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.

 

[mjnels]

.PW being professional web - hahha.. so hilarious its cute.

it will go over about as well as .WS for website. we dont need this silly country code repurposing anymore... stuff like .TV and .CO make sense but with the new gTLDs coming they are really reaching trying something like that where you have to EXPLAIN what the abbreviation means.. adorable i say.

Jurgen Wolf, mr thumbs, this aint facebook. say some stuff too beyond rah-rah-cis-boom-ba

 

[Kate]

IMO .pw should do well, as well as .so more or less.

 

[mwzd]

Is .pw going to capitalize on the professional domain space?

What would you prefer - webdomain.pro or webdomain.pw?

International terms -same word for several languages- always get most offers: Yoga, Hacker, Sherpa, Karaoke, Perfumes, Aikido, Hentai, Jockey, Latex, Mariachi, Reiki ... :gl:

I'll take Yoga off your hand, I'll even 'do you a favor' and offer to pay $xxx - since this is a failed extension you should be grateful. :p

Two word .pro domains only make sense for development and if you're going that way, go for .com - still a lot of good stuff left if you know where to look, maybe not exact matches, but since you're going to seo the hell out of it and build a real business unlike these domain squatters, you'd do fine, in fact, go for a brandable, easier to tm too.

 

[maksimfa]

Quick... I just got an email from name.com to buy up .PW domains.

I thnk they would of done a better job with .PW as

Yourname. Pw (Pretty Woman) than as Professional Web.

Maybe it is the last hurray?

When you have infinite choices, the price eventually goes down to zero...

Think of it... when a company has infinite choice.... they no longer will have to support high prices for mediocre .coms.

 

[ioana_bv]

.PW being professional web - hahha.. so hilarious its cute.

it will go over about as well as .WS for website. we dont need this silly country code repurposing anymore... stuff like .TV and .CO make sense but with the new gTLDs coming they are really reaching trying something like that where you have to EXPLAIN what the abbreviation means.. adorable i say.

Jurgen Wolf, mr thumbs, this aint facebook. say some stuff too beyond rah-rah-cis-boom-ba

Just curious, why .tv and .co make sense while .ws, .pw do not?
They are in the exact same position, ccTLDs branded for generic usage.

.pw is just trying to get more registrations. And I agree with sdsnic, it is going to be the same as .so, maybe a little better due to the market strategy.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

From Name.com

Thank you for your email. Unfortunately we cannot match the encirca.com pricing for .pro registrations.

 

[maksimfa]

Just curious, why .tv and .co make sense while .ws, .pw do not?
They are in the exact same position, ccTLDs branded for generic usage.

.pw is just trying to get more registrations. And I agree with sdsnic, it is going to be the same as .so, maybe a little better due to the market strategy.

.tv is easy to remember and actually makes sense.
.co is a little less so but 1 sylibol and easy to relate to company.

.pw.... wtf is pw? wtf is a professional web? lol

.ws is same boat.. two crappy letters, that don't make sense.

 

[ioana_bv]

.tv is easy to remember and actually makes sense.
.co is a little less so but 1 sylibol and easy to relate to company.

.pw.... wtf is pw? wtf is a professional web? lol

.ws is same boat.. two crappy letters, that don't make sense.

Any ccTLD is easy to remember, human brain can easily remember tow letters.

Those are all branding strategies. Older brands seems to make "sense" while newer no, till you get used of them.
All it matters is how the branding strategy marked is made.
ccTLDs of small countries have to think about branding strategies to get more registrations.

 

[webdomain]

.pro does need to attract the end user. More suggestions on how to do that would be great to see on this board. I'm pretty sure that the more I get new users to my websites it helps increase awareness. Also my email address that is @facts.pro has also provided a great way to communicate the brand.

People used to question the extension like 'wow, i've never heard of that' or 'is that a .com' now...all I get is an 'ok, thank you' which is pretty standard these days when I provide them my email address.

Getting the word out is important and having a website to conduct business on is very critical to building popularity for the extension. I also suggest that people get twitter and facebook profiles for their pro domains they want to build out. It's good seo but also puts pro in front of the masses.

https://twitter.com/facts_pro - Hey 362 followers which is almost as much as the registry itself?

 

[mjnels]

Any ccTLD is easy to remember, human brain can easily remember tow letters.

Those are all branding strategies. Older brands seems to make "sense" while newer no, till you get used of them.
All it matters is how the branding strategy marked is made.
ccTLDs of small countries have to think about branding strategies to get more registrations.

.tv and .co are already "branded"

they are having to explain .PW is "professional web"

yes 2 letters are easy to remember. people can even remember entire words. thats why with the coming gTLD's when people have 1,000+ "brands" to choose from theyre not going to pick something they have to be explained to what it means.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

my email address that is @facts.pro has also provided a great way to communicate the brand.

My whole family uses two .PRO-domains since 2010.

 

[Blake]

Lets get back on topic folks I will clean up the thread shortly but lets get back on the topic at hand.....no need for personal attacks and things of this nature.

Blake

 

[mjnels]

beyond blatant spam i hope comments dont start getting deleted. ive been liking this new non-heavy-handed mod approach. figured the topic was everything .pro and anywhere that discussion goes.

 

[mwzd]

Just curious, why .tv and .co make sense while .ws, .pw do not?

They are in the exact same position, ccTLDs branded for generic usage.

.TV & .CO are internationally recognizable for what they signify - television and company.

.WS has been used long enough for it to be accepted as Website and with the launch of the new gtlds it might gain additional significance with the launch of .Website

.PW is...??

 

[WordWalker]

.PW vs. .PRO

Sure, .pw can be repurposed for "Professional Web," but which of the following domains are more likely to resonate with consumers and end users when viewed in print ads, tv commercials, billboards, business cards and search engine results?

Voicemail.pw
Voicemail.pro

SportingGoods.pw
SportingGoods.pro

HomeTheater.pw
HomeTheater.pro

HealthInsurance.pw
HealthInsurance.pro

Movie.pw
Movie.pro

Going.pw
Going.pro
​

When browsing through the app stores from Apple or Android, you'll see the word, "pro" used in the app title more consistently than any other descriptive keyword or modifier. There's a reason for that. Think about it: long before Al Gore invented the Internet, "pro" was widely used, both as prefix and suffix, to describe a multitude of different products, services and business entities.

PRO = Professional = Credibility

The word "pro" is both familiar and intuitive. And it's been a part of our business nomenclature for generations. Think of the word "pro" as SEO for the brain! Can you say that about .pw?

In the meantime, while global business interests and domain speculators are tripping over themselves and literally spending hundreds of millions of dollars in application fees, alone, for a shot at bringing 1,900 new domain extensions to market -- with no guarantees of ICANN approval or ultimate success, dotPro is approved, in place and ready to roll. Simply follow the dollars. If speculators and investors are betting that kind of hard money on success for a yet untested, untried new crop of domain extensions slowly making their way to market, maybe, just maybe there's room for one more domain extension that embodies that familiar, descriptive, legacy keyword of business and commerce: "PRO."

 

[ioana_bv]

Comparing .pro with the first new ccTLD branded the same as .pro, gives the idea .pro is very weak.

 

[maksimfa]

The thing is though, if registrars get behind .pw.... it may not matter much anyway.

The better extension does not always win.

Sent from my SGH-T889 using Tapatalk 2

 

[WordWalker]

Comparing .pro with the first new ccTLD branded the same as .pro, gives the idea .pro is very weak.

And you say that because.....?

The thing is though, if registrars get behind .pw.... it may not matter much anyway.

The better extension does not always win.

As an end user, I only know that if I registered Keyword.pw and later discovered that Keyword.pro had been available for registration at the same time, I would be very, very, unhappy.

 

[Kate]

PRO = Professional = Credibility

By the same token .jobs is no less credible. The reality is that consumers don't readily trust URLs they are not familiar with.
Therefore the credibility bonus doesn't apply as it should.
Domainers are familiar with a lot of extensions and less biased in a way, but that is not representative of the layman.

Of course it's a catch 22 situation, extensions need to gain traction from end users to attain critical mass and awareness. All new extensions have the same problem.

My conclusion is that the scarcity of good domains is not such that end users are ready to shift to new extensions massively. Accordingly, the market for new extensions will be very rough and unforgiving. I mean, registry failures should become expected events like flu in winter.

If the current level of registration volume holds, the TLD might remain viable and slightly profitable.
But there isn't a thriving secondary market in any extension when the primary market is weak.

 

[WordWalker]

Of course it's a catch 22 situation, extensions need to gain traction from end users to attain critical mass and awareness. All new extensions have the same problem.

Agreed. Search Dnfactor together with "Domainer Hubris" for one possible solution:

Dnfactor "Domainer Hubris"​

 

[mjnels]

The thing is though, if registrars get behind .pw.... it may not matter much anyway.

The better extension does not always win. 2

if 1,000+ TLD's wernt about to be released i'd agree with you.

butttttt.. registrars are about to have the ability to sell people entire pronounceable words. do you really think they're going to promote something which they have to explain what it means? there is a ton of value in having an "easy sell" (i.e. not having to explain the "brand")

there is a reason godaddy promotes .CO - because they like money and its an easy sell because you dont have to explain what it means or the perceived meaning.

 

[webdomain]

The test will be if the .pw registry does anything to market the extension after the great landrush. Hopefully they register more than 160K .pro's as it will open the door to interest in professional domains, but the likelyhood of the extension continuing a marketing program beyond collecting the 40 buck non refundable landrush fees is yet to be seen.

I'm sticking with .pro for sites I'm developing.

 

[ioana_bv]

And you say that because.....?

If .pro is considered much better than .pw, than why .pro is compared woth .pw? Don't forget .pw is a new and the first ccTLD that branded itself as professional.

 

[mjnels]

If .pro is considered much better than .pw, than why .pro is compared woth .pw? Don't forget .pw is a new and the first ccTLD that branded itself as professional.

.pro as a whole is weak.. regardless of what comparisons are used.

i keep waiting for someone from the .PW registry to come here and post "just kidding, we're not really trying to re-brand this" :lol:

 

[webdomain]

Here's an ad that helps get the word out to America. The best way to promote .pro is to promote your business. Will be running on some of the internet radio stations and talk shows here in the next few weeks.

http://www.pinless.pro/pinless-international-phone-card-radio-ads/