The .PRO Discussion

Few weeks ago NameCheap increased their regfee from $2.06 to $3.06
So their "best times" in terms of volume are already in the past.

Jurgen Wolf said:

OK, thanks.
I will keep in mind regarding transfers.

But you should lower your registration fee definitely... even without our requests...
$2.99 with Dynadot and few times higher at Epik...

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Hi Jurgen,
I'm working to bring it down for this one.
I'll keep you posted.

Jurgen Wolf said:

Few weeks ago NameCheap increased their regfee from $2.06 to $3.06
So their "best times" in terms of volume are already in the past.

Click to expand...

The problem with the registry reports is that they don't exactly line up on renewals/deletions. This what the top 10 by new registrations looks like:
Registrar - new - deleted - renewed
| NameCheap, Inc. | 4847 | 1554 | 679 |
| Tucows Domains Inc. | 1437 | 3317 | 1259 |
| Name.com, Inc. | 1067 | 66 | 205 |
| GoDaddy.com, LLC | 912 | 1035 | 1600 |
| Danesco Trading Ltd. | 800 | 473 | 165 |
| Alibaba Cloud Computing Ltd. d/b/a HiChina (www.net.cn) | 539 | 1501 | 314 |
| Dynadot, LLC | 276 | 131 | 81 |
| Regional Network Information Center, JSC dba RU-CENTER | 257 | 525 | 1234 |
| Hosting Ukraine LLC | 241 | 458 | 206 |
| PDR Ltd. d/b/a PublicDomainRegistry.com | 220 | 386 | 381 |
| OVH sas | 171 | 305 | 1398 |

And the June 2018 top 10 by new regs:
| OVH sas | 3183 | 602 | 1147 |
| Tucows Domains Inc. | 2945 | 1726 | 1069 |
| Alibaba Cloud Computing Ltd. d/b/a HiChina (www.net.cn) | 2093 | 450 | 174 |
| NameCheap, Inc. | 1748 | 7040 | 735 |
| GoDaddy.com, LLC | 1662 | 818 | 1237 |
| PDR Ltd. d/b/a PublicDomainRegistry.com | 360 | 412 | 362 |
| Regional Network Information Center, JSC dba RU-CENTER | 313 | 967 | 1251 |
| Danesco Trading Ltd. | 281 | 142 | 133 |
| Hosting Ukraine LLC | 234 | 392 | 162 |
| Dynadot, LLC | 221 | 187 | 42 |



Regards...jmcc

Because renewal at Namecheap is not competitive.
Domainers only reg(ged) there and then transfer-out for the discounted $5 to 1and1 (still works) or to other registrars...

Jurgen Wolf said:

Because renewal at Namecheap is not competitive.
Domainers only reg(ged) there and then transfer-out for the discounted $5 to 1and1 (still works) or to other registrars...

Click to expand...

Transfers are harder to track with these reports because a transfer gets a year added and the reports don't actually breakdown the transfers by registrar (the hoster stats data shows the gaining and losing hosters but I haven't had much time to add that data to the site).

Regards...jmcc

Jurgen Wolf said:

Few weeks ago NameCheap increased their regfee from $2.06 to $3.06
So their "best times" in terms of volume are already in the past.

Click to expand...

There is a seasonality to some of these offers and it is the run-up to Christmas and the end of the year at the moment. (Sales targets have to be met by the registries and registrars.) The Summer is generally a slow time and registrations are lower so they might need a bigger discount to get registrations and transfers. It also depends on the market that NameCheap is chasing. If it is end-users, then the Dollar increase might not be too worrying. If it is domainers and bulk registrants, it will slow down some of the registration rates. But NameCheap seems to hop from promotion to promotion. It was a serious player in some of the ex-Famous Four new gTLDs but those are collapsing at the moment. I think that some of the registries will be paying a lot of attention to how ORG's decision to stop discounting in 2018 is working out. As long as a registry covers its costs and can make a slight profit, discounting makes sense. But it also causes problems for the TLD. If the discounting is too deep and goes on for too long, it drives any development out of the TLD. The lack of discounting in ORG is also getting rid of a lot of parked/templated content sites and stabilising renewal rates. The problem with the discounting NGTs is that some of them have renewal rates of below 10%. Only the XYZ seems to be playing the discounting game well.

Regards...jmcc

Namecheap had $2.06 since June'2017 continiously...
And prior $2.06 they had a long period of $1.06

Due to various TRUE spammers/scammers at Namecheap - domainers and normal endusers got the blacklisted and blocked domains as well...
This was described on the previous pages...

And that's why they finally increased to $3.06 to minimize such issues.

Jurgen Wolf said:

Namecheap had $2.06 since June'2017 continiously...
And prior $2.06 they had a long period of $1.06

Click to expand...

Losing the discounted registration volume on the ex-FFM NGTs might have played some part in the decision to increase prices but there are other NGTs still discounting. PRO is unlike the NGTs in that it still has a solid base of registrations. I'm not sure about the pricing on other registrars but they could have been leaving money on table by being priced too low.

Regards...jmcc

I can say even more...
Namecheap has increased their .PRO fee exactly per MY feedbacks and suggestions...
Cumulatively I got 12 blocked .PRO domains by Afilias for the past few months... all under Namecheap.
So this Namecheap decision was right... too many false alarms for them... too many blocked GOOD customers.

Jurgen Wolf said:

https://www.spamhaus.org/statistics/tlds/
Badness Index as of today (less is better):
.one 0.1
.org 0.15
.com 0.44
.net 0.58
.info 0.75
.PRO 1.34
.biz 2.67
.top 2.72
.life 5.27

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1.34 was 8 days ago.
0.96 for .PRO as of now...
Namecheap has changed this negative trend definitely... now it is positive...

And I don't understand: why so many nTLD mentions???

.info (2001, owned by Afilias since the beginning)
.PRO (2004, owned by Afilias since 2012)

SWIFT.PRO (2004)
Live example (enduser).

INTERNET.PRO - one more enduser from 2004.

When .PRO started in 2004 and next few years - yearly fee was $99+

Fee dropped to ~$20 in 2008...
And that's why this thread was initiated...

Jurgen Wolf said:

@namesilo
Just FYI: https://www.namepros.com/threads/the-pro-discussion.522420/page-318#post-7431413
Even 1and1 has more .PRO domains.

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Thanks for the heads-up. We have reached out to the Registry to see if we missed out on any potential promotions.

Jurgen Wolf said:

@Dynadot
Payout method is still PayPal only?
If Yes - when wire transfer (SWIFT) will be added?

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Currently we only support payouts by Paypal or cheque, or Alipay for those with credit in CNY. I have passed the request on to our team for the bank wire option for payouts, but wouldn't be able to say if or when we would be able to support that unfortunately.

Dynadot said:

Currently we only support payouts by Paypal or cheque, or Alipay for those with credit in CNY. I have passed the request on to our team for the bank wire option for payouts, but wouldn't be able to say if or when we would be able to support that unfortunately.

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is a limit of Payout amount ?

As I see, this year Alibaba is in TOP10 .PRO registrars...

Jurgen Wolf said:

When .PRO started in 2004 and next few years - yearly fee was $99+

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It was even up to mid $xxx with some registrars.

Jurgen Wolf said:

I recommend you to recheck ALL your domains in Afilias TLDs... especially under Namecheap...

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Live example of the blocked .me: UKH
Under Namecheap.

Looks that per my feedbacks - .PRO is now supported by 1und1.de - I just rechecked...
Previously .PRO was available only via their US/International 1and1.com

ex my www.bets.pro - end user(very rich))

Sufyan Alani said:

Hi Jurgen,
I'm working to bring it down for this one.
I'll keep you posted.

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So 1 week elapsed...
Any update?