This Pre-Registration Period marks the second phase of the registry's transition to new registration parameters.

Eligibility for the .Pro domain was previously restricted to registrants in the accounting, engineering, legal and medical fields, but is now being opened to all licensed and credentialed professionals and professional entities internationally.

Originally scheduled for July, the registry has postponed the new relaunch date for September 8 after seeing significant growth in new registrars over the last two months.
 
"Due to unanticipated levels of interest in the .Pro relaunch and requests from nearly all of our registrars, we decided to move our 'go live' date from July 14 to September 8," says Catherine Sigmar, general manager of RegistryPro. "The new registration guidelines for 'stand alone' resolving .Pro second level domains was approved by ICANN in April, but we want to roll this out intelligently."
 
As the first phase of the roll out, existing .Pro registrants have been able to submit pre-orders for second-level domains since June 12.

This initial Third Level Transition period was designed to protect current registrants by enabling them to acquire their new domains.

The Third Level Transition initiative allowed third-level registrants to choose from either a pre-defined registration type of Exact String Match or Profession Specific Second Level Domain Match.

For example, 'mikejonessmith.law.pro' would be eligible for the Exact Match of 'mikejonessmith.pro', or a PSSLD Match of 'mikejonessmithlaw.pro'. The TLT Period (registry.pro/tlt/) will run through September 5.
 
Current registrants in the .Pro TLD can contact their sponsoring registrar for further information, while prospective registrants can contact any authorized .Pro registrar listed here. 

Web hosting provider and domain reseller EnCirca launched in February four new .pro websites designed for professionals at Showcase.pro.

Domain registrar LCN also officially opened registration on Thursday for the .me domain extension.