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.

 

[JoeBiz]

sedo pricing

Hi Guys

It has been a long time since I have listed anything on sedo. Their "pricing" was always a little confusing but they've changed something while I was away.

Seems as if you used to be able to set your auction on Make Offer with no dollar amount specified, or you could use "Make Offer" and specify a dollar amount. If you received a bid you had the option of taking the listing to auction using the bid as your reserve. But now it appears that if you set a price, you are obligated to sell if you receive a bid for that amount.

Now that I think about it, I don't see how a domain goes from being a listing to being an auction.

I have read everything I can find in their "Pricing" info section but still don't get it. They always were kind of a confusing place to sell. At least it looks like they straightened out their Categories. Jesus that used to be a mess.

I have a funny feeling that the answer I'm looking for is right under my nose but I'm not seeing it. But that's just me. So any input at all would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks and I hope everyone is having a good Holiday Season !!!
Charles
.
.

 

[mwzd]

Sedo listing options: 1. Fixed price 2. Make offer [w/ or w/o $$ price, buyer still needs to make an offer].

It is surprising that after announcing the release of 1/2/3 kw .pros, registry is kind of silent on this.

There have been some huge drops for .pro, here's the best of the drops:
Top Keyword Drops in .PRO | Premium Availables

 

[Soofi]

Just picked up Applications.pro and added to my list of other .pro's
Address.pro & Open.pro, now I have 3 of them!!

 

[akcampbell]

Yes big .pro drops revently, I estimate total .pros will be down to 28,000-30,000 by the end of December. That will leave registry fee income about the same as pre-Sep 08 levels. That's a good thing because it means RegistryPro is still losing money and will have to negotiate a better deal with ICANN and liberalise .pro in 2010. There is no point issuing 2 and 3 character .pros until the extension has been opened up, they should auction them off after a raft of publicity. If they auctioned them off with restrictions, they would make less money than the cost of promoting the auction.

 

[JoeBiz]

(from domainpeople site)

"Will I be eligible to register second-level .Pro domains (eg. mydomain.Pro) under the new registration rules? "

"All professionals and professional entities who self-certify that they meet the eligibility requirements are able to register .Pro domains. If you own a business license, you are likely to qualify! You can register if you:

• Are a person or entity who provides professional services; and
• You have been admitted to or licensed by a government certification body, or jurisdictional licensing entity recognized by a governmental body; and
• That body or licensing entity requires that its members be licensed or admitted to provide services; and
• You are in good standing.

To determine if your business is eligible to qualify, the general idea is as follows. As long as the organization provides the service associated with its registration identification, and meets all eligibility requirements outlined in the domain registration agreement, the organization is eligible to register a second-level .Pro domain. For example, a customer's business license states that they retail running shoes will be eligible if they use the .Pro domain to sell shoes."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Okay, so how is everyone getting around the stipulations I've highlighted above in red?
Is this just legal fluff, or am I missing something here?


EBL

I haven't been keeping up with the thread lately so I don't know how well this was answered, but I want to throw in my two cents because I see this questions asked so often.

I have been buying, selling and renewing Pros for about 18 months (I think). When I purchased my first one, Cats I believe, I was asked for a few pieces of information. I listed that I was an Engineer, gave them my license number and referred them to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers' website for verification. I don't pay my ASME dues so I'm not actually listed on their site.

Beyond that. I have bought and sold Pros without any questions from anyone and have not been asked to provide additional credentials ... and I own 40 or more Pros that cover a wide range of professions.

I used to work for a state government regulating authority and it was quite common for us to write volumes of rules and regulations. Then when permits were granted for this or that it quickly became apparent that there was no way possible for us to enforce, or even monitor, all of the regs that we had put in place ... all due to lack of manpower of course.

So from my perspective, they simply bit off more than they could chew and have had to back off of the enforcement step by step. I'm sure that there are many other factors at work but as I said, that's just from my perspective.

Merry Christmas Y'all :santa:
Charles

---------- Post added at 05:38 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:58 AM ----------

The buyer contacted me on Sedo, the initial bid was 500 Euros. I started on 8,800 Euros, I said I wanted something similar to the $11,500 Booking.info sold for. I think I said at the time .info was better known but the keyword Booking is more brandable in .pro. The bidder offered 1,000 Euros, I countered at 7,950 Euros, bidder increased their offer to 2,000 Euros, I replied 6,950 Euros, bidder went 3,000 Euros, I offered it at 6,000 Euros, bidder countered 3,500 Euros, I came down to 5,500 Euros, bidder offered 4,000 Euros, I countered at 5,000 Euros, bidder accepted, or something very close to that, I can't remember exactly but there was alot of bidding and countering. My original logic for buying Booking.pro was the keyword Booking had sold for $X,XXX+ in .tv and $XX,XXX+ in .info so it was in demand in alternative extensions. Plus it's a versatile commercial keyword so if I had to hold long term, I'd find a development use for it some day. Booking.pro would be a fantastic domain for a business travel site or a booking software developer so I hope it gets developed. One interesting fact about Booking.pro is that it is a May 07 regged domain, sold for $2,000 within 4 months to me and now again for 5,000 Euros. Not a bad track record for a 2-3 year old domain. Maybe one day it will sell for significantly more again and I will be kicking myself.

Would you guys mind telling me where you get the sales records of specific domains. I see a number of references to past sales in AKs post above. I know that I can get a smattering of this and that from NameBio but I'd like to know the history of Cats sales in as many extensions as possible. Thanks fellers.

Charles ..... :ghost:

 

[cdboard]

I listed that I was an Engineer, gave them my license number and referred them to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers' website for verification. I don't pay my ASME dues so I'm not actually listed on their site.

who issued the license ?

 

[JoeBiz]

who issued the license ?

Looks like it was the North Carolina Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors. But even if they verified it, being an engineer doesn't qualify me as a professional in the fields of the pro domains that I own.

So from where I sit, they are easy to buy and renew and sell to other domainers but probably tough to sell to end users ... unless you are a hot shot negotiator like Andrew.

:santa:

 

[cdboard]

ok. I was wondering why you "referred them" to ASME. doesn't the "North Carolina Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors" have a website?

 

[JoeBiz]

ok. I was wondering why you "referred them" to ASME. doesn't the "North Carolina Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors" have a website?

Yes they do but ASME came to mind first so that's what I gave them. Point being that they don't check. They probably will though if I keep writing.

 

[InvisionTech]

Have you guys seen increase in activity on your .PRO domains? I am seeing alot of activity on sedo and parked domains.

Also, had my first sale on Node.pro website. :D Lil encouragement like that can go a long way!

 

[akcampbell]

Have you guys seen increase in activity on your .PRO domains? I am seeing alot of activity on sedo and parked domains.

Also, had my first sale on Node.pro website. :D Lil encouragement like that can go a long way!

I'm seeing a little extra activity in site traffic on Total.pro at 1,030 for the last month, I don't remember getting past 1,000 visits in a month before. Bidding activity has been quiet in the last couple of weeks, just the one lowball bid for Global.pro. Bidding ebbs and flows, I have had 3 bids in 1 day before on Sedo and other times you get nothing. BigJelly see DNsaleprice.com for domain sale prices.

 

[rebeli]

I tink

I think they cost to much .... .pro domains are nice but they prince are high ....
Best that can do to low the princes..

 

[JoeBiz]

I'm seeing a little extra activity in site traffic on Total.pro at 1,030 for the last month, I don't remember getting past 1,000 visits in a month before. Bidding activity has been quiet in the last couple of weeks, just the one lowball bid for Global.pro. Bidding ebbs and flows, I have had 3 bids in 1 day before on Sedo and other times you get nothing. BigJelly see DNsaleprice.com for domain sale prices.

Thanks for the link AK. It is much appreciated.

We have a small Pro site up that's is just sitting ... no content updates or promotion of any kind but it continues to see a steady rise along the lines of Andrew's Total.pro. We've been seeing a 5 to 10% increase monthly over the past four months. Can't really say why that might be happening.

But I have also had TheLeaderboard.com up for a long while now. It too is just idling. But it has seen no increase in traffic at all over the past 12 months. The Pro site is a much stronger keyword than TheLeaderboard but I don't see how that would account for an increase in traffic.

:santa::santa::santa:

 

[cdboard]

Yes they do but ASME came to mind first so that's what I gave them. Point being that they don't check.

they might not have checked yet.

if/when they do, the check will fail.

 

[JoeBiz]

they might not have checked yet.

if/when they do, the check will fail.

More likely restrictions will be lifted altogether in 2010. RegistryPro is in no position to be running off customers.
.
.

 

[JoeBiz]

Verisign

--- edited

 

[hakita]

Just for information,

I am the guy how bought Freelance.pro, it was very deep in Serp.
The day i changed the name to independant.fr ( Freelance in french) it moved to first google page in 3 weeks.

I hade DomainAppraisal.pro, it was deep in Google Serp.
The day i changed it to DomainAppraisal.net it moved to the first google page in 1 week.

From a Seo point of view, .pro are doomed by google

Even if i love .pro domains, Google rules force me to change my mind.... so bad

 

[InvisionTech]

What keywords are you targeting?

What SEO have you done on your websites/code?

Configure your websites with google webmaster tools and see how many backlinks you have for both domains.

 

[akcampbell]

From a Seo point of view, .pro are doomed by google

DomainAppraisal.pro was registered in July 09, DomainAppraisal.net was registered in Dec 02. Surely you recognise that your jump in ranking is because you are switching to a domain 6-7 years older and not because Google has anything against .pro? Secondly, with Freelance.pro, you are combining an English keyword with French content, what do you think Google is going to think about that? Is it not logical that if you switch to the French version of the keyword in the French ccTLD, you just might get an SEO boost combined with French content?!

I have been developing Mum.com over the holidays, it was registered in Oct 94. I haven't submitted to any search engines yet but if RegistryPro released 3 character .pros and I switched the site to Mum.pro should I be surprised if a 15-16 year younger domain didn't rank as well and conclude that .pro is doomed in Google? The deal with .pro is that it is more brandable than other non .com gTLDs but less aged and well known, there will be a raft of of new gTLDs coming out but .pro will be older, better known and more brandable than all of them, can you see the play?

 

[DOT PRO]

SEO concerns aside, I know one company that has been quietly buying up DOT PROs and I believe offers a good chance to get a little buz going around the extension in 2010.