What just happened? .page top-level domains have become available to the general public in pre-order, allowing users and organizations to vie for ownership of .page domains, by ordering them through Google's registry partners.
Google Registry is expanding its web domain business and has kicked off its TLD Early Access Program for .page domains this week, allowing users and organizations to begin pre-ordering .page domains. Prior to this, and since August 27th, only trademark owners had the ability to register these domains.
Now, the early access program will be around until 9th of October, at which moment the TLD goes into general availability.
In order to take out a .page domain you will have to get in touch with one of the 16 Early Access Program partners. These include trusty names such as GoDaddy.com, name.com or Webnames.ca.
It all seems fine and dandy, until you realize that (for example) GoDaddy's announced $10.99 .page domain pre-order is actually built to give deep pockets a leg up. You can "priority pre-order" your domain according to the early access day of your choice. The earlier you choose the higher you pay. A basic $10.99 .page domain can cost an insane $3,135.99 if you priority pre-order for today, cutting in line and getting yourself ahead of the competition. But it doesn't end there. If someone else does the same, then it's off to auction, and let the deeper pockets win. You might have a huge crush for your self-named .page domain, but it'll cost you.
While Google's Register's partners have begun taking pre-orders, come Tuesday, 9th of October, the domains go into general availability and no "priority" shenanigans are in place. However, it'll be pretty obvious by then that the 'good' .pages are all taken.
Following its generic top-level domain (gTLD) strategy, .page becomes Google's fifth gTLD, following .app, .soy, .how and .みんな (in Hiragana script), with another 14 TLDs in the works. Like the others, .page addresses require HTTPS secure communication and an SSL certificate to resolve correctly.