.CLOUD just released over 100,000 premium domains

While 2020 has been a tough year for a lot of industries, the cloud has been one sector that has been seen explosive growth.

From the speed of modern business to the rapid response to COVID-19 enabling millions of people to work remotely, it’s hard to imagine a world without cloud technology. At no other point in time has there ever been such a need for the instant availability of IT resources enabled by the cloud than during this coronavirus pandemic.  The cloud continues to transform connectivity between people and businesses on a global scale. The cloud is everywhere; in our vehicles, on our television screens, in our phones, and even in our watches.(Source – Forbes)

So it’s no surprise that the operators of the .CLOUD domain name extension have decided to update pricing on over 100,000 premium .CLOUD domain names starting as low as $200. For those of you who don’t know much about premium names, let me break it down for you.

Unlike .COM domains, new domain extensions often hold back some domain names and include them in their “premium” inventory. Sometimes premium inventory is available only by contacting the registry directly, but typically, and especially as time goes on, the names are made available but at higher registration and renewal costs.

So while .CLOUD has been out for a while, there’s now 100,000 .COM names that you can buy directly from the registry at a lower cost than ever before. These names officially became available on March 6th but given that it’s only five days later, you can expect there are a lot of good names left. Here’s a bit more about the domains:

Released on May 6, 2020 at 16:00 UTC, the inventory totaling 103,395 domains is available for immediate purchase from hundreds of domain name registrars and thousands of their resellers. The inventory has been released within a simple new pricing structure with nine tiers, and one renewal price across all tiers. The lowest tier is expected to retail for under USD200.

The inventory includes excellent choices for startup companies, their products, and enterprises launching digital services. Hundreds of choices in hot industry sectors such as cloud computing, business and finance, internet of things (IoT) and gaming are available.

Mou Mukherjee, .Cloud’s Head of Registry Services said, “Our premium domain release includes many short and memorable domains such as atom.cloud, pix.cloud, vid.cloud, simply.cloud and financial.cloud. These prized domains could serve as an enterprise’s key brand asset.”(Source – Global Newswire)

I don’t currently own any .CLOUD names, but I may try buying a few. Any new domain extension like this is a complete gamble so if you do put money in, be okay losing 100% of it. I often say, .COM is investing, most other extensions are gambling, so just know what you’re doing.

That being said, one of the names I tried to buy was listed as a premium but required me to fill out a contact form and email the registry to get a price quote. I’m not sure if that’s going to continue to happen but I’ll let you know as I try to pick up a few.

The big problem I see with .CLOUD is that it’s long. People tend to gravitate towards shorter TLDs which is why extensions like .CO, .IO, .AI, .ME and others have seen such widespread adoption. Longer extensions have had a tough time which also makes them less of a good investment option.

All that being said, I think this was a good move by .CLOUD, it will be interesting to see if it drives more adoption this year.

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton