniker Top Spot on This Week's Domain Sales Chart  and #3 Position on YTD Leader Board
congrats to the sales that showed up here. That goes a long way!

 

[akcampbell]

Bidding for Keyword.pro and Keywords.pro on Snapnames is up to $725 each with 12 hours to go. The highest bidder is the guy I sold Template.pro and Calculator.pro to.

 

[b2b]

Bidding for Keyword.pro and Keywords.pro on Snapnames is up to $725 each with 12 hours to go. The highest bidder is the guy I sold Template.pro and Calculator.pro to.

What were the end-results?

 

[Soofi]

Bidding for Keyword.pro and Keywords.pro on Snapnames is up to $725 each with 12 hours to go. The highest bidder is the guy I sold Template.pro and Calculator.pro to.

how did it go Campbell?

 

[akcampbell]

$825 for Keyword.pro and £800 for Keywords.pro. Two different buyers.

 

[Soofi]

$825 for Keyword.pro and £800 for Keywords.pro. Two different buyers.

fair price in your opinion?

 

[akcampbell]

Keyword.co.uk $2,400 May 09
Keyword.org $6,000 Aug 08
Keywords.mobi $70 Aug 09
Keywords.de $5,006 Mar 07

Bids on Sedo not great, not terrible. 3 for the plural in .in, 2 for the plural in the .pl, 1 for the .cc, .tv, and .pl in the singular.

I would prefer to pay the extra $25 for the singular. Both very early registrations for .pro in Feb 05. The guy who bought Keyword.pro regged SEO1.pro in May 09 and uses it for an email address. The plural has been bought in the name of Domain Profs.

I picked up Guitars.pro on Snapnames in the week. There was one other bidder but they didn't bid against me.

 

[Kuli]

I picked up Guitars.pro on Snapnames in the week. There was one other bidder but they didn't bid against me.

This was me! But I didn't really want it, so I let it go. Nice that you got it, it is a good domain.

Maybe I should have bid more on polo.pro which was on auction the same time. Who cares. I'm still annoyed about myself that I missed the auctions on emails.pro and history.pro; sometimes I'm just too late!

-Kuli

 

[akcampbell]

I hold Guitar.pro so I thought I might as well pick up the plural, it has sold in .biz and .eu and works OK in .pro. Guitar.pro and Piano.pro are two of my favourite .pros. I regged Piano.pro in Oct 07 and turned down a $1,500 bid on Sedo couple of weeks later.

Playing an instrument is a skill so people aspire to being a Pro, alot of people play them so you have a broad market which is important in a niche extension, and they cost a fair amount of money to buy or learn so you don't need alot of volume to justify investing in a memorable domain.

I saw Polo.pro going through Snapnames, Polo fits .pro being a sport and there is money in it because its an expensive and aspirational sport to play, but it's niche and I'm not a big fan of niche keywords in a niche extension like .pro. I can't see any sales for the keyword Polo in any extension on dnsaleprice.com. That doesn't bode well for the .pro.

I didn't notice History.pro going through, I own Politics.pro and Philsophy.pro, I would like to develop these into blogs if I had the time.

 

[wlmdi]

What are geo .pros going for now?

I have myrtlebeach.pro, virginiabeach.pro, naghead.pro, kittyhawk.pro, outerbanks.pro

Also, I have marriage.pro, yellowpage.pro and daycare.pro

 

[Kuli]

I didn't notice History.pro going through,

The winning bid on Snapnames was only $92.00 on October 31st, together with emails.pro for only $60.00. Both are worth much more, imho.

I agree on your statement about guitars.pro. Maybe I should have bid more, but I wasn't in the mood. :hehe: So you got it, and this is good.

---------- Post added at 03:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:24 PM ----------

What are geo .pros going for now?

I have myrtlebeach.pro, virginiabeach.pro, naghead.pro, kittyhawk.pro, outerbanks.pro

Those names are far too specific for .pro. To make money, you either need country names or very big and wealthy cities.

 

[akcampbell]

Those names are far too specific for .pro. To make money, you either need country names or very big and wealthy cities.

To put this question in perspective, I have France.pro, Spain.pro, and Italy.pro and I have received 3 offers to date for France.pro on Sedo and no bids for the other 2 .pros. These are 3 of the top geo .pros so it would be difficult, verging on impossible, to sell small city .pros.