So, one of the questions I’ve received, which I didn’t actually expect, is why mattsbos.pro? Why not .nl or .com?
I did!
First of all, I did register mattsbos.nl. It actually redirects to mattsbos.pro. Many of the common TLD’s are already registered by other people and possibilities are getting more slim every day. For some people it might be impossible to register their name as some more common names other than my own are already registered. For example, years back I tried to register bos.nl as that is my last name, but even way back, that was already impossible, mostly taken by companies back in the days.
So why .PRO?
Good question, it’s actually quite an easy answer. Most people registering a TLD of their own country set up personal blogs or websites aimed at the consumer life of these people. A more generic TLD I find more interesting for actual companies, like .com, I don’t see the resemblance with what I’m trying to achieve here.
So next up you get to some more specific TLD’s like .blog and .personal which, in my opinion, again are consumer TLD’s. I like to keep my professional endeavors split from my private life as the content is completely different in terms of readability and who I’m trying to reach.
After some more searching (actually quite easy) I found the .PRO TLD and it makes sense. It was originally intended for practitioners certified by governments, like doctors and lawyers for example. But just keeping it to these people didn’t make sense and they opened up the TLD to the public a few years back, the only requirement is that the website underneath is owned and maintained by the professional that registered it. So it’s explicitly only for personal use and about the profession this person is exerting.
There you have it, that’s exactly what I’m doing here, telling you about my profession as a person. See it as a portfolio, a curriculum vitae, a means to explain who I am and what I do as a professional.