testsetset
Google is officially launching its .dev top-level domain (TLD) into general availability from today.
The internet giant opened up early-access registrations to .dev domains just last week, though prices originally were astronomical — the inaugural phase was more about letting companies snap up their desired developer-focused domains. Plus, they could only be registered through Google’s registry system.
On February 19, the first day of launch, users could expect to pay more than $10,000 to register a .dev domain, a figure that dropped to around $3,000 the following day and then $200 the day after. Now anyone can buy their preferred .dev domain for as little as $12, while the official launch means that you are no longer restricted to Google’s own service — you can apply through all the usual registrars, such as GoDaddy.
Above: Buy a .dev domain from anywhere
As an aside here, Google said that it has “big plans” for the .dev domain, part of which involves giving out a .dev domain to everyone who applies to its annual developer-focused I/O conference, which is being held in May this year.
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“We’ll be moving more of our existing projects and launching some exciting things on .dev in the months to come,” noted Adam Seligman, Google’s VP of developer relations, in a blog post.
Many moons ago, developers used .dev domains internally to test their code, but then ICANN opened the floodgates to a whole new host of TLDs. Google successfully bid for the .dev domain in 2015, which led to numerous developers being locked out of their internal testing environments.
Fast forward a few years, and anyone from Slack and GitHub to indie developer teams can now get their very own .dev domain.
