Web design and ecommerce platform WordPress.com has launched a new product — a ‘100-Year Plan’ — that allows people to register a domain for 100 years. This period is significantly longer than the registration time provided by most domain registrars (which usually offer 1, 2, 5 or 10 year domain registration periods).
The 100-year plan’s target audience
According to WordPress, the plan targets a range of users:
- Families who wish to preserve their digital assets for generations to come.
- Founders who want to protect and document their company’s past, present, and future.
- Individuals seeking a stable online home that can adapt to changes in technology that the future may bring.
Features
The key features of this new plan are as follows:
- Century-long domain registration that goes far beyond standard domain registration lengths (which typically max out at 10 years).
- Advanced backup and security — enhanced backup solutions across multiple data centers worldwide, automatic archiving of public sites to the Internet Archive and an option to lock sites for added security.
- Streamlined ownership transitions — a simplified process for gifting a website or transferring its ownership.
- Optimized hosting — high-speed, managed WordPress hosting.
- 24/7 Support — dedicated support from the platform’s team (which one hopes is available for at least 100 years…).
Speaking about the initiative, Matt Mullenweg, CEO of WordPress.com, said: “Whether it’s giving a newborn the special gift of a domain and lifetime home on the web, or something you put in your will to make sure your website and story are accessible to future generations, I hope this plan gets people and other companies thinking about building for the long term.”
Domain renewals — a thing of the past?
The introduction of the 100-Year Plan by WordPress.com hints at a growing demand for long-term security and legacy planning in the online sphere.
But if nothing else it may make domain renewals a thing of the past for some WordPress users (or perhaps a thing of the future: they can pass this tedious job onto their descendants).
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