The NameJet.com registry owned .Pro domain name auction came to a close yesterday with most domains not even hitting reserve.
Domains that I have on my report as selling include SSL.pro which seems to lead the pack at only $2,600, Ask.pro was a close second at $2,400, Tea.pro sold for $1,700 and the bargain of the auction (IMHO) Dui.pro sold for a meager $1,100.
Other domains such as Dog.pro which also got a $1,100 bid did not hit reserve, nor did such domains as Eco.pro, Eye.pro, Hip.pro and Run.pro all of which did not even get up to $1K in bids and failed to sell.
Why Dui.pro hit reserve at $1,100 and Dog.pro did not seems strange to me as I think “Dui” is a more available keyword than the singular “dog”
Its also interesting to contrast this auction with the results of the .Me auction that was held a day earlier on Sedo which generated $400K in sales, since .pro is a gTLD, while .Me is a country code, ccTLD.
.pro is a too exotic TLD
I’ve found an interesting site entirely devoted to the .pro TLD: total.pro
according to total.pro the best selling .pro domain has been video.pro in 2007 for $35,000
.pro is garbage, only fugly losers specialize in buying .pro domains
Guess the BIG question is how does Google rank this extension?
but in some cases a .pro domain makes sense more than a .me
i’m waiting for dot amateur… that’s where the money is. for every pro there’s a thousand amateurs.
@ todaro
I agree on my block corner there stands,
plenty of Lady Pro’s along side the Amateurs 🙂
Guess the BIG question is how does Google rank this extension?
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It really doesn’t care.
Your typical .pro domain name is going to be a gigantic keyword. Davey Domainer thinks he can get Horses.pro, throw up a wordpress Splog, hire Indians for the “1000 Backlink Package” then gnashes teeth when his site doesn’t make Page 1 (or, Page 2, or Page 93423) for the word “Horses”… then, insists that really, it’s because Google doesn’t like the extension itself.
Are the pros wearing the feather skirts, or the amateurs?
I thought u had to know sort of secret handshake to be able to own/ bid on one anyway?
Actually .pro is pretty good as an extension, at least in theory. You are a [what youdo] pro.
What this tells me is that the many .nonsense from ICANN will not do well at all. IMO, just some .geo have a chance, and tlds like .fl (florida etc) since the state abbreviation is popular in USA.
“since .pro is a gTLD, while .Me is a country code, ccTLD.”
…
“since .pro is a 3-Letter ASCII TLD, while .ME 2-Letter ASCII TLD”
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“while .ME is a 2-Letter abbreviation for MAINE”
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“while .ME was heavily marketed by the dominant Retailer (Registrar)”
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“while .PRO was morphing into a gTLD from being more restricted and attempting to fly under.the.radar and stay away from the ICANN pillory”
They pay the lack of advertising
the domain game is dying
@ hamburgler
Gosh, Gee Willikers,
I hope your not right,
my goldfish died this morning …
this could be the start of a new trend?
the .pro TLD hasn’t had a good PR promotion like .co
also, according to total.pro this TLD has only six main registrars and the prices was a bit high
.pro didn’t suffer due to lack of ‘promotion’.
It suffered because the game changed midstream, for the sake of registry profits (aka- good old fashioned greed)
The idea itself was good- a speculator-free TLD limited to people who could demonstrate they were actually qualified to own whatever keyword… but when the cash didn’t flow like they had hoped, the threw open the doors to anyone with a debit card but only after the initial interest had died down.
I think it was a pretty interesting TLD in its original form but without that vetting process, it’s just another domainer plaything to burn money on. Maybe a sale here, a sale there, but imo, there are better MUCH things to spend your time focusing on.
Don’t read too much into this auction. It was just a dry run with some fairly random strings. The good ones were held back.
one of the best advantages of .pro is that, since it’s not so popular, great part of the best domain names, “should” be still… unregistered… 🙂
You know whats finny, as mentioned above, Video.pro was the highest .pro sale, BUT when you go to it, it says “video.pro – domain IS EXPIRED!”. So the highest paid .pro ever could not make it and the domain is expired? Seems like a wasted 35,000. But then again, maybe the owner had money to burn.
http://www.sedo.com/search/details.php4?domain=food.pro&language=e&et_sub=23&partnerid=14456&et_cid=15&et_lid=14274
listed for an asking price of 1500, sold for 6,939 in June 07. At this rate, I would agree, the domain extension died a painful death.
400k in the .me auction? Shows you people don’t know what they are buying
“video.pro – domain IS EXPIRED!”
but video.pro (for Professional Video) isn’t a bad domain
So, the final question is: who “really” needs a .pro domain?
I agree, if widely adopted .pro would have been good, but the whole thing where they were vetting users, and then not, well that just cost the registry a lot of money.
As for Video.pro, I sort of like the name, but as an investor, unless you SEO it, it is not practical to pay for the domain and sit on it for years on years.
People are going to be “debating” thousands of new TLDs like .PRO ???
Each name, each sale ? each up, each down ? each win ? each loss ?
…better than the .NFL ?
Probably Jim. I am personally not interested in every one. I have zero .me, and 2 .co, and mostly .coms.
“if widely adopted .pro would have been good”
but 99.99% of the potential .pro buyers, not even know that a .pro TLD exists
definitely, the .pro guys need a good PR agency… 🙂
“the .pro guys need a good PR agency…”
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.PRO now has a PRO from Network Solutions on their Board
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Top Level Domain Registries likely want to AVOID PR and just make money
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Do they want .PR ? like .JOBS ? and the costs of that ?
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BTW, is .PR a companion TLD for .PRO ?
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also note, .CAT is becoming a gTLD – from some restricted prior life
I’m always amazed at the attacks from the .me crowd whenever Pro is mentioned. Pro’s are a restricted extension and as the restrictions are slowly being lifted, the prices are steadily rising. Whereas 18 months ago you could buy .me’s for less than a dollar. Six months later you couldn’t give them away. Now they’ve been given a little bump and a few people got a little too enthusiastic. But six months from now they’ll be back in the penny line. PT Barnum would be proud.
Another nail, so to speak.
“and the costs of that ?”
maybe, a small fee on all new .pro sold
.Pro pricing is dropping to be on par with .com in Jan ’11, should be interesting to see what happens then.
And .pro isn’t the toughest to rank, but as mentioned in the example above, a splog doesn’t cut it for high competition keywords, as expected.
I’d play close attention to what Thomas said above, Encirca has always been the goto place for .PRO
“definitely, the .pro guys need a good PR agency… :)”
Yes, PR may have helped it, and it may still if they can afford the costs of such, but basicilly what PR does, is it spins the story in a new way to make people want to like the company or ext better.
.pro is little known but highly marketable in the right hands because of the appeal of pro branding. Domains registered have risen from 6,000 to 48,000.
In Russia .PRO is better@good than ugly .ME@.MOBI@.CC@.WS@.BIZ
.PRO is slow trend to up. Current ~50000 .pro
I think the problem is that gtlds are all being compared with the amazing success of .me and .co landrushs and their assoicated high auction dollar amounts. Of course we all like to see these kinds of values., but .pro is on a much slower growth track and in reality the few sales aren’t that terribly bad as you can pick many good or even better names up off drop lists or on snapnames for between 14.95 and 49 bucks at auction. The fact that it is yet still relatively unknown opens an unique buying opportunity for the extension. I consider it a valuable portion of my portfolio and recommend you sieze the opportunity with lower registration fees being announced the best names are going quick. there are approximately 50K registrants now and growing.
“50K registrants now and growing”
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IF a true Free (and open) Market existed for Top Level Domains
IF the U.S. Government backed (advertised) thousands of Top Level Domains
……
the estimate is that 50,000 sub-domains per TLD would be average/steady-state
One can work backwards from the Cost to run a TLD Registry to compute the Annual Fee per sub-domain (Registrant)
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S.C.U.B.A DNS and Microsoft FREE domains change the monetized domain market…but people still want to pay an arm and a leg…
video.pro expired, really?
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Domain Expiration Date : Wed Feb 23 05:00:00 UTC 2011
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Didn’t know domains expired 3 months in advance…must be something else going on.
Saw that but according to the servers they are expired so maybe our friend Tom from ENCIRCA can fill us
“video.pro expired, really?”
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One of the (growing) concerns that people have for the coming world of Thousands of TLDs is the potential for a re-visit to the early days of ISPs with the MA-PA-T1 model of the world.
In other words, will TLDs operated by MA, PA and a Geek have the same gold-plated feel as .COM ?
Will TLDs be required to be “better than .COM” ? Is that fair ?
MA, PA and a Geek TLDs with 50,000 Registrants coming soon ? (RSN – Real Soon Now ?…since 1995)
I have a significant investment in DOT PRO and all those domains auctioned off were “crap” (sans ask.pro). None of the other domains had any value IMHO. If you want more auction, auction offer better names that are tied to local professionals.
brandjacking allready is happening, seems someone grabbed flickr.pro – ebay.pro maybe these will fetch more than the average $1,500 sale for .pro domains
Forex.pro sold for $15,000 this month on Sedo so that $1,500 average is going up. Total .pros registered are up from 6,000 to 50,000.
Have a look at a list of Android apps to see the potential for Pro branding branding. 1 in 4 Android apps in Tech, Business, and Sports categories are branded Pro.
.pro conveys credibility, expertise, and trust. It makes .biz, .mobi, and .info look extremely ugly.