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Archive for the '.pro' Category

credit repair dot PRO

Posted in domain names, .pro on December 12th, 2008

OK not the most exciting site in the world, but it was a pretty simple site to launch and the timing seems to be spot on. I’ve had this domain for some time and always thought it would be nice to develop, but with the current state of the financial world it became just impossible not to put up a site.

I’ll go back and automate the administration a bit more, add more content and polish a few rough edges later, but for now it’ll do just fine. I’m talking about the place to go for information about credit repair, debt consolidation, writing credit dispute letters and more.

more Encirca weird behavior

Posted in domain names, .pro on September 24th, 2008

OK this is just getting too weird, somebody should be watching and making these guys adhere to some sort of policy. Any consistent policy at all. I had several expired domains, with expiration dates spanning a stretch of more than a week, all removed from my account within a couple minutes today. Weird.

With any other registrar I’ve ever heard of or dealt with, they allow a certain amount of time to pass, a grace deletion period, between the expiration date and the time when the domain will be deleted from my account. Here it seems arbitrary, maybe it depends on the domain. In fact some of the recent domains have deleted, but most of the recent ones have been “moved” into an account controlled by Encirca. I think they’re taking advantage of a time when registrar activity is not being monitored by the registry. It’s a shame, because customers like me value knowing what to expect. I’m buying .pro domains elsewhere from now on.

More fallout from .PRO re-factoring

Posted in .pro on September 15th, 2008

Encirca was the brave innovator that decided to exploit a loophole in the restrictions and offer .PRO registrations to the masses via their “Pro Forwarding” service. As the incumbent they are uniquely positioned among approved registrars. Most of the best domain names in this TLD are currently registered at Encirca. And I’ve noticed some strange behavior from them recently.

This past month I had a couple dozen expired domains delete. Typically there’s a process where expired domains are held for some sort of a grace deletion period for 30 days or so before being deleted from the registry. Early pre-registrations were being offered for .pro for $49 each (instead of the recently revised $75) and so I watched these domains drop and registered some at the new lower price. But there was no rhyme or reason to the process; indeed it seemed ad hoc or even manual! Several domains with identical expiration dates actually dropped on different days, one after another. That suggests manual tampering with the process, which is not acceptable.

Now I’m noticing another trend, that of Encirca keeping domain names instead of allowing them to delete. This (as opposed to the previous issue) is probably fair and acceptable behavior normally. One of four that should have been dropped yesterday is now registered to Encirca. That’s one of the benefits of being a registrar - getting first crack at dropping domains. The problem is that there is no way to know what to expect, even as the brand is re-launching itself, and inviting the world to come get great value at promotional prices. I expected a domain yesterday to delete, and I was ready to try to register it fresh, at the new $25 promo rate. Instead, the registrar is pressuring us to renew at the older, higher $75 price to avoid the unpredictable. Extortion plain and simple.

the dot pro landscape

Posted in domain names, .pro on September 12th, 2008

The agreement between ICANN and the registry for .PRO, RegistryPro was recently modified. The original expiration date had passed and it was an opportunity for the parties involved to reconsider the extension and the rules imposed on registrants and registrars. I wouldn’t characterize this as an opportunity lost per se, but rather an opportunity not firmly seized by those who stood to benefit the most from it.

The improvements in this arena are apparent; several registrars are now competing to offer .pro registrations, including Network Solutions. That’s important because this extension will now be on the radars of corporate registrants, who often use registrars like NetSol. They will quickly realize the inherent “rememberability” of this brand. It’s also important because price competition is crucial to the mass adoption of this TLD, and it only happens when more registrars join the fray.

The downside is that they left restrictions in place, but made them vague and unworkable. There will surely be legal challenges if they ever decide to revoke registrations (as they claim) based upon invalid certification data from the registrant. This is an absurd approach, and will retard the adoption of this TLD by scaring off a portion of the potential registrant pool. Hopefully the upside will outweigh this negative vestige from the TLD’s origins of yesteryear.

YADP - Yet Another Dot-Pro

Posted in .pro on January 24th, 2007

OK the latest in my .pro experiment - WeightLoss.Pro

This site will be developed further, I just got tired of waiting so i released it in Beta!

another .pro

Posted in domain names, .pro on December 8th, 2006

A followup post - http://language.pro This is a subsequent effort at unleashing a developed .pro site onto the world. Admittedly less challenging than Sushi.Pro, it is nevertheless a viable site and should add another data point to the desolate .pro webscape.

.pro anyone?

Posted in gTLD, .pro on December 2nd, 2006

Here’s my experiment. I believe there’s an intrinsic value in .pro extension, when it’s used with a generic domain that makes sense. I plan to try foisting a few on the world and see if they take. Whether or not google will someday come to love them I don’t know. But I think they’re memorable and deserving. My first site to be released into the wild is Sushi.Pro. Check it out and we’ll see if it goes anywhere.