Small business owners & professionals now have another option when choosing a domain name! If the .com version of the domain name you’d like isn’t available the .pro domain name may just very well be.

In the past the .pro extension was only available to doctors, lawyers, accountants & engineers. It was limited to the four countries of US, UK, Germany & Canada. ICANN lifted many restrictions. The .pro registry contacted us because many of our customers are small business owners. We felt that it was important to participate & have the .pro extensions available on Sept 8th when they were released worldwide. It was important to us to offer that same access to our customers.

The .pro domain extension is for business professionals that are licensed & have credentials. Anyone can buy a .com domain, but the .pro extensions will only be sold to licensed and credentialed business professionals. In addition, to professionals like doctors, lawyers, accountants, other service professionals such as plumbers, contractors, auto service centers, and beauty salons can register .PRO domains.

There will be a process of validating your business licensure after you have purchased the .pro domain. You will receive an email that will link you to the form where you will provide your licensure information. More information can be found here.

This morning I asked my followers on Twitter what they thought? Some thought that they should purchase some to protect their domain names.

Mark Carter of Thrivetime.com & www.NetworkingForACause.org immediately purchased some. He said,

“I immediately went to Network Solutions site and purchased .pro domain names. It’s important to protect your personal and professional brand online–which means owning more domain names than just “.com”.

If you don’t get the domains, someone else will so I always go out of my way to get them first!”

So check & see if your .pro domains are available & invest in your business’ future online.