This article is not an April Fools’ joke!
Little discovery of the day that I wasn’t expecting. I was looking to set up one of my .ovh domain names as a URL shortener, and while digging around I stumbled upon this OVHcloud page announcing that the .ovh TLD is no longer open for registration.
In short, if you don’t already own a .ovh domain, it’s too late. It’s no longer possible to buy new ones.
Why?#
OVHcloud remains fairly vague about the reasons. The page states that their teams are “conducting strategic reflection on its future” and that no decision has been made regarding a potential return to market. Basically: it’s closed, maybe forever, maybe not.
For existing domains, no need to panic: they remain active, functional, and renewals continue as normal. Websites, emails, DNS — nothing changes.
A TLD that’s becoming rare#
What’s rather fun is that .ovh domain names are now becoming somewhat unique extensions. No one can create new ones anymore — only those who already own one can keep and renew it.
On my end, I still have a few .ovh domains and I was actually planning to use one as a personal URL shortener. Good news: my domain is still active and I’ll be able to use it as planned. Bad news: if I wanted to buy another one, that ship has sailed.
Needless to say, I’ll be holding on to my .ovh domains very carefully from now on! By the way, an article on setting up a self-hosted URL shortener with that very .ovh domain is coming soon.
What about alternatives?#
What I particularly liked about .ovh, beyond the fun factor of the TLD itself, was above all its price: 3.59€/year, including renewal. No misleading first-year pricing that doubles afterwards — it was straightforward from start to finish.
Finding a TLD that affordable isn’t easy. Some like .xyz, .cloud or .tech advertise introductory prices of 2-3€, but watch out for renewal costs that often climb much higher. The .top stays around 5€/year, which I believe makes it one of the cheapest. The classics like .com, .fr or .eu remain safe bets but we’re looking at 7-12€/year.
In short, .ovh had a value-for-money ratio that’s hard to beat. All the more reason to keep the ones we have.
