.RIP Domain Extension

Why choose a .RIP domain?

These three letters come from the Latin requiescat in pace and have appeared on headstones for centuries. Online they have taken on a second, far lighter use — people write “RIP” for a phone dropped in water or a cancelled series. Both registers coexist, and that is exactly where a deliberate choice has to be made. Depending on your audience, the brevity of the abbreviation will read as affectionate familiarity or as a lack of gravity.

Brevity

Three letters, one word in front, and the address is made. It can be said over the phone and printed on an order of service without contortion.

The register

The abbreviation is less formal than “memorial”, and sometimes that is right. For somebody young, surrounded by friends, this register can be the correct one.

Collective tribute

Messages left by colleagues, teammates, a community. A page that gathers what each of them would have said separately.

The immediate page

The service, lifts, a collection, how to reach the family. Extremely useful information for two weeks, and much less so afterwards.

The lighter use

Discontinued products, closed services, finished projects. A common use on the web, unrelated to bereavement and entirely deliberate.

What it actually changes

• The register is less formal. That is what separates it from .memorial: one is brief and close, the other lasting and composed.
• The abbreviation is understood in French. “RIP” circulates there untranslated, carrying exactly the same double register.
• No registration restrictions. No connection to the person or documentation to show the registrar.
• Think about what follows. A page opened in haste is often better moved later to something more lasting.