Want a Short Domain? Check Out The .Pro Auction

I’d be the first to admit that I wasn’t exactly enamoured with .pro as an extension due to the registry rules. It seemed to have been setup to serve the US market solely and even then only a small subset of the US would even have been able to deal with the registration requirements.

In recent months the registry has made several significant changes to how they handle things (probably to boost registration figures) and the extension is now a lot more attractive.

For the last few days the registry has been running an auction on short .pro domains with a reasonable selection of 1, 2 and 3 character domains up for grabs.

The pricing on some was obviously set with a reasonable reserve, so while you will pay a lot more for a single character domains the pricing on several of the domains that have met their reserve isn’t insane. App.pro, for example, is currently at just over $1700, job.pro is at $1000 and has also met its reserve.

It’s a pity that they didn’t use one of the other auction marketplaces for this event, as I suspect that it’s not getting the same kind of profile that it might have got on Sedo or one of the others auction and aftermarket sites. It’d be hard to imagine a registrar promoting the auction when it’s being run by their biggest competitor! (Yes I know I’m also a registrar, but since we’re currently not offering .pro domains I’ve no skin in the game)