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.

We have a cost-plus pricing model for our generic top-level domains (gTLDs) at OpenSRS. That means we break out the cost of gTLDs to give you transparency into who is getting what when you buy domains through us. As a result, you’ll see your cost for buying .INFO domains through your OpenSRS Reseller account rise by $0.67 on July 1, 2011, to $10.60/year.

In the case of .INFO domains, of the new $10.60 list price, the registry gets $7.42. ICANN gets $0.18 for the ICANN fee, and the remaining $3.00 makes up the OpenSRS Management Fee.

You may wish to beat the price increase by renewing existing .INFO domains before July 1st as you’ll pay the current price if you renew now, even if the domain doesn’t expire until after July 1.

.INFO Promotion Starts July 1

Also effective July 1, 2011, OpenSRS is offering a .INFO pricing promotion in conjunction with Afilias. For those resellers who sign up and do some promotion of .INFO domains to their customers, we’ll drop the registry cost for new, one-year registrations to just $1.99. You’ll still have to pay the ICANN fee and OpenSRS Management fee on top of that, but it’s a savings of $5.43 of the new regular cost.

Terms and conditions for the promotion can be found on the sign up page. You need to sign up for this promotion and the discount is paid in the form of a rebate deposited in your Reseller account the month following for that month’s transactions.

Sign up here

The launch of .eu was particularly strong – about 1.7 million domains were registered that first month back in 2006. According to EURid, since then, “Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Estonia have had the strongest .eu growth rates and Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France and Poland have emerged as .eu’s largest markets.”

.eu Growth Outpaces ccTLDs in Some Countries

They also point to growth rates higher than the local ccTLD in five EU member countries, including Germany, which has a very strong ccTLD in .de:

.EU Promotion!

To celebrate the fifth birthday, we’re rolling out a .eu promotion starting April 7th, and continuing through the end of May, 2011. Two-year .eu registrations will be just $9.99 (USD) instead of the usual $14. You’ll have to sign up for this promo – complete terms are listed on the .eu promotion signup page.

Changes to how .eu Registrations Work

EURid is also making some changes to the way .eu registrations work to bring them more in line with other TLDs. Effective April 7th, 2011, you’ll be able to register .eu domains for terms of 1-10 years. Previously, .eu domains were only available in one-year terms. We’ve updated our documentation to reflect this change and you should also take note of a couple of other changes to how .eu domains work, specifically around transfers and expiry dates.

More information on .eu

You might want to check out .eu Identity Magazine, which is published by EURid and contains some great information about .eu and the people and companies who are using a .eu domain effectively. It’s available for download in PDF format.

We also provide some marketing assets for your use in promoting .eu. Those can be found in our .eu Marketing Resources section.

Right now we have three price promotions going on, including great promos on .TV, .MOBI and .CO domains.

Our .TV promotion has been running since late last year, while the .MOBI promo was just recently extended through to the end of June! We’re just rolling out the .CO promo; it’s similar to the very successful Superbowl-related promotion we ran with .CO back in February. Check it out and signup to get a big discount on .CO domains this month.

How Our Domain Promos Work

Our promotions are usually done in conjunction with the registry operator for the domain extension in question. They extend special pricing to us, and we pass the savings along to you. Generally the registries are looking to lift sales of the extension and as a result, they usually require that you do some active promotion of their extension to your customer base.

That promotion can take the form of an email campaign, banner ads on your homepage, or even something like a Google Adwords campaign to drive traffic to your site, and to the specific domain extension that is on sale.

We try to make this as easy as possible for you by providing marketing materials like logos and banner ads when we can. For example, for the .TV promotion, we’ve provided a pretty complete package of marketing assets for you to use, including some videos that explain the unique value of .TV domains.

Signup Now

If you haven’t yet signed up for any of the ongoing promotions, head over to our promos page. As mentioned we have a trio of promos on right now:

• .TV domains are just $12 until the end of May, 2011
• .MOBI domains are available for only $6.17 (that’s a registry cost of $2.99) until June 30th, 2011
• .CO domains are only $15 for the month of April (and now May as well)

Thanks to Flickr user “The Justified Sinner” for the pic.

Make sure you sign up

As with most OpenSRS promotions, you’ll need to signup to take advantage of the savings and you’ll receive the discount in the form of a rebate, deposited into your OpenSRS Reseller account in the following month. The promotional price applies to new one-year registrations or the first year of new, multi-year registrations only. Renewals, transfers and any domains sold through OpenSRS Storefront are not eligible.

Click here to sign up for the .ME promo and while you’re there, make sure you sign up for our other promotions underway right now including .TV, .INFO and .IN domain names.

Why .INFO?
Earlier this year, we talked all about why .INFO is a great gTLD. Check out the .INFO resources available for you and your customer in that same post.

How to Sign up:

The promotion applies to new, one-year registrations or the first year of new, multi-year registrations only. Transfers and renewals are not eligible. The discount is paid in the form of a rebate to your Reseller account within 10 days of the start of the subsequent month.

To take advantage of this promotional pricing, you will need to Sign up here.

As a ccTLD (country code top level domain), .US brands itself as “America’s Internet Address.” It has existed since 1985 and was originally used primarily by governmental organizations and libraries. In 2002, it was made available to the general public. Any US citizen or resident, as well as any business or organization, including federal, state, and local government with a presence in the United States can register a .US domain name. Neustar is the registry operator for a number of TLDs including .US. We will be doing separate posts for each one.

Uses range from personal email addresses to government organizations to American businesses. One of the unique examples is for the Neustar-driven approval for children’s web content. This is a designation for websites appropriate for kids under 13 such as nick.kids.us (games for kids from the Nickelodeon television network) or americaslibrary.kids.us (presented by the US Library of Congress). The community site WeAre.Us has an innovative and helpful domain focusing on the “us” factor. Many businesses also find their Internet home in a .US domain name including social media/public relations site bub.blicio.us or cabinetmakers CampbellDesign.us or technology firm Bose at Bose.us. Zipcodes are also popular. These pages are parked, but are still valuable Internet real estate: www.20166.us or www.90210.us.

Neustar launched a social media marketing program in January 2009 to increase .US brand recognition. This includes a banner ad campaign that has generated clickthrough rates up to seven times the industry average. They also created a Facebook application for .US. They provide businesses and personal .US users with social media news and other great resources.

.US Quick Facts

• There are 1.4 million .US domain names under management.
• Neustar is the registry operator.
• Most of the .US domains (87%) are registered and used in the United States, followed by Canada and then Europe.
• .US purchasers are predominately male (84%) between the ages of 35 – 64 years old and use the domain for both business and personal reasons.

Available Resources:
Registries offer a wide range of resources for Resellers. Here are some of the key links you can use to learn more about .US:

• .US FAQs
• .US News page
• Facebook application: www.interestedin.us
• Media Center with resources for all Neustar gTLDs and ccTLDs. This includes webcasts, podcasts, and white papers.

.US Promotion:
Our .US promotion started on June 1st and continues until July 31, 2009. There’s more information on the promotion page.

Probably the most familiar .ORG domain on the web today is wikipedia.org. This gTLD was created in 1984 as one of the Internet’s original top-level domains, and has wide-ranging use including open source projects (drupal.org), sports groups (www.specialolympics.org), advocacy (www.kiva.org) and causes (www.cbcf.org). As the third largest gTLD, it is used worldwide, connecting smaller pockets of communities and giving them collective global reach. Public Interest Registry (PIR), the .ORG registry operator since 2003, has embraced social media to support organizations in a wide variety of ways including their YouTube Channel and World Voices events program. Your customers will find all types of videos highlighting the various uses of .ORG. Check out the video below.

.ORG Quick Facts

• There are more than 7 million .ORG domains around the world.
• It is the third largest gTLD behind .COM and .NET.
• PIR (Public Interest Registry) is the registry operator.
• Anyone can buy this gTLD.
• They were the official sponsor for the 13th Annual Webby Awards.
• PIR is actively promoting implementation of Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) for their TLD and signed their zone on June 2, 2009.

The Many Uses of .ORG

Available Resources:
Registries offer a wide range of resources for Resellers. Here are some of the key links you can use to learn more about .ORG:

• .ORG blog
• .ORG Knowledge Center
• Directory of Resources
• Email newsletters
• YouTube channel
• .ORG Facebook Group
• Orgbuzz on Twitter
• Orgbuzz on Flickr

.ORG Promotion:
Our .ORG promotion started on June 1st and continues until July 31, 2009. There’s more information on the promotion page.

• .US domains will be just $3 which is 70% off the usual price. This promo lines up perfectly with the 4th of July and the U.S. Independence Day celebrations. Take advantage and offer .US domains to your customers as a way to show their patriotism.
• .ORG domains will also be on sale at a Registry cost of $5.50. Remember that .ORG are sold under our cost-plus model, meaning you’ll need to add your management fee and the ICANN fee. The regular Registry cost for .ORG domains is $6.75.

You’ll need to sign up to receive the special pricing, and we also ask that you agree to some basic terms and conditions. Click for more details about these promos and our other ongoing promo campaigns.

The .INFO generic top-level domain was introduced in 2001 and has since grown to be one of the most widely used TLDs on the Internet. .INFO domains, as the extension would suggest, tend to be used mainly for websites where the primary goal is to provide information. You’ll find everything from travel information sites to government sites. Golf lovers can visit the home of the PGA while geeky-types can learn all about regular expressions online.

The .INFO Registry runs a directory of sites and anyone can submit their sites for inclusion in the listing.

.INFO Quick Facts

• Afilias is the Registry operator for .INFO.
• Anyone can buy a .INFO domain.
• There were approximately 5.2 million .INFO domains registered as of April 2008.
• .INFO is the fourth largest gTLD on the internet, after .com, .net and .org.
• The word ‘info’ means “information” in 37 languages.
• .INFO is the fastest growing new TLD to date.

Available Resources:

Registries offer a wide-range of resources for Resellers. Here are some of the key links you can use to learn more about .INFO:

• .INFO Registry website
• .INFO News
• .INFO Worldwide Statistics
• .INFO on Twitter
• .INFO on Facebook

.INFO Promotion:

.INFO has been one of our most popular TLDs and we continue to see strong growth. Our popular .INFO promotion has been running for quite some time now and continues through June 30, 2009. There’s more information about it at the .INFO promotion page.