Posts Tagged ‘Domain Service’

More than 100 new ccTLDs Added

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.

.PRO Domains Now Available

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.

.XXX is Live

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.

Preorders for .XXX Now Available

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.

logo for the .XXX domain extension 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.

.XXX Landrush Starts Today

Today the Landrush phase of the .XXX domain extension launch begins.

Landrush is a limited-time opportunity for those who didn’t qualify for Sunrise A, but want to secure a valued .XXX domain name and avoid the first come, first served risks associated with General Availability.

The Landrush period runs for 18 days, starting on November 8, 2011. During this time, only applicants who are members of the adult Sponsored Community can apply for .XXX domain names. Apart from being a member of the adult Sponsored Community, there are no trademark or pre-ownership rights requirements during this phase of the launch.

There is no first come, first served ranking during Landrush. Once Landrush ends, any .XXX domain names with a single applicant will be automatically allocated. Those .XXX domain names with more than one applicant will proceed to a closed mini-auction between the competing parties only.

For Members of the Sponsored Community

Landrush is designed specifically for members of the adult Sponsored Community who wish to secure premium .XXX domain names. It guarantees members the chance to purchase premium .XXX domain names or be involved in a closed auction to bid for .XXX domain names.

OpenSRS is fully supporting the Landrush phase, along with all other phases of the launch of the .XXX domain extension. We’ll begin accepting Landrush orders via the Reseller Web Interface or the OpenSRS API as soon as the registry opens.

More information about .XXX can be found on our .XXX Launch information page.

The launch continues with General Availability for .XXX on December 6, 2011.