I went on a long bike ride the other day, and I saw a sign for a tree service that used a .Pro domain name for its website. After riding by the sign, I thought about how few .Pro domain names I’ve ever seen. I can’t even recall one website that uses a .Pro domain name aside from the tree service.
Last week, 2014 #1 NBA draft pick Andrew Wiggins announced via Twitter that his official website can be found at AndrewWiggins.Pro. Wiggins hails from Toronto, Canada, attended college at the University of Kansas, and he was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers with the first pick.
Check out the official website http://t.co/5zyySBC8nx for exclusive contests and win free gear from Andrew and Wiggins Enterprise
— andrew wiggins (@22wiggins) July 3, 2014
According to RegistrarStats.com, there are just over 110,000 .Pro domain names in existence, and that is off of its historical high of about 140,000 registrations. The number of current registrations ranks just higher than .XXX but lower than .Tel. .Pro was first introduced in 2004 with some registration restrictions, and then it was relaunched in 2008 without restrictions. .Pro is not part of the new gTLD program.
AndrewWiggins.com was created in 2008, is registered under privacy, and the domain name does not currently resolve. Unfortunately, this makes it difficult to figure out who owns the domain name, especially if Wiggins wanted to get in touch to acquire the domain name. Although I wouldn’t invest in a .Pro domain name, as far as alternative TLDs go, the .Pro extension works nicely for Wiggins.
This is purely speculation, but perhaps Wiggins’ Canadian upbringing helped him overcome the fear of not using a .com.
Thanks to Andre Bergeron for sharing this with me.
…so in year or two he can file UDRP for .com alternative, right?
Hope not… I don’t see how he could be successful, unless there are behind the scenes discussions we aren’t privy to learn.
Great Stuff! .pro is not that well known, but there are investors out here working on projects within the extension. Check out tech.pro sometime.
I thought those were just a figment of ICANN’s imagination. I’ve never seen one promoted anywhere, Elliot. Thanks for finding one to tell us about! And, since .pro has done so incredibly “well” throughout the last decade, people are now expected to want to register .ninja, .expert and .guru?
Yeah, right. I see no value to the gtlds at all.
Elliott,
This is very exciting. Thanks for the news item about the #1 NBA draft pick Andrew Wiggins. It’s a smart move for a professional athlete and an easily remembered, brandable 3-letter extension. Isn’t that great!
Jay Hicks