09/04/2025
September 3rd 2025
Most popular domain name extensions
Domaincart has a small hosting business and would like to add some new most popular extensions to sell. He's already aware of the most well known like .com .net .biz .org .info .tv .name, etc., and local domains like .eu .us, and asks what domain extensions do you host/register most often? To a degree this will depend on the actual location of the host but, maybe of more interest, is the popularity of any "non-standard" domain extensions that you've noticed more recently, and even whether hosting customers are shopping for domain names via their hosts or are spending more time casting around registrars looking for the best deal? And then there's the increasing competitiveness in the transfer and renewal marketplaces. What's your experience?
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The risk of waiting to renew a SSL cert until close to expiry
Gulfcoast wonders is there's any consequence or downside to waiting to renew a SSL certificate until close to expiration? There's always a bit of leeway when renewing domain names, with several weeks between actual expiry and potential permanent loss of the domain, but certificates are a bit different. They stop working on the day of expiry, and send plenty of alarming warnings to site visitors. But he'd like to know if any browser or mobile device produces a warning or other downside if a website's HTTPS certificate is near expiration (less than 30 days to expiration, say 7 days to expiration?). When's the best time to renew certificates, and, as a side argument in the thread, are paid certificates still worth it?
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News from around the hosting industry
Our Industry News section is the place to find current headlines from around the world of hosting and infrastructure, but other general interest threads pop up in other sections of the forum, especially our Web Hosting Lounge. Here we highlight just a selection of some of the interesting items from around the forum:
• Meta's Louisiana data center to cost $50B, Trump says - President Donald Trump said that Meta Platforms is planning to spend $50 billion on its massive data center in rural Louisiana. Trump, speaking Tuesday during a Cabinet meeting, said he was in awe of the cost of the project, which is currently being built. Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that Meta had selected Pacific Investment Management and Blue Owl Capital to lead $29 billion in financing for the Louisiana data center, marking the largest funding package related to a specific AI data center by a wide margin.
• Microsoft joins AI race at last: two models mark its first move - Microsoft's Copilot offering was made possible largely by a deal with early GenAI frontrunner OpenAI. The ChatGPT builder received $10 billion and, in exchange, gave Microsoft direct access to models such as GPT-4 and now GPT-5. This state of affairs always seemed to be a temporary solution for Microsoft, which has a lot of catching up to do in order to build its own state-of-the-art LLMs. Relations have soured, too, as OpenAI is reportedly trying to wriggle its way out of the 2023 agreement and shut off Microsoft's access to the latest models. Now, it appears the tech giant has commenced on its path towards autonomy regardless. Microsoft says it has big ambitions, but the tech giant believes that one AI all-rounder in the form of MAI-1 is not enough. Multiple specialized models would really be the big step forward, the company contemplates. Whether this will ends up taking the form of Gemini's "Gems," where users can emphasize a character or behavior in Gemini, is unclear.
• Digital Realty and Vultr partner to bolster AI data centre interconnection - Both Digital Realty and Vultr seek to enable instant AI infrastructure via their strategic partnership, which will see them deliver enterprise-ready, GPU-accelerated AI infrastructure across key global markets. The partnership will unite Vultr's GPU-accelerated cloud with Digital Realty's data-centric infrastructure, meaning that organisations can run AI workloads with greater speed, security and compliance. Some benefits to the innovative partnership include enterprises gaining faster access to GPU resources and AIPx partners through direct interconnection. AI workloads can also be deployed immediately in pre-validated environments designed for training, inference and agentic AI.
• HostPapa Acquires CloudBlue from Ingram Micro - HostPapa has completed its acquisition of CloudBlue - a B2B cloud commerce platform previously owned by Ingram Micro - announced earlier this week. The deal strengthens HostPapa's channel partner operations under its Hostopia brand by integrating CloudBlue's advanced marketplace and automation technology. As part of the acquisition, HostPapa has named Jorge Carvalho as CEO of CloudBlue and Tarik Faouzi as General Manager. Carvalho also serves as President of HostPapa, while Faouzi returns to CloudBlue's leadership after a prior tenure.
Got some news of your own to share? If it's news from your own company it belongs in Web Hosting Industry Announcements (no ads please!). If you've scooped some news about something else going on in the hosting industry we'd love for you to share it in our Industry News section! Also look out for threads marked with our new [NEWS] tag, when members have posted newsworthy items in various sections of the forum. You can search for them using Advanced Search, search by prefix "NEWS", and "show results as posts".
Browse our Industry News section
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