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.

 

[steveteva]

just checked ..still $39.99 and Live Support is ONLINE

edit : I just renewed another @ $39.99

Thank you did work, just have to follow your instruction myaccount/renew/.. till the end of process.

Thanks a lot :blink:

 

[Dustie]

"Not true, unless we as domainers start positively promoting the extension by developing instead of parking the names and taking the good ones from actual professionals.."

So far, it looks like it's only the primary names we speculators are buying in .pro. That should not discourage anyone unable to find a good .com name from coming to .pro. Odds are they would have never gotten the primary name in .com so they aren't going to expect to find the primary name in .pro. but there's a lot of good complimentary .pro names they could use that are available.

For instance, a Lawyer could use greatlaw.pro or lawpractice.pro. They would never find those in .com, or anything comparable.

There is only one lawyer.pro or law.pro but there could be thousands of lawyers looking for good law names and .pro fits that bill admirably, even if lawyer.pro and law.pro are in the hands of speculators.

Now if speculators start buying up non primary .pro names, then I think the quoted postdevelopment statement would be quite valid. As it is though, until .pro is as cheap and as easy to buy as .com, I don't see a rush on non primary .pro names by either speculators or by the public.

Dustie

 

[akcampbell]

Not true, unless we as domainers start positively promoting the extension by developing instead of parking the names and taking the good ones from actual professionals.

Think about it. People would normally move to .pro because the keyword they want in .com is taken. If domainers take those keywords in .pro because they're greedy and they think it will make them a quick buck, they're mistaken. It may pay in the short term to flip some of these names to other speculators, but there won't be many end users buying .pro unless the extension gains mainstream popularity.

Plenty of excellent keywords were available years after .pro launched, I regged Gadget.pro, Pension.pro, Piano.pro and alot of other strong keywords 3-4 years after .pro was launched. .pro's problem has always been that RegistryPro are selling a substitute product to .com at a premium price with awkward restrictions and virtually no sales channel or promotion.

There are hundreds of thousands of lawyers, dentists and doctors and only one person can own Lawyer.pro, Dentist.pro, and Doctor.pro. RegistryPro own all of those and is not a lawyer, dentist, or doctor. From an SEO angle, it makes more sense for a kidney specialist in Houston to register something keyword dense like HoustonKidneyDoctor.pro than Doctor.pro and I doubt there are more than 4-5 .pros regged with the keyword Doctor in.

The sort of developer who complains that alternative extensions don't get developed because keywords aren't available will most likely be developing multiple low rent SEO optimised PPC ad supported templates running on third party code that add little value. All they are doing is parking with a few more bells and whistles on. If you are serious about developing, you are going to start with an idea and buy the best .com you can afford for the job.

Not being able to register single word generic .coms didn't stop YouTube, MySpace, FaceBook, Yahoo, eBay or Google becoming successful and it wouldn't stop anybody from making it with a 2 word .pro if they had the skills.

At least 95% of .pros are held by speculators of some kind, either people speculating on resale or future development potential. That is nothing to be ashamed of. Domainers are the only people marketing .pro, they contact businesses and make them aware of .pro, that's more than RegistryPro has ever done.

.pro doesn't get developed because RegistryPro continue to exploit registrants with unjustifiably inflated reg fees, they block typically unlicensed web developers and designers from owning a .pro, and they don't promote the extension so hardly anybody outside of domaining circles has heard of it, that makes it difficult for a business to use it.

 

[steveteva]

Agee with LastPost but also dot pro is not wisely used in real world. Whan was the last time you've heard of -------.pro on any media? I ask (small survey) everyone around me , friends, family and none did know that .pro exist they know .com, .net .us .org .edu and that's it (even .eu, .tel . biz, .info and the rest don't know that it exist)

So it's a real problem, I also ask some profesional like doctors and my dentist, they simply said don't need that pro is we want want will be dot med or dot com even if it was doctor.pro or dentist.pro

 

[Dustie]

My point exactly Last Post.

I'm in the process of developing one of the .pros I bought into my own photography site. I think that everyone who's speculated on .pro, would create at least one "real" site and start promoting it among friends, it would help to get the word about .pro out there.

Paintball.pro said "So it's a real problem, I also ask some professional like doctors and my dentist, they simply said don't need that pro is we want want will be dot med or dot com even if it was doctor.pro or dentist.pro"

That might be the case for today's professionals, but what about tomorrow's professionals, the ones coming from the tech age, the ones who know the value of having a professional website, the one's who know how to build that website because they learned how in grade school. These kids may still be a few years off from becoming professionals, but they are on their way and they will want a website with a good website name.

I really think .Pro needs to get advertised more so when they are ready for the domain name hunt, they know to check .pro names cause they aren't going to find any .com, net, or org's for sure.

 

[dotprofan]

This is very good news and comes at a perfect time for me personally - thank you Encirca!

ALL encirca .pro owners



renewals on .pro are reduced to $39.99

renew now

jim

 

[JoeBiz]

Hi Pro People

I'm sorry to ask this again but can someone recommend a PRO registrar that's not quite as expensive as EnCirca?

Thanks much
Charles
.
.

 

[MasterGuru]

domainpeople

After transferring domains to domainpeople - creation&exprie date changed in their control panel to 1969-12-31.....
Does anyone had the same problem with Domainpeople ?

 

[InvisionTech]

Master,

That sounds super messy... did not see that on the domain that I transfered.

Registrypro changed the logo:
http://www.registrypro.pro/images/logo.gif

If we don't see that on websites and in advertisement campaigns, its of no help.

 

[MasterGuru]

Master,
That sounds super messy... did not see that on the domain that I transfered.

Just wrote to their support to fix it.......

 

[mwzd]

I'm waiting for my credit card company to confirm I haven't been charged by domainpeople, after which I will lock all names and renew at Encirca.

I've never had a problem with them, except for the rates and I guess I can eat a one time renewal fee if they bring renewals down to parity.

Great job whoever got them to reduce renewals :tu:

 

[dotprofan]

CONSULTORES.PRO is on auction at Sedo. Current bid is $3500.00:

https://sedo.com/auction/detail/consultores.pro/50632_us__

 

[akcampbell]

Registrypro changed the logo:

1) It's too big for the page.
2) It's red and black and everything on RegistryPro's website is blue and orange.
3) You don't need to add the word "DOT" to the dot because people read it as dot. See the .tv logo on Verisign.tv.
4) The word "DOT" in the red dot is completely out of proportion with the size of the word "pro".
5) The "DOT" is capitalised and the "pro" is in small letters. The contrast looks ugly and amateurish.
6) The red dot is too low, the eye reads from left to right on the horizontal so to take in the dot pro message is has to follow the motion of a bump which is unnatural and uncomfortable.
7) It's looks like Verisign's .tv logo on verisign.tv but not as good.
8) It doesn't look like it's been designed by a professional designer, if you are selling a "professional" brand, what you project has to look a cut above the norm.

RegistryPro's website is a very poor, I don't think the person who originally designed it is the person who updates it because every change made is out of place and badly designed. RegistryPro should type Web Design Awards in Google and hire a web designer who is cutting edge and knows what they are doing.

 

[DanB]

Hi, I have a question for you .PRO experts
I've just registered a .pro at Encirca and got an email asking me to fill a "Professional Verification Information" form. Do I really need to do it? What happens if I ignore this email and do nothing?
And what happens if I change Whois info to a new registrant - Will the new owner get the same email??
Thanks!!

 

[.tv]

Hi, I have a question for you .PRO experts
I've just registered a .pro at Encirca and got an email asking me to fill a "Professional Verification Information" form. Do I really need to do it?

Yes, you have to verify your professional credential in order to hold a .PRO domain name.

What happens if I ignore this email and do nothing?

Most probably, you'll end up losing the .PRO domain name(s) that you register.

 

[InvisionTech]

Back to some hostway issues...
I wanted to start a blog on one of my .PROs, unfortunately it is registered at Hostway. So, I tried changing DNS to point to my server, did not work. I was like I will try again in a week or so, tried, didn't work. I sent them request that I can't change DNS for domains, few days later I get a reply back telling me to do what I did for past two weeks.

Then I asked them to change DNS for me, which meant I had to tell last 4 of the password, the credit card - JUST TO HAVE DNS changed on a domain!!!! Long story short, its been close to 8 weeks now, I still can't change DNS and they haven't made the change.

 

[bocanames]

After transferring domains to domainpeople - creation&exprie date changed in their control panel to 1969-12-31.....
Does anyone had the same problem with Domainpeople ?

Common error familiar to most programmers who write web apps on *nix systems. It literally means they did not store a date value in the database, or did not manage to read it and the default display is this. The broader meaning is that there's likely one or two guys actively working on the core scripts that run the registry control panel software even now, as we transfer in domains. This should scare you a little - watch each and every domain you transfer in there and make sure it's right.

But also realize the outfit you've transferred FROM is likely flying by the seat of their pants as well. Registrars are not evil or incompetent - but they work on small margins. Verify everything!

Back to some hostway issues...

OK I read your post and totally take back my comment about registrars not being incompetent. That's just pathetic. In future you can avoid this with a third party DNS service like everyDNS. Then you no longer rely on the registrar's control panel or tech support to make changes.

 

[JoeBiz]

The 5 Main Pro Registrars Are ...

Originally Posted by akcampbell

The 5 main .pro registrars are;

Encirca.com
DomainPeople.com
Gandi.net
Hostway.com
NetworkSolutions.com


Thanks AK

Engine.pro listed for sale in Fixed price section. Best offer. Just renewed.
.
.

 

[AndyR]

Originally Posted by akcampbell

The 5 main .pro registrars are;

Encirca.com
DomainPeople.com
Gandi.net
Hostway.com
NetworkSolutions.com


Thanks AK

Engine.pro listed for sale in Fixed price section. Best offer. Just renewed.
.
.

Also Hostway.co.uk which seems a seperate operation from the .com although probably the same parent, they are more reliable in my opinion, will keep you posted.

 

[MasterGuru]

Back to some hostway issues...
I wanted to start a blog on one of my .PROs, unfortunately it is registered at Hostway.

Hostway is ....................
I have three .Pro domains registered in October 2008!!! And at present time they are not available for managing in Hostway control panel (pending status...) I'm calling them every week - they promising that they will fix it and nothing changing.....( I aslo PM wrote to the contact that you send me few months ago - no result....