Tweet

By: Adam Eisner on December 22nd, 2011
Posted in: OpenSRS Services
Tags: ccTLD, Domain Service, EPAG
Comments: 0

Today we enabled a huge number of new ccTLDs available through OpenSRS.

A few months back we announced that we acquired the German registrar EPAG. The reason for the acquisition was that we wanted to significantly bolster our lineup of country-code top-level domains. Today’s release is the first round of new ccTLDs that we’ll add as a result.

In total, there are over 100 new ccTLDs in the first round (including both second and third level domains). From a geographic perspective, we’ve now offer ccTLDs for nearly 80 countries.

Some of the more popular new extensions:

• Poland: .pl
• New Zealand: .nz
• Isle of Man: .im
• South Africa: .za
• Malaysia: .my
• Peru: .pe
• Tonga: .to
• Israel: .il
• Korea: .kr

Full List with Pricing

You can view the full list of the TLDs we offer along with pricing here. We’ve organized things by continent to make it easier to display them all.

If you don’t see a country that you were hoping would be on the list, sit tight — we’re still working on integrating everything that EPAG offers into OpenSRS and we’ll have even more ccTLDs to add to the list in 2012.

More Information

ccTLDs sometimes have residency and other requirements. To help you out with that, we’ve created a handy TLD Reference Chart that gives you all that information in a single document. We’ll be updating it as we add more ccTLDs or as requirements change.

These new ccTLDs are available in the Domain Manager of OpenSRS Control Panel, as well as via the Reseller Web Interface (RWI). By default, searches won’t include the laundry list of all the new ccTLDs, but you can enable those that are of interest to you in the settings area of the RWI. Check out the FAQ for help with doing that.

Documentation including the API docs has been updated to get you started and we’ve started compiling a list of frequently asked questions that we will continue to update as we get feedback from resellers.

Tweet

By: OpenSRS Team on December 13th, 2011
Posted in: OpenSRS Services
Tags: .PRO, Domain Service, gTLD, promo, Promotions
Comments: 0

Today we added .PRO domains to the list of gTLDs available through OpenSRS.

To celebrate the launch, we’re also offering a .PRO launch promotion providing substantial savings off the usual registration fee. From now until February 15, 2012, .PRO domains will be available with a registry cost of $1.99/domain year for new registrations (the regular registry cost is $7.34/year). Resellers do need to sign up to take advantage of this promotion. Sign up here.

Remember that because .PRO is a gTLD, it’s priced using our ‘cost-plus’ pricing model so you’ll need to add your OpenSRS Management fee and the ICANN fee to determine the full cost for .PRO domains.

What is .PRO?

.PRO is an exclusive top-level domain reserved for use exclusively by licensed business and service professionals and entities internationally. All applicants meeting the following qualifications may register a .PRO domain name:

• Provides professional services
• Admitted to or licensed by a government certification body or jurisdictional licensing entity recognized by a governmental body that regularly verifies the accuracy of its data
• In good standing with the licensing authority

You should be aware that registrants of .PRO domains may be asked to provide information related to their professional eligibility.

Documentation and Marketing Help

OpenSRS offers second-level .PRO domains. They can be provisioned and managed through the Domain Manager in OpenSRS Control Panel and via the OpenSRS API. Consult the documentation for more information.

Look at our .PRO information page for more details including a marketing kit containing the .PRO logo and some banner ads for your use in marketing .PRO domains to your customers.

Tweet

By: OpenSRS Team on December 6th, 2011
Posted in: OpenSRS Services
Tags: .XXX, Domain Service
Comments: 1

In the end it was delayed a bit, but General Availability for .XXX happened today at noon EST and the .XXX domain is now fully online.

For any resellers who submitted pre-orders, you should see any successful orders in your account shortly. For those with Sunrise orders outstanding, you’ll see the first wave of successful applications in your account as well.

ICM Registry, which operates the .XXX domain says it will be a few more weeks before some remaining valid Sunrise applications are processed.

Marketing Resources

Our .XXX information page contains marketing help, advice on how to position .XXX domains and some additional information about how .XXX and the Sponsored Community works.

Congratulations to ICM Registry on a very successful launch.

Tweet

By: OpenSRS Team on December 5th, 2011
Posted in: OpenSRS Services
Tags: goMobi, Publishing Service
Comments: 0

Over the weekend, our goMobi mobile website publishing service was updated to v1.5. This new version brings some significant new features and also some really nice enhancements and improvements to existing features.

Here’s a run-down of the most significant changes that came with this release:

New Features:

• New design templates to provide more options to style goMobi sites.
• Seven new icon sets to choose from.
• Integrated shopping cart feature in the Products section including payment integration with PayPal and Google Checkout.
• YouTube video embedding.
• Reviews/Testimonials integration with social networks like Yelp.
• Custom form feature to allow for the collection of customer feedback or questionnaires.
• Redirection code generator built in to the Site Builder.

Enhancements:

• Enhanced QR code flyer creator.
• Improvements to the site templates including additional site colour options.
• A new ‘Click to Call’ icon has been added to the site header.
• Google Maps now displayed for all locations with improved directions feature on supported devices.
• Better WYSIWYG editor including the ability to insert images, links and easily customize text
• Additional time-zone support.

More Information

We’ve updated the goMobi marketing page with more information on the features and benefits of goMobi. If you are already selling goMobi, be sure to let your users know about this exciting update to the service. We also have a complete rundown of the updates and new features in PDF format with screenshots and more. Click here to download.

For those not yet offering goMobi mobile websites, this update makes an already powerful and feature-rich tool even better. At just $2.50/month goMobi is a very affordable way to get customers started on the mobile web.

Tweet

By: OpenSRS Team on November 29th, 2011
Posted in: OpenSRS Services
Tags: .XXX, Domain Service, General Availability
Comments: 0

General Availability (GA) for .XXX is on December 6th and we’re now taking your .XXX GA pre-orders through OpenSRS. You can get more information on how our pre-order queue works at our .XXX launch information page.

On December 6th at 16:00 UTC the .XXX registry opens up registrations to anyone, just like any other domain extension. That said, there are a couple of things to note regarding .XXX domains. Because this is a sponsored TLD, there are some additional requirements to fulfill to get what the registry calls a resolving domain.

• If your customers aren’t part of the Sponsored Community (that is those who provide adult services, or provide services to the adult services community), then they may wish to do a defensive registration. If they have an existing business or personal domain that they don’t want associated with .XXX, then they can register the .XXX version of the domain themselves and get an non-resolving domain.
• For those in the Sponsored Community, registrations must be validated by the registry before they will resolve and point to a website. That’s a fairly easy process which is handled by the registry after the domain is registered. Basically the registrant certifies that they are a provider of adult services and gains membership into the Sponsored Community. That results in a .XXX domain that resolves to whatever website specified in the DNS.

Pricing

.XXX domains are priced at $80.18 through OpenSRS. That cost includes an $0.18 fee payable to ICANN for every registration.

Right now .XXX domains are only available through the Reseller Web Interface (RWI) and via the API and orders submitted will go into the pre-order queue. You’ll see the special form on the main page in the RWI (pictured here).

After 16:00 UTC on December 6th, you’ll be able to register .XXX domains like any other domain in the RWI. We’ll add .XXX registration and management to the Domain Manager in the OpenSRS Control Panel in the near future.