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.

 

[MicroGuy]

More Venting:
http://support.godaddy.com/groups/go-daddy-customers/forum/topic/limited-time-pro-auction/

Looks like Baillee was very helpful. I bet she makes a mean cup of coffee. (())

 

[DD.pro]

Same here

"Thank you for contacting Aftermarket Support. Currently member to member .pro listings are prohibited"

 

[mwzd]

Adding reserves after the auction starts kind of sucks, not sure if it's a godaddy issue or a registry issue though.

And if they have reserves, why should the reserves be undisclosed? Thought we were going for transparency.

Well, guess the same thing will happen here as at snap / nj etc - a few domains will sell, most won't, guess they haven't really learned anything from previous premium auctions.

 

[JoeBiz]

"Thank you for contacting Aftermarket Support. Currently member to member .pro listings are prohibited"

This is GD's response to my final question. Based on the sequence of events that I went through there's almost no truth in their response.


Dear Charles,

We did allow .pro domains to be listed on our site in the past. However, our policy has since changed and all .pro domains were removed from our auction. It appears your domain pork.pro was never removed from our auction for some reason. However, it has since been removed. Due to the fact that Godaddy does not support the .pro domain extension it would be difficult getting the domains transferred for customers, this is one of the reason we no longer allow the .pro domain extension on our auction.

Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. Please let us know if we can help you an another way. ......

 

[Londoneli]

This is just f--ing antiPro campaign !!!

 

[davidc]

I know I have asked this before, but how many of you develops sites on the Pro domains you got?

 

[yesonline]

I know I have asked this before, but how many of you develops sites on the Pro domains you got?

I have one .pro site:
http://anti-aging.pro

 

[MicroGuy]

I know I have asked this before, but how many of you develops sites on the Pro domains you got?

I don't see a lot of "professional" development in this extension.

Based on what I'm seeing I think most of the registrations are speculative with a few WP based sites here and there. There is a Godaddy auction currently in progress that should give a good indication as to the viability of this extension moving forward. My gut is telling me it's might be over for dot pro. Look at .MOBI and I think you'll have a good view of things to come with this gTLD.

I would recommend firmly sitting on the fence for the medium to long term. IMO.

 

[JoeBiz]

I don't see a lot of "professional" development in this extension.

Based on what I'm seeing I think most of the registrations are speculative with a few WP based sites here and there. There is a Godaddy auction currently in progress that should give a good indication as to the viability of this extension moving forward. My gut is telling me it's might be over for dot pro. Look at .MOBI and I think you'll have a good view of things to come with this gTLD.

I would recommend firmly sitting on the fence for the medium to long term. IMO.

There have been roughly 500 .Pro sites developed. And as you can see below by his "Dislike" of this post, Mguy doesn't want to have anything to do with the facts about the Pro extension. But he has the right to post his opinion. I'll stick with the facts.

And now his "Dislike" has been removed. Too much truth for him to deal with. Stay tuned and you'll probably see a long, derogatory post from Mguy.

 

[MicroGuy]

There have been roughly 500 .Pro sites developed.

Thank you for that factoid. :tu:

But I was referring to professionally developed sites with practical function, substance, and purpose. The majority of .PRO sites that I've seen were created by speculators of the extension.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Recent AfternicDLS Sale

picpros.com $2,200

 

[JoeBiz]

Thank you for that factoid. :tu:

But I was referring to professionally developed sites with practical function, substance, and purpose. The majority of .PRO sites that I've seen were created by speculators of the extension.

And of the 500 developed sites you have examined five? Ten?

Have a nice Saturday Greg.

 

[webdomain]

picpros.com $2,200

Just shows you how pro is used often in advertising. Great marketing word!

 

[Ben42]

I made a substantial investment in the development of sail.pro. Admittedly, selling right now at a resellers fee I'd take a huge loss. Still it has been consistently growing in the serps and at this rate I may break even in monetization in about 5 years.

It's partly my fault, I live in a place where you can really sail only 3 or 4 months out of the year and it's not a huge passion of mine. Otherwise I'd be updating the site more.

I especially like .pro as an email address. [email protected] sounds way better than [email protected] or pretty much any ext including .net and .org IMO.

 

[JoeBiz]

.
In case you missed it this is an AP piece that was published a few days ago. The headline contradicts the bulk of the story ... IMO

Internet Address Expansion Coming Despite Worries
AP Janick Jesdanun

 

[webdomain]

I think even though we all seem upset at how the GoDaddy auction is taking place, I still think its a positive for .pro as it raises exposure. I notice that the multiple bidding is putting many of the .pros on the most active board. So, people not familiar with .pro may be taking notice. Maybe its the best marketing the .pro registry can do.

 

[Jawed]

So far the auctions have been disappointing. Still 2 and half days to go. Let's see if something dramatic happens.

 

[gkjunior]

I just cant stand it any longer....so I will post this thought that has been bugging me for quite a while in regards to .pro

It was quite the scene when the re-launch of .CO happened. Million dollar add campaign with most of those efforts geared towards domainers. Before you knew it the .CO appeared as an add everywhere on the daily domain blogosphere. You can still see a .co add on FragerFactor

This on a domain extension easily confused by the average consumer as a .com ..... Regardless the domainers ( daily bloggers ) believed that the marketing dollars behind this and the fact that it can mean "company" and not Colombia jumped on the marketing bandwagon and promoted mostly as self interest IMO to flip for a buck as sedo auction results show. Many keywords .co have recently sold for a few thousand dollars...I am however curious why these would not be held until an end user would easily pay 5- 10 times that if indeed .co becomes as popular as they say and if indeed it means company

.Pro as gtld is not easily confused as another extension by the consumer...is easily memorable by the consumer once they are trained to retain in memory the extension which as we see with the pending mega roll out of new extension by Icahn will become part of every new extensions campaign......"branding extensions" ( available in the .com )

I think many of us here understand that a memorable short generic domain name or a longtail domain name that studies show increase the likely of a click through is the one of the most undervalued and misunderstood Real Estate asset of our generation. If you want beach front property in Miami most of us will be out of luck...but there are other beautiful beach front properties that are expensive but with in reach of many....which at one time lots sold for hundreds of dollars

Most of us will NEVER be able to afford app.com or job.com or dudu.com

But as no_url_shorteners has shown multi million dollar business are been built on other extensions and they will continue to do so regardless of OUR disagreements of which extension is a good investment....see this blog post as an example

Developers will go where they can afford to buy land and with their vision will build a multi million dollar resort just as Developers will go to .pro .tv .me pick some undervalued beach front property such as app.pro and create another multi million dollar business...regardless of our thoughts about the extension

Once upon a time Daytona Beach water front meant staying at a 20 dollar a night motel and partying for a few bucks....that is until developers with vision came along and purchased everything in sight.

So I will conclude this too long a post by asking all that are complaining about the .pro beachfront at auction....is it the low prices that are troubling or the developers and investors that have shown up at a rate of over 400+ bids that many believe that no one wants this extension ?

 

[MicroGuy]

The problem with .PRO (along with the others) is that it's not needed. People don't want it and people don't need it. No mystery, just simple Econ 101. IMO.

 

[JoeBiz]

The problem with .PRO (along with the others) is that it's not needed. People don't want it and people don't need it. No mystery, just simple Econ 101. IMO.

I'll bet you're very familiar with that feeling...

But I still luv you Greg.

 

[Kate]

The problem with the .PRO auctions is that - imho - only the domainers will be paying attention.

Perhaps the domainers alone will be able to absorb all the names on auction (provided the reserves are not too high), but that should reflect on the average prices that might seem disappointing.

:imho:

 

[JoeBiz]

Fun with Factoids:

The word "Pro" is used at the beginning or the end of over 1750* dictionary words and two-word combinations. The extension also has roughly 500* developed sites in spite of the complete lack of marketing.

By comparison, the .Co extension was released with great fanfare, purchased by Overstock and Google,
and promoted from here to Timbuktu. And for all of their efforts the extension has yielded just 750* developed sites.

At a minimum that demonstrates that the .Pro extension has the ability to stand alone, for lack of a better term, and to do so without a billion dollars worth of advertising keeping it afloat.
-----------
*The numbers used above are based on my ability, or lack of, to use the tools that were available to me. -


8^X

 

[gkjunior]

Fun with Factoids:

The word "Pro" is used at the beginning or the end of over 1750* dictionary words and two-word combinations. The extension also has roughly 500* developed sites in spite of the complete lack of marketing.

By comparison, the .Co extension was released with great fanfare, purchased by Overstock and Google,
and promoted from here to Timbuktu. And for all of their efforts the extension has yielded just 750* developed sites.

At a minimum that demonstrates that the .Pro extension has the ability to stand alone, for lack of a better term, and to do so without a billion dollars worth of advertising keeping it afloat.
-----------
*The numbers used above are based on my ability, or lack of, to use the tools that were available to me. -


8^X

timbuktu.co is available....but taken in other extensions

 

[JoeBiz]

timbuktu.co is available....but taken in other extensions

Well let's drive on over there and give 'er a look-see before we make any crazy investments. Grab a map please. ...



8^X

 

[webdomain]

We'll the industry has just taken notice.


http://www.thedomains.com/2012/01/1...ains-have-bids/comment-page-1/#comment-101516

Please post professionally.